By GENE HOWINGTON
The BBC has published an interesting opinion piece that goes straight to the heart of one of the key problems in society today, from media to politics to interpersonal relationships. That problem is willful ignorance. It is an interesting read.
Excerpt: “We’d like to think the financial crisis is safely in the past. The events of 2007-2008, when the world’s banking system was on the brink of collapse, seemed like a once-in-a-century upheaval, and it’s natural to imagine we’ve returned to some kind of normalcy. Disaster has been averted, and there may be some signs of recovery in the economy. But have we emerged onto a sunny upland of stability, or are we fooling ourselves? History suggests an upheaval on this scale isn’t left behind so easily. Could it be that we know the crisis hasn’t been resolved, but prefer not to think about the fact?
Former US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld’s distinction between known unknowns and unknown unknowns has passed into everyday speech. It’s not the things of which we know we’re ignorant that we should worry about, he pointed out. It’s the things we’re unaware of not knowing that can really cause trouble. It’s a useful reminder of the vastness of human ignorance. But might there not be another kind of unknown, which Rumsfeld didn’t mention – one that consists of things we choose not to know?”
Read the rest here: “A Point of View: See no evil” at BBC News.
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Denial might be the most powerful and pervasive of the psychological defense mechanisms. We observe it all around us in our world and in our daily lives. The BBC article describes a kind of societal, or systemic denial, which often has disastrous results. Good catch Gene.
The banking collapsed has not been ended it’s stalled at the moment because of the federal reserve system…. Ah… The baron de Rothschilds should ever be pleased…..
The unknown unknowns. Doublespeak at its finest.
Semi-full quote of Rummy follows:
“… there are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.”
One shouldn’t forget the historical context of the “unknown” utterance. It was verbalized on February 12, 2002 when the Bush administration was fervently trying to tie Iraq to 9/11.
Of course, this is only one-hundred-fifty-five days after Rummy gave a press conference at the Pentagon, on September 10, 2001, announcing that $2.3 trillion was lost in the bowels of the beast:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-war-on-waste/