Errol Morris kicks off a five-part, 20,000-word series about how the test of true stupidity is our inability to recognize our own stupidity. (Or, in Forrest Gump's phraseology: "Stupid is as stupid does.") It's called "The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What it Is," and it revolves around the idea of "unknown unknowns," particularly as reflected in the famous quotation from Donald Rumsfeld (February 12, 2002) about instability in Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion:
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns."
Rumsfeld took a lot of flak for that statement (including the Foot in Mouth Award from the Plain English Campaign for "a baffling comment by a public figure") but it was actually one of the smarter things he ever said in public.
But as Morris observes, it's still vague and (intentionally) misleading:
Rumsfeld's famous "unknown unknowns" quote occurred in a Q&A session at the end of a NATO press conference. A reporter asked him, "Regarding terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, you said something to the effect that the real situation is worse than the facts show..." Rumsfeld replied, "Sure. All of us in this business read intelligence information. And we read it daily and we think about it, and it becomes in our minds essentially what exists. And that's wrong. It is not what exists." But what is Rumsfeld saying here? That he can be wrong? That "intelligence information" is not complete? That it has to be viewed critically? Who would argue?
In fact, Rumfeld's next few sentences are almost as famous (and, to some, equally cryptic):
"t sounds like a riddle. It isn't a riddle. It is a very serious, important matter.
"There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist. And yet almost always, when we make our threat assessments, when we look at the world, we end up basing it on the first two pieces of that puzzle, rather than all three."
In actuality, however, Rumsfeld was employing the notion of "unknown unknowns" to claim that he had a reasonable certainty about WMDs -- something, in fact, he did not have evidence to support. (This would later become an infamous justification for the invasion of Iraq in the form of the talking point: "We can't afford to wait for the smoking gun, which could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.") In response to the very next question at the above press conference, Rumsfeld said:
"I think that if reasonable people, publics, if publics look at the world and look at the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which is pervasive -- people who want those weapons can get them. The terrorist states have them -- one or more of the various types of weapons of mass destruction. The terrorist states have intimate relationships with terrorist networks -- global networks. We all know that. They're all public. You know this. It does not take a genius to figure out that global terrorist networks are going to have their hands on weapons of mass destruction in the period ahead. No one can say if it's a week, or a month, or a year, or two years. All we do know of certain knowledge is that they are aggressively trying to get them."
So, while invoking the idea of "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns," Rumsfeld was actually twisting them into "known knowns": Because we don't know, we know. A year later (March 30, 2003), Rumsfeld's uncertainty about WMDs in Iraq had become a certainty -- all without the appearance of any actual evidence: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Amazing.
Rumsfeld, of course, was not being stupid -- just devious and disingenuous. (Well, maybe he was kind of stupid to think that nobody was noticing -- but he got away with it for a while, until reality eclipsed his rhetoric.) Morris, however, begins his series with the story of a bank robber who, when easily apprehended, protested that his image could not possibly have appeared on security cameras because, "I wore the juice."
Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.
In a follow-up article, Fuoco spoke to several Pittsburgh police detectives who had been involved in Wheeler's arrest. Commander Ronald Freeman assured Fuoco that Wheeler had not gone into "this thing" blindly but had performed a variety of tests prior to the robbery. Sergeant Wally Long provided additional details -- "although Wheeler reported the lemon juice was burning his face and his eyes, and he was having trouble (seeing) and had to squint, he had tested the theory, and it seemed to work." He had snapped a Polaroid picture of himself and wasn't anywhere to be found in the image. It was like a version of Where's Waldo with no Waldo. Long tried to come up with an explanation of why there was no image on the Polaroid. He came up with three possibilities:
(a) the film was bad;
(b) Wheeler hadn't adjusted the camera correctly; or
(c) Wheeler had pointed the camera away from his face at the critical moment when he snapped the photo.
