Rumsfeld: An American Disaster
Andrew Cockburn, Verso Books 2007
Back in 1971, Donald Rumsfeld was described by Richard Nixon, never a man short of a pithy epithet, as “a ruthless little bastard”, according to Andrew Cockburn. The former secretary of state for defense is famous in another way too: for confusing the world’s chattering classes with his solemn pronouncements on Unknown Unknowns. Some supposed him to be merely babbling; the more cynical imagined him to be intending to impress and confuse.
Many years ago, I heard a lecture at a School of Education (don’t ask). The professor gave the picture of a boy racer advancing his knowledge of automotive control through four stages.
First, he jumps behind the wheel – whether it is his father’s car, or a stolen wagon, history does not relate – and overconfidently roars up the road to a crashing finale. He is unconscious of his ignorance of all matters vehicular.
Then, sadder and a little wiser (broken collarbones do take some weeks to heal), he tries again, a little more carefully. This time, he manages to get around a couple of corners, and to stop with a squealing of brakes before the journey comes to an end – whether through the good offices of a police patrol, or because it’s the turn of the next member of his gang, you may decide. At any rate, he is becoming conscious of his own lack of knowledge.
His parents having become aware of the need for, shall we say, more formal driving tuition, the boy now finds himself in the driving seat of a car with dual controls, beside an instructor. The car is embarrassingly under-powered, and decorated with large red L-plates on every surface. The boy now steps gingerly through mirror-signal-manoeuvre and “line up the middle of the rear window with the kerb when reversing”. He is consciously acquiring the rudiments of driving.
Finally, we see him seated happily behind the wheel of a small car, a pretty girl in the passenger seat, and some lively music on the car’s cheap-and-cheerful tape player. He is chatting in a relaxed way to his companion. He is unconsciously skilful in his handling of the car.
Ah… unknown unknowns, known unknowns, known knowns, and finally unknown knowns: it does make some kind of sense, Rumsfeld or no. What is interesting about the learning process that this epistemology implies is that the highest level involves a return to unconscious behaviour, but this time it contains the necessary knowledge.
Biologists have an explanation for this surprising point of view: programs or scripts of skilled and practised movements are recorded in the cerebellum, and retrieved effortlessly, faster than they can be described or even thought. That speed is necessary for skilfully co-ordinated movements of many muscles. Any traditional craft, indeed any practised movement like picking up a glass, involves a great many subtle operations performed smoothly and at speed – as robotics engineers have discovered the hard way.
Toumani Diabaté, Kora Master
There is a wonderful recording called In the Heart of the Moon that exemplifies precisely the end point of this process. Two musicians, both from Mali, but from very different traditions, meet for the first time, and in three two-hour sessions complete a perfectly finished album. Ali Farka Touré was the master of the blues guitar; Toumani Diabaté is the 50th generation of a family of griots, professional Kora players. Both men were aware of the other’s music.
They sit down together; Ali plays the first few notes of a melody, and Toumani, with nothing more than a grunted call of synchronization, starts to improvise a beautiful accompaniment and ornamentation. Toumani’s fingers dance all over the Kora at a speed that is dazzling, luminous. Ali shows that the guitar can be relaxed, mellow, exactly in harmony with a traditional instrument and style of play. Between the two of them, they create just the musical dialogue that they intend, seemingly without effort. One can only wonder how many thousands of hours of practice and observation were needed to reach such a peak of creative ability.
The highest knowledge is not theoretical head-stuff, but useful practical skill, perfectly relating a situation to the actions it demands. The theory of motoring should inform practice, but it is practice – safe motoring – that puts theory to the test. It is actual driving which is the fruit of all the study of the Highway Code. The academic certainties – the known knowns – are subservient to skill.
If your organisation thinks it knows best, and is contemptuous of ideas, methods and techniques developed outside, whether by industry or in academia, then you are at stage 1: overconfident youth who thinks he knows it all; unconscious ignorance.
If your organisation is still experiencing projects that squeal to a halt, fortunately just short of disaster; or if your colleagues admit they enjoy fire-fighting (rather than completing projects smoothly) you are at stage 2: boy racer getting the rough feel of the car.
If your organisation is carefully putting CMM-compliant processes into place, you are at stage 3, conscious knowledge: or L-plates, to put it more plainly.
And if you are lucky enough to witness a group of engineers quietly getting on with their work, each doing just what is necessary, without endless discussions about process or status meetings or management-speak, enjoy your good fortune. You are watching a skilled team operating, seemingly effortlessly, at stage 4: masters of every technique in their craft, including teamwork.
© Ian Alexander 2007