unimaginative

　 　

WordNet

1. dealing only with concrete facts
2. without imagination; "the stage sets were designed rather unimaginatively"

PrepTutorEJDIC

1. 想像力のない,独創性に欠ける

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2014/11/23 10:45:37」(JST)

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"Known unknown" and "Known unknowns" redirect here. For the House episode, see Known Unknowns.

"Unknown known" and "Unknown knowns" redirect here. For the 2013 documentary film, see The Unknown Known.

"There are known knowns" is a phrase from a response United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave to a question at a U.S. Department of Defense news briefing in February 2002 about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

Rumsfeld stated:

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there 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. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

The statement became the subject of much negative and positive commentary.

Reaction

The Plain English Campaign gave Rumsfeld its Foot in Mouth Award which it presents to statements that run counter to its goal of ensuring "public information is delivered in a clear manner."

Linguist Geoffrey Pullum stated the quotation was "completely straightforward" and "impeccable, syntactically, semantically, logically, and rhetorically".

As for the substance of his statement, Rumsfeld's defenders have included Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, who called it "in fact a brilliant distillation of quite a complex matter", and Australian economist and blogger John Quiggin, who wrote, "Although the language may be tortured, the basic point is both valid and important ... Having defended Rumsfeld, I'd point out that the considerations he refers to provide the case for being very cautious in going to war."

Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these three categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the "unknown unknowns", that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns" – the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values."

In his 2007 book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb tells of a presentation on uncertainty he was requested to give to the United States Department of Defense shortly before Rumsfeld's speech. The core message of The Black Swan is that unknown unknowns are responsible for the greatest societal change.

Welsh academic Dave Snowden has also claimed he was responsible for sowing the seed of these words in Rumsfeld's mind.

Rumsfeld named his autobiography Known and Unknown: A Memoir.

The event has been used in multiple books to discuss risk assessment.

The Unknown Known is the title of Errol Morris's 2013 biographical documentary about Rumsfeld.

See also

• Epistemic modal logic
• Dunning–Kruger effect
• I know that I know nothing
• Ignoramus et ignorabimus
• Ignotum per ignotius
• Johari window
• List of political catch phrases
• Ludic fallacy
• Outside Context Problem
• Relevance paradox
• Cynefin

References

External links

• February 12, 2002, Press conference – The reporter asks the question that leads to the "known unknowns" response at approx. 37:19

English Journal

• Small primary care practices face four hurdles--including a physician-centric mind-set--in becoming medical homes.

• Nutting PA1, Crabtree BF, McDaniel RR.Author information 1University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado, USA. paul.nutting@crsllc.orgAbstractTransforming small independent practices to patient-centered medical homes is widely believed to be a critical step in reforming the US health care system. Our team has conducted research on improving primary care practices for more than fifteen years. We have found four characteristics of small primary care practices that seriously inhibit their ability to make the transformation to this new care model. We found that small practices were extremely physician-centric, lacked meaningful communication among physicians, were dominated by authoritarian leadership behavior, and were underserved by midlevel clinicians who had been cast into unimaginative roles. Our analysis suggests that in addition to payment reform, a shift in the mind-set of primary care physicians is needed. Unless primary care physicians can adopt new mental models and think in new ways about themselves and their practices, it will be very difficult for them and their practices to create innovative care teams, become learning organizations, and act as good citizens within the health care neighborhood.
• Health affairs (Project Hope).Health Aff (Millwood).2012 Nov;31(11):2417-22. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0974.
• Transforming small independent practices to patient-centered medical homes is widely believed to be a critical step in reforming the US health care system. Our team has conducted research on improving primary care practices for more than fifteen years. We have found four characteristics of small pri
• PMID 23129671

• A judicial rashomon: on ageism and narrative justice.

• Doron I.Author information Department of Gerontology, University of Haifa, Haifa, 31905, Israel. idoron@univ.haifa.ac.ilAbstractHow are old people treated in courts? How do judges construct old age? To what extent judicial decisions regarding older persons reflect ageist attitudes? Historically, these questions have received relatively little attention in gerontological literature. This Israeli case-study tries to add a new dimension to the growing literature in the field of jurisprudential gerontology, in a context that so far received little attention: narrative justice. More specifically, this study combines a narrative-justice theoretical approach, with a legal case-study methodology, in order to explore the relationships between judicial narratives and ageism. The narrative analysis presented in this case study exposes how in contrast to common perception, which views legal decisions as objective and unimaginative texts, reality is different. The judicial case studied in this article exemplify how in real life, judges often construct a socio-judicial narrative, embellished by personal bias and prejudices regarding old age.
• Journal of cross-cultural gerontology.J Cross Cult Gerontol.2012 Mar;27(1):17-28. doi: 10.1007/s10823-012-9160-7.
• How are old people treated in courts How do judges construct old age To what extent judicial decisions regarding older persons reflect ageist attitudes Historically, these questions have received relatively little attention in gerontological literature. This Israeli case-study tries to add a new
• PMID 22246391

• How to grow great leaders.

• Ready DA.Author information International Consortium for Executive Development Research. dready@icedr.orgAbstractFew leaders excel at both the unit and enterprise levels. More than ever, though, corporations need people capable of running business units, functions, or regions and focusing on broader company goals. It's up to organizations to develop leaders who can manage the inherent tensions between unit and enterprise priorities. Take the example of RBC Financial Group, one of the largest, most profitable companies in Canada. In the mid-1990's, RBC revamped its competitive strategy in a couple of ways. After the government announced that the Big Six banks in Canada could neither merge with nor acquire one another, RBC decided to grow through cross-border acquisitions. Additionally, because customers were starting to seek bundled products and services, RBC reached across its traditional stand-alone businesses to offer integrated solutions. These changes in strategy didn't elicit immediate companywide support. Instinctively, employees reacted against what would amount to a delicate balancing act: They would have to lift their focus out of their silos while continuing to meet unit goals. However, by communicating extensively with staff members, cross-fertilizing talent across unit boundaries, and targeting rewards to shape performance, RBC was able to cultivate rising leaders with the unit expertise and the enterprise vision to help the company fulfill its new aims. Growing such well-rounded leaders takes sustained effort because unit-enterprise tensions are quite real. Three common conditions reinforce these tensions. First, most organizational structures foster silo thinking and unimaginative career paths. Second, most companies lack venues for airing and resolving conflicts that arise when there are competing priorities. Third, many have misguided reward systems that pit unit performance against enterprise considerations. Such long-established patterns of organizational behavior are tough to break. Fortunately, as RBC discovered, people can be trained to think and work differently.
• Harvard business review.Harv Bus Rev.2004 Dec;82(12):92-100, 149.
• Few leaders excel at both the unit and enterprise levels. More than ever, though, corporations need people capable of running business units, functions, or regions and focusing on broader company goals. It's up to organizations to develop leaders who can manage the inherent tensions between unit and
• PMID 15605569

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• unimaginative - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

Search Results Advanced Search List Builder Random Word unimaginative DEFINITIONS OF: unimaginative 1 adj deficient in originality or creativity; lacking powers of invention “unimaginative development of a musical theme”

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