This actually does remind me of Rumsfeld -- who provided so many glaring examples of the ubiquitous human propensity for willful blindness in the face of misinterpreted evidence. Reading a newspaper story about the juiced bank robber led David Dunning, a professor of social psychology, to conduct a study he later published with Justin Kruger under the title "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments." Decribing what became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the authors wrote:
"When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine."
Watch for it. It's everywhere.
17 Comments
I have always noted this effect with creationists who describe themselves as "self-taught science enthusiasts" or something similar. They don't know enough to realize how little they know. You can tell this type of creationist because he is supremely confident and his writing appears fairly coherent and thoughtful, yet he says absolutely ridiculous things like "the second law of thermodynamics prohibits the creation of spontaneous complexity": a grotesque misinterpretation of entropy which would get you a vicious tongue-lashing in any undergrad thermo course.
And yet, when challenged (and even confronted by the fact that I actually possess formal qualifications in this area), they never back down one iota. They always find ways to avoid admitting that they might be in error, even though they have no training whatsoever in the subject and they are being confronted by someone who does. They're throwing words around that they don't entirely understand, and they must realize on some level that they're bluffing their way through the material, but they have so little respect for the material that they think this is OK.
I have always said that this is why people really need to respect formal education more. In formal education, you get feedback on your performance from outside your own mental bubble. This feedback is not necessarily gentle; you might be told in no uncertain terms that you are utterly incompetent. But that's what makes the whole process meaningful.
Hi Jim,
Read the Morris article this morning and it got me thinking (so not entirely related to your post, I apologize), do you ever go crazy with doubt just wondering about all those things you don't know of when it comes to writing so that you can't even get started? At some point one has to buff oneself up enough and buckle down and get along with things.
For example, say, you believe (or believe you know) that you're more than competent enough to talk about cinema. But once you think that you're getting settled, you begin to doubt whether this is in fact true. Perhaps people tell you that you're an expert when it comes to films, but then you can always ask: what do they know? And even if you've become convinced that they do know something about the movies, don't you start wondering about how much you measure up to them if in fact you're convinced that they do know something? Surely they must know more than you to know that you're 'alright'! Or does the whole thing deflate because everyone is relying on the confidence that the person next to them has got it right i.e. pulling each other up by their collective bootstraps.
Does it drive you even more crazy to think about this when it comes to writing about things other than movies?
Anyway, this is all something I find to be rather peculiar about critics in general. How do you get up the energy to think that you have anything meaningful to say?
On a slightly different note, to contrast the Rumsfeld fiasco (was it really a fiasco?) I just feel like bringing up an important lesson and historical example from one of our great wartime leaders (ahem, Rummy), Chester Nimitz.
Prior to the Battle of Midway, having partly deciphered the Japanese Naval radio codes, it was up to Nimitz to decide whether or not to lay down an ambush on the incoming Japanese armada that was, according to the radio intercepts, preparing to invade Midway Island and the Aleutians. The risk involved would be whether the Japanese had laid down a trap perhaps already knowing very well that the Americans had broken their codes. This was something Nimitz could not have known, yet he did know that he was capable of asking the question (a known unknown). There were of course 'unknown unknowns', which if extended beyond what Nimitz (or admiral-like people) ought to have known would be ineffectual in being utilized to place responsibility on him if things did in fact go horribly wrong.
However, all that he did know and all that really mattered was the intel that was provided to him. And in an almost simple-minded way he acted on the intel despite knowing very well what risks were involved using the 'known knowns' as the justification of his course of action.
And in the end that's all we have to act on. At some point we have to just buckle down and start writing (for instance).
(Also can't wait for the other sections just to see what Morris is getting on to).
(It is also a known unknown concerning the matter whether this comment will have anything meaningful or useful to add.)
Love this clip. Jim, I hope you caught the HBO special "Remembering John Cazale".
What made the special interesting were the interviews with the other actors, such as Pacino and Gene Hackman. They spoke with wonder and awe when discussing Cazale. It reminded me of the way Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page speak of Jimi Hendrix- almost as if he were a God, operating at a completely different level from everyone else. To a man, they all said Cazale elevated their game and made them better actors.
