Defending the Lemmings

Letter Zero 15

Dear friend,

Your concept of lemmings is a Disney invention.

Scientists are still looking for evidence to support the theory that lemmings follow their friends off cliffs in synchronized mass suicides. That myth was given legitimacy by Disney’s award-winning documentary from 1958 called White Wilderness.

To create the footage of the lemming suicide depicted in White Wilderness, a truckload of lemmings was backed to the edge of a cliff, just out of sight. Cameras rolled as the little critters were hurled off the edge. The lemmings that survived the fall drowned in the water below. At the climax of the fake lemming suicide, the narrator explains...
 

“It’s not given to man to understand all of nature’s mysteries. But as nearly as he can surmise it would appear that these lemmings consider this body of water just another lake. And if it’s a lake then it must have a farther shore. And so they strike out boldly.

The lemming footage is a masterpiece of fake news. But deceptive craftsmanship aside, why did the lemming concept catch on if it is based on a lie? Humans crave words to describe people we don’t understand. The metaphor of the lemming as “a person who unthinkingly joins a mass movement, especially a headlong rush to destruction” seems to describe something we have all seen. People do stupid things. The best explanation we can muster is that there must be something fundamentally wrong with them. 

There’s a good chance you have questioned the sanity of people during this pandemic. And it isn’t just a few random crackpots, it appears as if entire populations of humans are brainwashed to the point where they will follow their leaders off a cliff. Maybe you even used the word lemming to describe them. But how can you be sure the documentary playing on your mental movie screen is true?

Disney could fool its audience not because their story was grounded in science but because the lemming fable felt true. More dangerous than the fake news media is the abundance of documentary-quality “science” to support whatever worldview you subscribe to. This is how you explain the tsunami of science surrounding an outbreak and yet somehow, miraculously, the data always manages to support any and all agendas. Somehow the facts always fall perfectly along party lines. Curious.

It's worth considering the possibility that we are experiencing a documentary where the footage is produced to support whatever story you want to believe. No, I am not talking about the fake news media, I am talking about the stories we tell ourselves. Could it be that each of us finds the story first, then we assemble our mental video afterward? Would you be able to tell the difference?

How do we avoid being fooled by the fakery? I think it starts with creativity, with striving to be people who can find our way out of any predicament through original thinking, determination, and the boldness to go against tradition. Otherwise we are little more than rodents, expendable props shoveled out the rear of a film truck in support of somebody else’s fiction. 

I’ll write again next Sunday. Stay creative.

Your friend,
Adrian

P.S. If you want to watch the clip of lemmings from Disney’s documentary, I have uploaded it here: https://youtu.be/fGCgnyJfa_o