Digging Your Own Well: Part Twenty Four

The Frog in the Well

Donald Rumsfeld was famous for saying that there are  

things we know, things we know that we don't know, and, things that we don't know that we don't know. 

As a general principle this is quite true. In his case, however, I think it's fair to say that he was speaking in “bad faith” because he was an example of someone who refuses to interact with, let alone listen to, anyone who tried to expose him to something he “didn't know that he didn't know”. In his case the “unknown unknowns” multiplied because of his arrogance.

 

In contrast, Daoists try to remind themselves that there are “unknown unknowns”. One of the ways they do this is by thinking about a famous passage from the Zhuangzi. In the chapter identified as Autumn Floods, a character named Kungsun Lung complains to a prince Mou that he has a hard time understanding master Chuang (Zhuangzi.) Mou explains why this is by talking about a frog that lives in a broken-down well and its conversation with a sea turtle.

---'I really enjoy myself here!' it said to a turtle of the Eastern Sea. 'If I want to go out, I jump along the railing around the well, then I come back and rest where the brick lining is missing from the wall. I enter the water tilll it comes up to my armpits and supports my chin. When I slop through the mud, it covers my feet and buries my toes. Turning around, I see crayfish and tadpoles, but none of them is a match for me. Furthermore, I have sole possession of all the water in this hole and straddle all the joy in this broken-down well. This is the ultimate! Why don't you drop in some time, sir, and see for yourself?'

“But before the turtle of the Eastern Sea could get his left foot in, his right knee had already gotten stuck. After extricating himself, he withdrew a little and told the frog about the sea, saying, 'A distance of a thousand tricents is insufficient to span its breadth: height of a thousand fathoms is insufficient to plumb its depth. During Yü's time, there were floods nine years out of ten, but the water in it did not appreciably increase; during T'ang's time, there were droughts seven years out of eight, but the extent of its shores did not appreciably decrease. Hence, not to shift or change with time, not to advance or recede regardless of amount---this is the great joy of the Eastern Sea.' Upon hearing this, the frog in the broken-down well was so utter startled that it lost itself in bewilderment.

Zhuangzi, (Wandering on the Way, “Autumn Floods”), Mair translator.

The frog simply cannot understand what it is like to live as a sea turtle in the vastness of the ocean. Moreover, as someone who's lived his whole life in a well, he can't even know that the ocean exists. The only thing that he can possibly do is embrace some form of intellectual humility and realize theoretically that there are limits to his understanding and stay open to the possibility that something will come totally “out of left field” and surprise him. That's part of the Daoist response to life. How sad that important leaders of great nations often have not learned the same lesson!

 

&&&&

 

Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!