Godfather I and II, The Coversation, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Wow, what a career.
And I believe Rumsfeld knew exatly what he was doing. Stupid is is sometimes not stupid does.
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Fredo Corleone: I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!
Michael Corleone: That's the way Pop wanted it.
Fredo Corleone: It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!
Some good reference points in A Serious Man:
Larry: "Is Hashem trying to tell me that Sy Ableman is me, or that we are all one, or something?"
Sussman: "Or is there even a question?"
Nachtner: "We can't know everything."
No scene in cinema past or present has so brilliantly summed up Rumsfeld than the conversation between the CIA Officer Palmer (David Rasche) and his superior (the underrated J K Simmons) in "Burn After Reading":
CIA Superior: What'd we learn Palmer?
CIA Officer: I don't know sir.
CIA Superior: I don't f**kin' know either. I guess we learned not to do it again. I'll be f**ked if I know what we did.
This response is directed to your post, and not you in particular, Michael (in fact Emerson, like Ebert, has a relatively smart readership - altho there are still several examples of such people as I'm about to talk about).
You mention creationists, and they do illustrate your point, but they're an easy target, as are tea partiers and so on. I find, though, that the group far and away guiltiest of the sin you're describing (claiming to be or otherwise portraying themselves as intelligent and educated, while in fact being embarrassingly stupid) are typical liberals I've encountered online. I say this as a former liberal and current social anarchist, so it's not coming from a right-wing perspective. I've been a reader and sometimes-member of the Chud.com forums for probably a decade now. I encourage you to read their politics and religion and miscellaneous forums. The board is a liberal echo chamber, but what distinguishes it for me and makes it a perfect example of this, is that the members of the forum invariably act as if they alone have all the answers, and the world - right-wingers, tea partiers, 'hicks', and so forth - is completely in the dark. They make a special point of their intellectual superiority to various people and kinds of people, when in fact they're as perfectly middlebrow (and that's being generous- really they're upper lowbrow) as it's possible to be. This to me is the very worst kind of person, worse by far than creationists. The lack of intellectual humility (or just plain humility) is not comparable, while the ignorance is very comparable; and the typical liberal's politics are hardly better than the right winger's.
So as I say, I think it's the typical libs (more Huffington Post than Daily Kos, altho as I'll show in a second Kossacks are idiots too) who are the worst about this, as they make much more of a point than does the typical right-winger of their own intelligence compared to the 'opposition'. Almost all typical left wingers are dumb, as are almost all typical right wingers. But I think when those two kinds of typical people judge one another, the left winger sees all the right wingers as stupid, while the right winger, whatever he says, tends to think the liberal is many kinds of bad, but not dumb, per se. The left has the intellectual humility issue.
Last note: One way to judge the stupidity of the liberals I'm referring to is by their kind of hilarious failure to recognize that the issue isn't left vs right, but corporatist/capitalist vs not. But then that's why they're liberal. But this tremendous stupidity manifests itself, at Chud's boards and especially at DailyKos, as a belief that meaningful change can still be effected by politicians. There's still faith in politicians on these sites, and faith in politicians in the current corporatist climate is proof of naivete and probably of simple stupidity. The Kossacks think they're very well-informed (and in their limited way they are), they think they understand how the machine works, they think they're backstage at the play, but then they do what? They vote! They campaign for individual candidates. They don't even sniff the actual disease, though their constant discussion of its very obvious symptoms makes it almost impossible to believe they could fail to recognize it, or fail to recognize the nature of it. They are as stupid as any creationist, and far more arrogant, far more confident in their intelligence compared to the stupidity of their opponents - in fact they're so stupid they don't even recognize who their opponents are, which puts them on par with tea partiers (who hate the government for imagined tyranny, but love capitalism despite its actually being responsible for tyranny).
And so on.
