Believing Fiction
When I read that the Dean of West Point made a special trip to the set of 24 to beg the writers there to change the way they depict torture, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Of course his students were swayed by the show’s hair-raising depictions of Jack Bauer, the show’s tragic hero, using torture to extract vital information that saves the world time and again. Of course West Pointers who watched 24 religiously were convinced that torture is an effective interrogation tool . . . despite the fact that their battle-seasoned instructors told them it wasn’t. Who would you believe? A real-life military interrogator or a really clever storyteller?
Since most of us don’t get the skinny on torture from actual black-ops interrogators, we just might find ourselves relying on depictions we’ve seen in films like Rendition or A Mighty Heart or in TV shows like 24, The Unit, or NCIS. Believe it or not, information that’s presented in a deeply compelling narrative frame, with fantastically attractive people and witty repartee, can actually be more convincing, and more memorable, than a dry lecture from an expert. In fact, all the things that we associate with good entertainment -- a feeling of involvement, excitement, absorption and pleasure -- are precisely the same things we associate with a really powerful learning experience.
