I was listening to an interesting ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
It strikes me that this is one possible model of the way that memory distortion could have played a role in the formation of early Christian narratives. In particular, it could help explain how appearance stories spread from individuals (say, Mary Magdalene, James and Peter) to larger groups (the 12, the 500). In addition, it gives an example where story precedes memory: a mistaken story was told by someone else at NBC about Brian Williams, and Brian Williams subsequently came to believe that story. Some apologists say that the eyewitnesses would have been around to “correct” any mistaken claims, but here we have a example where an eyewitness came to believe mistaken claims about himself! In addition, it’s a non-trivial memory. Sometimes apologists claim that the visions of Jesus were life-changing, ‘flashbulb’ type memories that could not be falsely remembered. However, a false memory of being shot down in a helicopter would also be a ‘flashbulb memory,’ something that one might think would be hard to unconsciously fabricate. But it happened.
In addition, there’s a psychological phenomena which increases the likelihood of people misattributing stories from one person to another. ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
I realize there are also other psychological and sociological models that may be useful in explaining this phenomena (social compliance, cognitive dissonance reduction, etc.) I also recognize that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Brian Williams was just lying. But even if he is lying, it reminded me of an interesting psychological principle (empirically confirmed in laboratory studies) that may have been involved in the formation of early Christian appearance narratives.
I’m not a neurologist, but I find it unlikely that lying was not in some way involved. If the story was a false memory, Mr. Willams might not have been lying when he recounted it, but he almost certainly would have known that it was a lie at the beginning of the memory’s formation. I suspect that most false memories are formed because the lie is more appealing than the truth. That would have been the case for both followers of Jesus and Brian Williams. I can empathize with those who are seduced by the lie, especially amongst the grief-stricken, but even there the behavior is at best pitiful. In the case of Mr. Williams, it’s just contemptible.
Either way, another great post. I hope you stick around here: this forum needs (a lot) more posts like this and people like you!
Aleph82 said
I’m not a neurologist, but I find it unlikely that lying was not in some way involved. If the story was a false memory, Mr. Willams might not have been lying when he recounted it, but he almost certainly would have known that it was a lie at the beginning of the memory’s formation. I suspect that most false memories are formed because the lie is more appealing than the truth. That would have been the case for both followers of Jesus and Brian Williams. I can empathize with those who are seduced by the lie, especially amongst the grief-stricken, but even there the behavior is at best pitiful. In the case of Mr. Williams, it’s just contemptible.Either way, another great post. I hope you stick around here: this forum needs (a lot) more posts like this and people like you!
I completely agree with the OP’s last two paragraphs. When did Brian Williams first tell the tale? I don’t recall hearing that. Or, is my brain conveniently forgetting that I heard so I feel better about replying to your post? Depending on the period of time between when the event first occurred to BW and when he first recounted the story I think will help strengthen or weaken whether or not BW suffered from source amnesia. I know it’s happened to me before. My best friend’s father and I often competed for telling tales of weird and funny things that happened to us. Over the years I would pick up his stories and tell others and by the time I did that I often wondered if it was something that really happened to me or was I taking on a story told by my friend’s father.
When the Brian Williams story broke, I was reading about it on the CBS News website. And they said the helicopter incident wasn’t the only one he’d supposedly lied about.
He’d also made false claims (heard by Tom Brokaw) about his experiences in New Orleans when he was there covering Hurricane Katrina. He’d said that from his window in a hotel in the French Quarter, he’d seen bodies floating in the river. And he’d said he himself had suffered diarrhea while he was there, from drinking contaminated water.
An official from New Orleans had refuted his story, saying the French Quarter hadn’t been hit hard at all – he couldn’t have seen bodies in the river from there – and no one had gotten ill from drinking the city’s water. (I’m not sure whether the official said there were never any bodies in the river, or merely that they couldn’t have been seen from a hotel in the French Quarter.)
I really thought it possible that with all the other events going on in his life (way more action-packed than mine!), Williams could understandably have misremembered the helicopter incident. And that what he’d misremembered about New Orleans was just the location of his hotel – his diarrhea having been caused by mild food poisoning or just “nerves,” and wrongly attributed to the water.
But if he’d never consciously lied, I don’t think he should have apologized.
Here’s another similar example of significant misremembering (although I suppose it could also just be lying): Bill O’Reilly’s misremembering of a war zone incident in the Falklands: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
I also enjoyed ** you do not have permission to see this link ** of Neil Degrass Tyson where he discusses UFO sitings and the problems of eyewitness testimony and flaws in the perceptual system.
I mentioned the Bill O’Reilly story a couple of posts up and I think it’s worth thinking about the books he writes too and passes off as “history”. His experience in the Falkland War are great examples of both embellishment and false memories. I think he’s told the story so many times that he really believes it. If you ever see him on other programs like David Letterman recently you can see what a braggart he is. His books on “history” have been targeted many times for inaccuracies as well. Using his Killing Jesus as an example from his books he thinks that writing history as a narrative story is history. The man just has a problem with the truth in general.
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