A few comments:
1)"The board is a liberal echo chamber, but what distinguishes it for me and makes it a perfect example of this, is that the members of the forum invariably act as if they alone have all the answers, and the world - right-wingers, tea partiers, 'hicks', and so forth - is completely in the dark."
Do you not think that the reason the people on this site come across that way to you is because it is a specific ideological site? If I go onto an anti-death penalty site, I'm unlikely to read too many posts arguing that murderers should burn in hell. Similarly, if I went on a creationist site, I don't think that there would be too many people writing what a wonderful man Darwin was.
The reality is that on the internet, people tend to go onto sites which match their ideological bias; and if you are on a site with people of a similar (or identical) political ideology, you may become more extreme in the way you present your views, because you do not need to defend/justify them. They are the accepted norm and so you become more extreme and passionate.
BTW, as a Huffington post user, I can assure you that while the Huffington Post does have a strong left-wing bias, it nonetheless has a number of conservative members; and also that its membership is actually quite well-informed. Yes, I know you'll say that I'm a typical left winger, but like you, I can recognise intelligence, and a large number of HP users are not idiots.
2)"and the typical liberal's politics are hardly better than the right winger's."
I don't know how you can say that considering that they are the complete opposite of each other. For all the alleged similarities, left wing and right politics, whether it be social or even economic, are vastly different. My views on the death penalty might be typical of a liberal, as are my views on the free market, and whether that is better that the typical right winnger is ultimately subjective. Personally, I think they are better, however I concede that I am biased. :D A right winger would of course disagree.
3)"Almost all typical left wingers are dumb, as are almost all typical right wingers."
The problem with this is that you put yourself above others. Do you believe that you are any more intelligent than the typical left and right winger and that you are not dumb? You talk about intellectual humility, yet you're hardly showing any intellectual humility.
Also, this is a massive and simplistic generalisation which does in fact show your ignorance. What is your criteria for intelligence? What is your evidence that 'almost all typical left wingers are dumb, as are almost all typical right wingers'? The reality is that this is nonsence. Just as it is nonsence to say that that almost 'all typical Brazilians are dumb, just as all typical Egyptians', to make a sweeping statement about two large groups is artificial and does not reflect that you are more intelligent than than those you claim are 'dumb.'
To me, the problem is of extremism and narrow-mindness (not dumnness and stupidity). If someone is unwilling/unable to explain why they believe what they believe, and are unwilling to change their view even when it is obvious that their view is lacking, then they are narrow-minded and may come across as stupid. Extremists, on both sides of politics, are particularly guilty of this. Those who have a white hat/black hat view of the world represent this.
4)"But this tremendous stupidity manifests itself, at Chud's boards and especially at DailyKos, as a belief that meaningful change can still be effected by politicians. There's still faith in politicians on these sites, and faith in politicians in the current corporatist climate is proof of naivete and probably of simple stupidity."
But what do you suggest people do? You're right that coroporations have far too much power. This is true, not just in America, but also in Australia where large mining companies are attempting to avoid a superprofit tax, and also in other countries. However, the reality is that there is not much that the average voter can do; other than write letters, vote and hope that politicians will start having the interests of the people at heart rather than corporations. I agree that it's naive to have tremendous faith in politicians (not stupid though), but the stark reality is that there's not much we can do. Plus, it's not as if politicians are totally ineffective. Politicians are still capable of doing tremendous good. Not every area in which politicans have jurisdiction over involve large corporations.
In fact, I would argue that to reject any possibility of politicians exerting meaningful change is simplistic. For not only does it ignore all the good that politicians do, but also without politicians there would be anarchy.
5)"The Kossacks think they're very well-informed (and in their limited way they are), they think they understand how the machine works, they think they're backstage at the play, but then they do what? They vote! They campaign for individual candidates. They don't even sniff the actual disease, though their constant discussion of its very obvious symptoms makes it almost impossible to believe they could fail to recognize it, or fail to recognize the nature of it."
Yes, they vote, they campaign for individual candidates. However, what's the alternative?
