12 ken

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Everyday interactions “in situations of co-presence” acquire hyper-reflexivity when a doubt arises as to the presence of a differential between the ken of various people in the situation. The doubt produces a suspicion that the situation has been fabricated to produce this differential. Cheating someone else at the market or in business or during a game of chance requires that the subject (the dupe) not become aware that the situation is being fabricated against them. The cards are marked, the frozen fish has been stuffed with ice, the oil well is dry, but these facts must remain outside the ken of the dupe.

Ken is the universe of what is knowable in a social situation. Almost all social interactions between friends and strangers begin with the assumption that each participant has roughly the same ken. Interactions with expert systems, on the other hand generally rely upon the notion that the expert system (and its experts) have an expanded ken.

The question in state-nations (also a question within nation-states) is whether or not the state is an expert system. If it is so, then it can legitimately maintain a differential between what it knows and what it tells its population. If this is not so, then it should make clear all of the knowledge it uses to come to a decision about any issue.