The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.  –Freeman Tilden’s Fourth Principle of Interpretation

I reckon you wouldn’t even be human being if you didn’t have some pretty strong personal feelings about nuclear combat.  –Major Major TJ ‘King’ Kong In the movie Dr. Strangelove

The atomic bomb is shit.   –J. Robert Oppenheimer

At Taylor Studios, we consider each client the content expert. We consider ourselves the experts when it comes to designing and building an experience that focuses on the content. There are times during our content development meetings with clients when they choose to avoid certain content deemed too provocative to their target audiences. Most of the time, we understand exactly the predicament they find themselves in with respect to their “hot” topic. Occasionally, however, we challenge them to reconsider interpreting the hot topic, reminding them that Tilden believed interpretation, and by extension, provocation (instead of instruction) can “stimulate the visitor toward a desire to widen his horizon of interests and knowledge, and to gain an understanding of the greater truths that lie behind any statement of fact.” These experiences with client and content have often generated in me the thought of where I would draw the line of provocation had I been in charge and faced with the assortment of considerations each client must balance.

I would have loved to hear Tilden’s opinions about the Smithsonian’s exhibit that never was “The Crossroads: The End of World War II, The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War.”

The 1995 book that reveals the story of this exhibit is called Judgement at the Smithsonian edited by Philip Nobile. The opening sentence in the prologue reads, “The Smithsonian Institution, America’s national museum, has been complicit in an act of censorship.” Talk about provocative!

The book summarizes the exhibit planned for the 50th anniversary of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. At the heart of the debate was the exhibit script and photos and objects of those that died in the bombing, as well as a script that dared to ask probing questions about Truman’s decision and criticisms by Eisenhower over the bombing.

On January 30, in the heated political atmosphere and threats of defunding the Smithsonian, the Smithsonian Secretary pulled the exhibit over the advice and consent of the President, the Vice-President, the Senate majority leader, the Chief Justice!

I was always under the impression that the invasion of Japan would have cost 1,000,000 American lives. The script in this cancelled exhibit lays doubts upon that number. I would have loved to see this exhibit because it would have allowed me—through provocation—to determine for myself where the truth lies. But, I am lucky to have found this book, which includes the original script in total.

I wish I could chat with Mr. Tilden. Provocative is one thing, but at the cost of funding?

Was the bomb drop worth it? What’s your opinion?

Tilden, Freeman, 1957 (1977). Interpreting Our Heritage, 3rd ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press

Herbert Block cartoon for The Washington Post published 09/25/1949 “. . . Or Do You Want Me To Do The Talking?”