Funfare for the Common Man

Two of my greatest pleasures in life: reading obituaries and profound quotations. When Donald Rumsfeld - twice American Secretary of Defense, among other roles – recently died at the age of 88, I couldn’t help but genuflect to his epic quotation: ‘[A]s 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.’ For any students of English out there, that’s much less convoluted than it first appears. Leaving politics aside – I don’t get into matters political here – Rumsfeld came under vicious attack for this seemingly mealy-mouthed statement. But I have always found it to be brilliant and full of wisdom. He uttered it in 2002; in 2010 the book Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb came out, and many of us now refer to Black Swan events almost willy nilly when something unexpected occurs. Or, rather, ...