by Chris Horner

Things we don’t want to know that we know.

Donald Rumsfeld’s famous distinctions between knowledge and ignorance:

[T]here 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. [1]

It’s been suggested that we should add to that list another kind of ‘known’: unknown knowns. [2] these would be the kinds of things we actually do know, but somehow remain unaware that we know. The classic example would be repression: a painful memory is repressed from our consciousness, but continues to be present in the unconscious – where it may return to trouble us via dreams, symptoms and parapraxes (so-called ‘Freudian slips’). So we (unconsciously) know something, but do not (consciously) know that we know it.

But there is another variety of knowing that isn’t ‘unknown’,  but inhabits a twilight zone between knowing and  acknowledging:  Fetishistic disavowal. This is where we do know something, but act on the basis that ‘I know this perfectly well, but nevertheless….’. To disavow something is to deny it; to fetishise something is to invest it with special powers. One knows that something  is the case, but denies it to oneself. This is obviously paradoxical, for how can I know X is the case but at the same time deny it? How can I act a belief that I consciously deny, or deny something that my actions show that I believe?  This is where the unconscious, fantasy, and the fetish, enter in. Read more »