The Unknown Known or Bringing the Poles Apart

In 2002 Donald Rumsfeld, the Bush Jr. era US Secretary of Defence, in a Defence Department briefing brought, to borrow a Bushism, "brought the poles apart". He juxtaposed the "Known" with the "Unknown" to explain his engagement strategy in Iraq. While some supporters of Rumsfeld justified it is a brilliant distillation of a complex issue, to most others it was a distillation of the simple truth into a clumsy lie. As is clear from the accompanying Known-Unknown matrix, as rather clumsily drawn by me, it is clear that I am no admirer of the man (what makes the use of this device by Rumsfeld more egregious is that he borrowed it from the phrase "the unknown unknown" first used by Keats, the Great Romantic poet).
Strangely Rumsfeld in his exposition of the known and the unknown left out the fourth quadrant - Unknown Known. Could it be that the man could not count the number of quadrants in a 2x2 matrix? Unsurprising as that would be, it is more likely that his subconscious prodded him not to go there. His subconscious must have known what was unknown to him. That he was defending the indefensible. The Known Unknown, so to speak.
Beyond the ridiculousness of Rumsfeld, the Unknown Known, to my mind, is a sublime distillation of a core assertion of the Vedas: "Everyone of us knows everything there is to be known". In essence we know but the veils of the world makes self-knowledge the "unknown known".
"Bringing the poles apart" or splitting opposites into a self-referential is a nice way to reflect on dualities. Good and bad, Ugly and and Beautiful. Big and Small. For example the Small Big Man is the puffed up ego and meanness of the big I while the Big Small Man is the endearing humility and generosity of the small i.

               
    PS: Unlike Rumsfeld who publicly claimed that he does not read his own memos (in response to a question about the infamous one he wrote about torture of war prisoners) I do read my own posts. After reading this one I decide to google "Unknown Known" and was pleasantly surprised to find that a well-known documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris, has mad a documentary on Rumsfeld which is slated for release on April 2nd this year. Guess what he has chosen to call the documentary? Yes - "The Unknown Known"!. Errol's interview with Los Angeles Times about his encounters with Rumsfeld makes delightful reading. That is if you, like me, are an unfan fan of Rumsfield.