Well, what do you know?

It is possible the answer is “metacognition.” It is possible the question is, “Why don’t we know how much we don’t know?” Not everything is about Trump, but, as the saying goes, if it fall in your garden… I could have written the entire column without mentioning that character (hard to use the word “person,” a word I also use for friends, colleagues and dogs) but for two inescapable things. Talk of the Dunning-Kruger effect surrounds him. Also, I felt it my responsibility to put gardens everywhere on high alert. Even if we’re only now familiarising ourselves with the vocabulary for it, this is a thing we know all too well. You say to a friend, “Friend, did you see that great movie Douens of the Wallabee Station?” And your friend, rather than seeming not-in-the-know, nods enthusiastically and allows you to continue your story. People don’t like to admit to not knowing.

The disturbing thing about this example is that it is true of ridiculous made-up things as well as real everyday things. David Dunning and Justin Kruger are not the knowers of all things, but in 1999 they published their paper on how we perceive our levels of understanding.

What became known as the Dunning-Kruger effect showed that people who knew a small amount about something tended to believe they had a much greater understanding of that area than they actually did. Conversely, people of considerable acumen were inclined to believe they fared less well on, say, a test, even in their area of expertise.

All this to say that when you know a little bit about cheese, you tend to think you are the big cheese, because you lack a more substantial frame of reference. When you know a great deal about cheese, have written books about cheese, contributed to the world of cheese scholarship, you may well think this is merely the start. Because you have a sense of the unexplored cheeseverse.

Metacognition refers to the ability to take a few steps back and try to find a shred of objectivity with which to look at yourself. It means trying to be self-aware. All we can do is try, because how can we know – who is to say – when we have achieved a dispassionate view?

I’m fascinated by the way the research is presented. It is interesting as a body of work, but even more, I’ve never seen psych write-ups so beautifully done. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it feels like poetry because it’s full of things I like talking about, like how we think and why, how we can do it differently, why we don’t all think the same way, why not everyone thinks exactly like I do.

I’ve always loved the line “We see things as we are, not as they are,” and in a very limited, almost parenthetic way, this seems to fit the narrative. Not only do I not know a thing, I am constrained by the things that create my worldview. I don’t even know that I don’t know. Which brings me to another beloved bit: “You can’t know what you don’t know.”

There’s an over-simplified conversation running in the ether that makes this a thing about the stupid and the non-stupid. That is stupid. It is about understanding, awareness, even the willingness to learn. There’s a reason our mothers told us not to call people “stupid.” It is a weak word that never did anybody any good.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is like herpes simplex 1 – far too many people are susceptible to it for us to be fainting in the streets over it. With Dunning-Kruger, the number of people at risk is all of us. We all have blind spots. There are ways in which we simply can’t see ourselves clearly. Are some of us worse off than others? Definitely. Because some people don’t want to do the self-awareness dance.

In a 2022 BBC Reel interview, David Dunning raised the novel idea of intellectual humility. I know, I too didn’t expect to see those words in the same sentence, let alone a stand-alone term.

He said, “We should be humble in our opinions, humble in our beliefs and in our conclusions. (We should) know our limits and we have to tolerate those who disagree with us because they may have a kernel, or more than a kernel, of truth than we actually believe.”