Lemmings

Benjamin learned about lemmings at church on Sunday. 

They were talking about being agents, choice and accountability, things of that nature, and the bishop talked about lemmings. When Benjamin told us he learned about lemmings he described them in kind of a strange way so I asked him what, precisely, lemmings were.

"Well, it's a really old video game where these little dudes just walk around..."

"Whoa, there..." I objected.

"Hang on, now!" Andrew said. 

"Lemmings are actual living creatures," I said, while Andrew said: "It's not that old of a video game!"

We were concerned about vastly different things.

This led to a conversation about both the video game and the creature, which extended to an FHE lesson the next day, because did you know...

Lemmings don't behave the way you imagine they do. 

They don't mindlessly follow each other to their ultimate demise, they are not wont to fling their tiny bodies off high cliffs into the icy waters below. They do experience population drops and booms and undergo "mass dispersal" behaviour (that sometimes does force a number of lemmings into cold water), but they don't run mindlessly off cliffs together for no reason. 

In the Disney documentary where this behaviour is shown they actually, ummm, bought lemmings in Manitoba, transported them to a filming location in Alberta, rigged a "lazy Susan" up to a motor, placed the lemmings on it, and repeatedly hurled the poor creatures off the cliff to get the dramatic footage they desired...because such footage was impossible to film in the wild...because lemmings don't do that.

It's a myth.

The 1991 (see—not that old!) video game Lemmings is based on the idea that lemmings don't think for themselves and mindlessly follow whoever is in front of them. We definitely played several levels during FHE. It's still a fun game.

The kids pointed out how ironic it was that lemmings are used to talk about the perils of herd mentality—of not thinking for yourself—when, uh, the whole concept of lemmings as "herd mentality" creatures is a fallacy perpetuated in the cultural imagination. If we were truly thinking for ourselves would we continue to malign lemmings in this way?

It was a good way to talk about 2 Nephi 2 (how we have agency to act and not be acted upon), as well as D&C 58:26–28 (one of our memorized scriptures from this past year): 

"For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward. Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward."

The code word the kids use to recall this verse is "vegetables" (for behold, it is not meat). 

So we talked about agency, which we do a lot at our house (see our evergreen motto: DO THINGS), but this also opened up some interesting conversations surrounding media literacy. We can't just see something and swallow it hook, line, and sinker...we've got to use our little thinker.

That rhymes so it must be true (I'm in the middle of writing our Christmas poem, can you tell?).

We are not mythological lemmings. We can verify sources, we can investigate, we can think about whether something is honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous (of good report or praiseworthy) before repeating it or adopting it into our personal pot of knowledge. 

Anyway, what Benjamin learned at church about lemmings wasn't bad (we talked about those same things at the dinner table on Sunday and FHE on Monday). We just extended the conversation and challenged the myth behind them. 

And enjoyed playing Lemmings.

(The Stanford marshmallow study on delayed gratification? That's another idea that has been challenged a lot and thus deserves more nuanced discussion. Like, the idea of delayed gratification as a measure for future success is...neat...but there are so many other factors at play.)