Thinkers, Followers, and Mythic Lemmings

WHAT DO YOU MEAN LEMMINGS DON'T JUMP TO THEIR DEATHS?

My kids converted me to YouTube viewing. In their schools, films posted on YouTube are shown in the classrooms on large SMART Board screens. When I was a school kid in the 60's, a tone signaled the teacher's pet to display the next filmstrip frame, while a voice droned on about far off things like the 21st century. Back then, the Disney film White Wilderness was a treat. A moving picture of life in the arctic. It won an Oscar for best documentary in 1958.

The news broke several years ago that Disney faked the lemming footage in White Wilderness and created an urban myth.  I missed that. Until I played the Time for Kids Arctic Trivia Challenge, I invoked the doomed path of the lemming when convenient to make a point.

Viewing the film almost forty years later, its not hard to see the deception. IMDB has a trivia note about the fabrication. The State of Alaska Fish and Wildlife News gives more details.

WAS THE FOOTAGE IN THIS APPLE LEMMING AD FAKED TOO?

Lemmings gained mythic stature from a master of the hero's journey. The iconic lemmings of our society gain another nuance through disinformation. Whether the facts Disney presented were naive assumptions or intentional fable making is lost in time. The mythical journey of the lemming is more relevant than ever as the definition of a person who blindly reasserts the falsehoods of an authoratative figure.

ARE YOU A LEMMING?

More than once I've recited some version of the now classic mother's line that begins, "If your friend jumped off a..."  with half a smile upon my face. My son wonders if I want him to think for himself as long as what he thinks is what I do. That is the eternal pattern of teenagers and parents.

ARE YOU A THINKER OR A FOLLOWER?