I had already planned to revisit my last post because while I wasn’t quite satisfied with it, I also didn’t want to lose the moment by endlessly tweaking it. Commenter, Una, however, responded to a different point in the post, and gave me an even better cause and topic: when and how to admit you don’t know something.
My first response to Una’s post was to write the reply I posted. My second response was ‘people will think I’m an idiot!’ My third response is this: one of the things I am proudest of learning from my mentor is to freely admit when I don’t know something. I, and she, do this for a variety of reasons, but I think the most important is that feigning knowledge interferes with the learning and slows the working process down. Learning something to the point of becoming truly knowledgeable takes time, and that learning is delayed or hampered when one pretends to already understand. Moreover, when some knowledge is assumed, it is often thus never covered. I have no patience for repeating information already discussed, but equally I hate not knowing everything that I want to know about a topic. Admitting what I don’t know from the outset eliminates the need for any dance of inquiry.
Having defended starting out as a novice, I take and agree with Una’s point that it is disingenous (and, as so often happens is IR, outright harmful) to represent oneself as an expert on one subject based on knowledge of another. For a few of my friends, this is a well-known trope, but one that unfortunately continues to be ring true. This is in fact another reason why I feel so strongly about admitting ignorance: because while I do have substantial knowledge verging on expertise in some areas, I don’t and can’t know everything about every relevant topic. I need to fill in the gaps, and that begins with acknowledging that, in this example, I know nothing about Bosnia, but I want to.
This is also why I am so thankful to have commentors; not only do I know that I am not simply writing to myself, but because I hope to find others who will help me learn. In that vein, any recommendations on post-conflict Bosnia and the peace and/or democracy process are very much appreciated.
