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Consider the Lemming

2010-11-01 · John · watch on YouTube · Internet & YouTube · reflection essay

Using Disney's staged lemming suicide in White Wilderness, John argues there is a gulf between information and education: the internet is good at interesting facts but education needs their often boring context, which the brothers will try to provide in an educational week starting Friday.

What is said

00:00:00 — November 1: NaNoWriMo begins; John does NAFADOYBIMSCOM instead; viewers' 'you should be my teacher' comments

  • ★★ On November 1, the start of NaNoWriMo, John says he is not doing it but is doing NAFADOYBIMSCOM: National Finish a Draft of Your Book, I Mean Seriously Come On Month. (playful) — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Information vs. education; lemmings, the myth of lemming mass suicide and Disney's staged suicide in White Wilderness; what that says about documentary truth

  • ★★★ John says commenters often call him a would-be great teacher; flattered, he says it's untrue because there's a huge gulf between the informational and the truly educational. — 00:00:29 · education
  • ★ John says lemmings are tiny rodents living in the Arctic. — 00:00:29
  • ★ Voicing the popular belief, John says Sigmund Freud referenced lemmings' mass suicide in a lot of his work. (satire) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says the 1958 Academy Award-winning Disney documentary White Wilderness shows lemmings committing mass suicide and is mostly famous for staging it. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says lemmings are not suicidal; the belief that they jump off cliffs en masse when overpopulated is false, though running lemmings sometimes run over cliffs. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ John says White Wilderness's makers, finding no footage of lemming suicide, shipped lemmings across Canada and forced them to commit suicide. — 00:01:18 · Canada
  • ★★ John says the story raises questions: whether forced suicide is suicide, how far film and video documentaries can be trusted as factual, and how viewers can stay mindful of events outside the frame. — 00:01:18

00:01:47 — The Disney fact is informational, not educational: the internet is good at information, less at education; teaching needs boring context (quark song, French Revolution trivia); an educational week is coming

  • ★★ John says discussing those questions with any complexity would require reading Susan Sontag's brilliant book Regarding the Pain of Others, and more than four minutes allow. — 00:01:47
  • ★★★ John says Disney's staged lemming suicide is an interesting, informational fact but not educational; the internet is very good at providing information and has proven less good at education. — 00:01:47 · education
  • ★★ John says Hank's song about quarks is wonderful and helps him understand some things about quarks, but doesn't give the context needed to understand particle physics. — 00:02:16 · Strange Charm, Hank Green
  • ★★★ John says the problem with teaching is that a teacher must teach not only the interesting stuff but its context, which is often incredibly boring. — 00:02:16 · education
  • ★★ As examples of French Revolution trivia, John says a significant event happened in an indoor tennis court, and that Marie Antoinette's actual last words were 'Sir, I beg your pardon' after stepping on her executioner's foot. — 00:02:16
  • ★ John says Rousseau, whose philosophy deeply influenced the French Revolution, liked being spanked by girls so much he sometimes dropped his drawers in public hoping they'd smack him. (playful) — 00:02:46
  • ★★★ John says knowing such facts would not give an informed understanding of the French Revolution; we have gotten good at 'informationalism' but not yet very educational. (hedged) — 00:02:46 · education > «I think we've gotten pretty good at informationalism»
  • ★★★ John announces that beginning Friday and continuing all next week, the brothers will make a solid effort to be educational. — 00:02:46 · Vlogbrothers

00:03:15 — Request for topic suggestions for the educational week; Nerdfighter pumpkins incl. a This Star Won't Go Out pumpkin; Esther bracelets; sign-off

  • ★★★ John asks Nerdfighteria to suggest topics: something from school they don't understand, or something they wish they had learned in school. — 00:03:15 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John thanks the many Nerdfighters who made Nerdfightastic pumpkins this year; his favorite is a This Star Won't Go Out pumpkin. — 00:03:15 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Reminded by the pumpkin, John tells Nerdfighters to get their Esther bracelets. — 00:03:15

Humor (significant)

  • John announces National Finish a Draft of Your Book, I Mean Seriously Come On Month, then addresses himself. — 00:00:00 > «Seriously, Green, come on!»
  • Introducing lemmings, John breaks off from 'Consider the lemming'. — 00:00:29 > «Consider the lemming is a good name for a band.»
  • John earnestly touts White Wilderness as a very famous documentary. — 00:00:29 > «Yeah, mostly famous for staging lemming suicide.»
  • After Rousseau dropping his drawers in public hoping girls would spank him. — 00:02:46 > «In a related story, ineffective strategy is ineffective.»

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