No TV from the White House for FDR
Ruth Ann Stites, Staff Writer
The new season of Masterpiece began to air on public television in June, including “Atlantic Crossing,” a new to me miniseries. It is a fictional account based on the true-to-life friendship between President Roosevelt and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway. It has proved to be one of the most gripping WWII dramas I’ve seen in some time. But it got an “F” in historic accuracy in episode 3. In this episode the President gives a speech from the White House that is broadcast on TV. While President Roosevelt was the first sitting president to make a TV appearance at the TV was not included in the media allowed in the White House during his administration. The honor of the goes to President Harry Truman on October 5, 1947. The reason TV coverage was not a regular part of the White House press corps was the limited number of sets available to the public before and during the Second World War.
So, why does it matter that the writers of this drama moved the inclusion of TV in the White House up a few years? In one sense, it is “literary license” and unimportant, but it is also an indication of how “alternate facts” become reality in people’s memories and thinking. You may have heard of the where a large number of people remember that Nelson Mandela of South Africa died in prison in the 1980’s rather than lived to become president in 1994? Unless some of us have paranormal experiences, some mechanism, like an appearance of FDR on TV from the White House in a popular drama, must influence the way we remember history. The more we study memory, the more we find that it is much more fluid and malleable than we thought. While there are amazing feats of memory (the entire Inca Empire was run on memory and knotted string called Quipu) unless we have been well trained in memory retention, we do well to test what we remember against verifiable fact. Maybe our tendency to alter memories is at least one reason why Moses got tablets of stone rather than experiential memories when God gave him the Ten Commandments.
The Bible recognizes the fallibility of human memory, and reason, in Proverbs 28:26, “Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.” And wisdom comes from God (Prov. 2:6).
Paul pictures those who do not seek God’s wisdom and knowledge this way, “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done” (Rom. 1:28). How much better it is to:
Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon. (Isa. 55:6-7).
In Isaiah 11:1-5 the Lord’s Servant is described as relying on the Lord for wisdom and judgement, “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears” (Isa. 11:3b). If, as Cross Disciples, our primary goal is to imitate the Lord Jesus, should we not “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5)?
Photo credit: R. A. Stites, art instillation Bentonville (AR) square, July 2012)
