Rums-fucius

Confucius: To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, aka “Rumsfucious:” 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. — Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Thoreau cites Confucius during a discussion of self-knowledge in Walden, and it reminded me of Ol Rummy. Looks like he was on to something deeper after all. I thought he was talking about intelligence, but he was really getting at “true knowledge.” Perhaps the US government should create a Central True Knowledge Agency? Speaking of true knowledge, the entirety of Walden is online.