Plus, as I mentioned above, one might lose hope that politicians will exectute proper financial reform, as an example, but that is simply one area. Immigration, civil rights, student rights; even health care. The change in these areas (and others) might not always be dramatic, but it is there.
6)"They are as stupid as any creationist, and far more arrogant, far more confident in their intelligence compared to the stupidity of their opponents - in fact they're so stupid they don't even recognize who their opponents are, which puts them on par with tea partiers (who hate the government for imagined tyranny, but love capitalism despite its actually being responsible for tyranny)."
I think you're just throwing the word stupid around. It's one thing to be arrogant and to be overly confident of one's intelligence, but I don't accept that the typical left-winger could be as stupid as creationists or tea partiers.
Plus, as I said before, with this throwing around of stupid and dumb, do you really believe that you are above it all? I'm not saying that you're stupid (I don't think there are too many people on this blog who are stupid), but you are simply an actor at the play, just like anyone else.
It's called being tired, Mr. Dunning (the scientist of the article).
The basic problem is that, at a fundamental level, people cannot comprehend being wrong. This problem has transmogrified an objective reality with objective answers into a subjective philosophical cesspool where any well-worded theory is "valid"; more and more, instantiation is confused with substantiation: if someone thinks X, then X is a valid idea. Even when X is irrefutably disproved, its proponent never accepts that their intelligence is defective--it's the idea that's defective, wholly distinct from the person who supported said idea.
If I suppose that God created the world several thousand years ago, I'm wrong; it can be logically proved that I'm wrong, and I can't do anything about it--logic isn't subjective. But of course, it's not my intellect that's defective: I just didn't get my idea quite right; retracing my steps, I'll develop a new idea [creation time lines as metaphors, etc.], never once entertaining the notion that I am intellectually defective.
There isn't much you can do with people like that: it's not that they don't know they're wrong [ignorance isn't necessarily bad]; their transgression is in being unable to know that they're wrong. Until we start excluding defective intellects from intellectual conversations, we can't expect the conversation to go anywhere.
This is my life... and I hate it. (Discovering the Dunning-Kruger effect at work in myself, my life is well enough.)
I have, of course, recognized this "everywhere", in people all around me, on a daily basis even. But maybe because I'm a neurotic, I am continously recognizing this effect in myself... if that's even possible? Or does it cease to be that effect at that point? "I recognize myself not being able to recognize that I am not recognizing... Ow, my brain hurts."
Actually though, it's more of an emotional thing when it happens, a heart-sinking-into-my-stomach-acid horror show, a waking up to realize you are Tyler Durden moment... Awful, awful, awful. How could I let this happen? What have I done? I'm so ashamed! How can I stop this from happening again?
It's frightening and disheartening how unbalanced my interpretations can become... even when I always meant well, even when I tried to be intelligent, even when I tried to be brutally honest. I learned a lot about my ignorance just last week, for example, from the "Who Killed The Movies?" and "Reilly warns of a McDonalds being invaded by gay, French terrorists" discussions here at Scanners. It all just reinforced that Second Coming W.B. Yeats quote: "The best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity." I don't subscribe to that completely and yet more and more each day I see its essential usefulness.
When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.
This is not news. Sitcom writers have been aware of this for decades.
Paul wrote: "You mention creationists, and they do illustrate your point, but they're an easy target, as are tea partiers and so on. I find, though, that the group far and away guiltiest of the sin you're describing (claiming to be or otherwise portraying themselves as intelligent and educated, while in fact being embarrassingly stupid) are typical liberals I've encountered online."
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That's a rather silly thing to say, given that you mention creationists and tea partiers (both of whom are conservatives) as being so guilty of this crime that they are "easy targets".
The real problem is people who self-evaluate their own intellectual skills and have never submitted themselves to harsh evaluation from others. Much of the problem, I think, stems from an excessive reverence for things like "common sense" (or as Einstein put it, "the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen").
