This has got to stop. I’m looking at the FAQ for commenting and right near the top it says “Constructive criticism is welcome, but criticize ideas not people”. And here we have pics of Don Rumsfeld painted over with devil horns and blood dripping out of his mouth. Heck, even the title of the article breaks this rule i.e. “bad people”.
Look I’m no fan of his either, but I remember reading that he is great with his grandkids, plays and active role in the community, and generally is a decent human being who made some bad decisions with questionable motivation.
If you want criticism of him, or other republicans, or other politicians to be taken seriously, cut this crap out right now and grow up. So what if the “other side” sometimes utilizes the same tactics. It is an ever-escalating war that NO ONE WINS.
I always wondered why Rumsfeld got so much stick for his quote
‘as we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that 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.’
It actually makes perfect sense and is a nice little summary of the surface points of quite an important and complicated area in epistemology.
If you are going to attack someone at least attack them for something worth attacking and with Rumsfeld there was more than enough there, not least understanding that concept and pushing for war where the potential for unintended consequences and ‘black swan’ events or even just understandable consequences such as civil war, sectarian violence and the place becoming a beacon for blinkered jihadis.
You make a valid point here. He probably is generally a decent human being. Yet he is also a war criminal. That is a fact.
That’s the paradox here.
My generation here in Austria has always been puzzled by this. Many of our grandparents were among those people who cheered as Hitler’s troops took over. They didn’t notice or didn’t care when Jewish families left the country while they still could. They cheered when the regime announced they were “shooting back” at the Poles.
And yet, our grandparents were decent human beings. That is a fact, too.
I’ll start listening to bad people when they provide advice that is salient and good. Don’t lie, don’t get involved in unnecessary wars/excursions… not exactly ground-breaking advice. Of the three examples, only Bernie Madoff’s was unknown to me - and even then, I don’t have the knowledge judge whether it is actually good advice.
If you watch Errol Morris’ doc about Rumsfeld you learn that this quote is part of a web of lies he tells himself and everyone around him to justify his will to act without real knowledge or understanding of the place the issues or even the eventual impact of his actions in foreign lands. The superficial intelligence of it is part of the spell he weaves.
I hear Dick Cheney is a loving granddad too. That’s great for their families, and it seems appropriate if those grandkids to look up to them with fondness. But Rumsfeld and Cheney also left behind a much darker legacy that effected a much larger portion of humanity, so it also seems appropriate if those who are outside their immediate families or communities don’t share that sense of fondness.
Heck, I bet Stalin’s dog thought Josef was the greatest human being who ever lived. That doesn’t mean I have to overlook the war crimes and human rights abuses.
I use is a good bit myself. But I also really appreciate Žižek’s elaboration, pointing out that Rummy missed one: the unknown knowns, or the stuff you don’t know that you know. The stuff that biases you, that you don’t realize guides your thinking unconsciously. I use that concept a lot with therapists in training.
