By: Tommy Druen
Guest Columnist
Recently, I came across a critique of children’s television programming, lamenting that much of it is geared exclusively towards children. This struck me as odd – shouldn’t children’s shows primarily serve children? However, as I read further, the argument began to make sense. The theory proposed that parents and children used to watch television together more frequently, not merely because there were fewer channels, but because many shows operated on multiple levels that both could enjoy.
Consider classic cartoons like Looney Tunes or Popeye. These shows often contained hidden jokes that were perhaps even funnier to the adults watching. A prime example is Bugs Bunny winning a radio quiz with an ostensibly impossible math question. When asked how he solved it, Bugs quips, “It’s easy. If there’s one thing us rabbits can do, it’s multiply!” followed by a suggestive snicker.
As I’ve grown older and, hopefully, wiser, I’ve realized that many of my earliest educators employed a similar dual-level approach. Lessons that seemed straightforward at the time often carried deeper meanings that resonated with me years later. One vivid memory is from Ms. Donnie Mae Thompson’s first-grade class, where she had us play the game of telephone. The rules were simple: one person whispered something to another, and the message passed down the line until the last person announced what they heard and compared it to the original statement. On that day, the original message of “Ms. Thompson wants to take a swim,” morphed into “Ms. Thompson jumped in a lake of milk,” leading to uncontrollable giggling of twenty-five first graders.
At the time, Ms. Thompson’s lesson was to illustrate the unreliability of playground gossip. As I grew older, the more profound lesson that stayed with me was to question everything; a fact that probably often frustrated my middle and high school teachers. Today, it’s less about incessant questioning and more about understanding that much of what we think we know, especially regarding history, might not be accurate. We are all subject to the influence of media and the reality that we often see or hear information from a singular perspective.
Consider these common historical “facts”:
- Napoleon was short, giving rise to the term “Napoleon Complex.” In reality, Napoleon was measured at 5’2”, however that was under an older system utilized by the French. Converted to modern measurements, he stood at 5’7” – not exceptionally tall, but certainly not short by the standards of his time when the average French adult male was 5’6”.
- Cleopatra was Egyptian. Cleopatra was born, lived, and ruled in territory we consider Egypt today. However, from 305-30 BCE, her territory was part of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which was politically and culturally Greek. Cleopatra was a direct descendant of Ptolemy I, a Macedonian Greek, making her portrayal as an ethnic Egyptian in movies inaccurate.
- Paul Revere’s ride at midnight shouting “The British are coming!” Revere, nor his fellow riders, would have done this, as British soldiers were already present in many towns and would have arrested them. Moreover, colonists at the time considered themselves British, making the phrase ridiculous. Rather, it stems from a summary of Longfellow’s popular 1860 poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
Science also shows us that we may not actually know that of which we are confident. Memory is malleable and can be influenced by our own errors or biases. Studies on eyewitness testimony reveal that our memories can deceive us, making us believe in events that never occurred, thus questioning their reliability in a court of law.
Among Socrates’ more famous quotes is, “To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.”
Forty years ago, I heard a story about Ms. Thompson wanting to jump into a lake of milk. That story taught me that I know nothing. Everyone has their own version of reality, and perhaps none of them are ever completely accurate.