That problem applies to all political stripes, and your bizarre attempt to isolate it as a largely "liberal" tendency (even while mentioning extreme conservative cases in the same breath) suggests to me that you're not being entirely fair about this. Especially since creationists (who you cite as an "easy target" make up almost HALF the American population according to Gallup polling, thus making them a HUGE problem.
Michael,
Both the typical right winger and the typical left winger are stupid, and unaware of it. But the typical left winger is far more likely to openly claim that he is, or otherwise portray himself as, especially intelligent and well-informed, and to make a distinction between himself and the typical right winger as smart/dumb.
It certainly is a liberal tendency - the people I'm referring to here aren't the creationists, who do commit the sin you describe in your first post, but most of those who would pick on the creationists and consider themselves especially well-informed and, as opposed to the creationists, rational and reasonable and scientific-minded. But they're not. And they don't know they're not. And this is a worse sin than that of the average creationist or tea bagger, in that the typical liberal I'm referring to sincerely believes in his own rationality and intelligence - I know, you'll say the creationist does too - but the creationist is only too well aware that many ostensibly reasonable people find him to be a moron. The typical liberal does not; in comparison to the creationist, he lacks self-awareness, and this makes his lack of intellectual humility the more offensive. A creationist can hardly walk two steps without (rightly) hearing what a moron he is, while the typical liberal calling him a moron can conceivably go an entire life blissfully unaware of his being a moron himself. And this has consequences, and makes the typical lib insufferable in that he not only takes himself and his foolishness seriously, but believes himself to be taken seriously by serious people. I hope you can appreciate the distinction.
The typical liberal is guilty of an extra sin in this case, and it's one that I at least consider more grievous than the other. You're free to disagree, for whatever reasonable reason - such as that I've attacked your team.
Paul wrote: "Both the typical right winger and the typical left winger are stupid, and unaware of it. But the typical left winger is far more likely to openly claim that he is, or otherwise portray himself as, especially intelligent and well-informed, and to make a distinction between himself and the typical right winger as smart/dumb."
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Upon what do you base this assertion? Anecdotal evidence, which is inherently unverifiable? Vague impressions? It's obvious you have conducted no serious study of this, or you would have cited your methods.
It seems to me that you are attempting to advertise a subjective personal belief as objective fact. Tell me, if you were asked to submit a university-level paper justifying this claim, what would you say?
You're asking for university-quality citations within a blog comment?
You're so cute.
I'm asking for a shred of evidence. The mechanism described in the article above applies to ALL HUMAN BEINGS.
To claim it as a particular trait of "liberals" smacks of the kind of useless tribalistic sniping that characterizes political discourse in America, and at the very least, you should provide SOME shred of evidence other than your say-so.
Since when are liberals especially guilty of claiming that their opponents are stupid? Conservatives do it all the time as well, for the simple reason that PEOPLE do it all the time. When we run into someone who vehemently disagrees with us about something we believe to be very true, we tend to assume the other person is stupid.
You keep saying that liberals do this while conservatives do not. This suggests to me not that it is true (since it is a rather universal trait), but that you are being a knee-jerk partisan. I, on the other hand, am merely making the eminently reasonable statement that since it is a human trait, then it should be applicable to both sides. And for that, you attempted to label ME as a partisan defending my "tribe"; you should get some kind of award for Orwellian DoubleSpeak.
By the way, what's wrong with asking for university-level citations? A university-level citation is not some mystical thing requiring volumes of research. In a typical paper, if you were to include such a claim, you would need only a single line in the end-notes. Is that such a big deal? One line, saying where this information came from?
It's really not much more rigorous than saying "give me some kind of reference". In fact, while the phrase "university-level" makes it sound like an onerous request, teachers start asking students to provide this kind of reference at the high school level.
If someone is going to make such a contentious claim, he should be required to provide evidence. This is what they teach in school; why is it unreasonable to ask for it in a blog post? Surely, if the person actually based his claim on some kind of evidence, he should be able to name it.
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