EVENT
The Island Parable
The opening of
Public Opinion (1922): a remote island community learns in mid-September 1914 that their nations have been at war for six weeks—during which they lived as peaceful neighbors, governed not by reality but by their picture of reality, which was a picture of peace.
Lippmann's paradigmatic illustration of the
pseudo-environment problem. On a remote island, English, French, and German residents lived together harmoniously through late summer 1914. A mail steamer visited every sixty days. When it arrived mid-September, the islanders learned that for the previous six weeks—during which they continued to share meals, observe courtesies, treat one another as neighbors—their nations had been at war. The Germans among them were enemies. The reality of war existed for six weeks before the picture of war reached the island. During those six weeks, the islanders' behavior was governed not by reality but by their picture of reality. The parable demonstrated that the gap
between events and awareness of events is not exceptional (produced by geographic isolation) but permanent—the structural condition of
consciousness in a complex world. The world outside is always larger, faster, more consequential than the pictures in our heads. People act on pictures.