On the Origins of Bunk
As Representative Todd Akin’s recent statement shows, we all don’t know lots of things. But no matter how much we don’t know, saying ‘I don’t know’ is never easy and does not get any easier with practice.
Back when President Jed Bartlet of “The West Wing” was running for reelection, he had a private encounter with his opponent, the very rickperryesque Governor Ritchie (played by James Brolin). To the news that a Secret Service agent has just been shot and killed, Ritchie responds sadly “Crime. Boy, I don’t know.” The president, who you may recall is a Nobel Prize winner in economics and who, in another episode, argues with God in Latin, absorbs Ritchie’s comment and then, a few moments later, tells him, “In the future, if you’re wondering, ‘Crime. Boy, I don’t know’ is when I decided to kick your ass.”
It’s not entirely clear what Ritchie means by “I don’t know.” He might mean “I don’t know what causes crime”; he might mean “I don’t know how to prevent crime”—or it might simply be a phatic utterance, one meant to convey social solidarity or sympathy rather than information. In any other circumstance, it would be an unexceptionable thing to say.
But a political campaign is not an ordinary circumstance, and President Bartlet is, as he seldom forgets, no ordinary politician. Underlying the machismo of his response is his palpable contempt for someone who confesses to not knowing. His clear implication is that he does know. And yet we know that he doesn’t, because we know that no one truly does. Bartlet is a man accustomed to knowing, and he does it so frequently and well that he sometimes forgets the necessity—the humility—of the occasional “I don’t know.”
He differs only in degree from the rest of us, of course. We all don’t know lots of things, but no matter how much we don’t know, saying “I don’t know” is never easy and does not get any easier with practice.
There is a kind of anxiety associated with not knowing. We don’t like not knowing something, and we don’t like to be reminded that we don’t know it. Someone at a cocktail party asks you “Say, who played Jed Bartlet in ‘The West Wing’?” and you immediately realize you don’t know. What to do? You select one of three possible tactics: