FROM THE PRESIDENT
“The Weight of Authority in an Age of Erased Stories” by and introduced by Parker McMullen Bushman
An updated version of “The Power of Authority,” their From the President column in Legacy’s March/April 2023 issue
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION:
When I first wrote this article three years ago, I was thinking broadly about how authority shapes human behavior and how easily people can be pushed to act against their own values. I couldn’t have imagined just how urgently the lesson of the Milgram experiment would apply to us today.
Right now, interpreters, educators, historians, museum professionals, and park rangers are facing unprecedented pressure. Across the country, we are watching whole chapters of truth be labeled as “controversial,” “harmful,” or “political.” We’re watching school districts ban curriculum. We’re watching museums told to remove exhibits about race, gender, and history. We’re watching interpreters instructed to downplay, avoid, or outright omit stories that communities need to hear and have always deserved to hear.
In so many places, authority is being used not to elevate understanding, but to narrow it. To shrink it.
To decide which histories are “acceptable” and whose lives get to be visible.
And interpreters — you — are caught in the middle.
We know that the power of interpretation lies in honesty, context, and connection. But we also know that your jobs exist within systems where funders, boards, lawmakers, and political actors may be instructing you to do something that conflicts with your ethics, your training, and your professional commitment to truth.
So the questions become: What do we do when authority tells us to pull back instead of lean in? How do we maintain integrity when the pressure to stay silent grows louder?
That’s why this article feels more urgent now than the day I wrote it.
Milgram taught us that authority can nudge ordinary people into doing extraordinary harm — not because they are malicious, but because humans are conditioned to follow orders. Interpretation today sits at that crossroads. And our field must choose courage over compliance.
In this updated version, I speak directly to this moment: the rise in censorship, political interference, and the policing of narratives in cultural and environmental institutions. I offer strategies for staying grounded in ethics, for navigating pressure, and for continuing to tell whole, complicated, necessary stories even when authority tries to narrow them.
This is not just an academic conversation.
It is a real, daily choice: Will we shrink, or will we stand?
Interpreters are truth-tellers. And truth-tellers have always been essential in times like these.
— Parker McMullen Bushman, January 2026
UPDATED ARTICLE:
The Weight of Authority in an Age of Erased Stories
By Parker McMullen Bushman
During the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a groundbreaking experiment to understand the power of authority. The experiment occurred in a laboratory in the heart of New York City.
Milgram invited participants to take part in a study of memory and learning. The participants were assigned the role of "teacher" and were seated in front of an electric shock generator, while another participant (an actor) was strapped into a chair in an adjacent room and played the role of "learner." The teacher was instructed to administer electric shocks to the learner whenever the learner made an error in a memory test.
The shocks were fake, but the teacher didn't know that. The experimenter, who was dressed in a white lab coat and acted as the authority figure, told the teacher that the shocks were real and that they needed to be administered to continue the experiment. At first, the teachers hesitated to administer the shocks, but as the experiment progressed and the learner's mistakes continued, many of the teachers began to obey the authority figure and administer what they thought were increasingly painful shocks. Despite the learner's cries of pain and pleas for mercy, many of the teachers continued to follow the instructions of the authority figure and administer the shocks. The results of the Milgram experiment have been widely discussed and debated in the psychological community, and the experiment has been both criticized and praised for its methods and findings. The results, while shocking, were also eye-opening. They showed that a significant number of people were willing to ignore their moral and ethical principles and blindly follow the instructions of an authority figure, even when those instructions were in direct conflict with their values. This has important implications for our understanding of how authority and obedience interact and highlights the importance of considering the role of authority in shaping human behavior and human understanding of the world around us.
Psychologist Stanley Milgram. Photo courtesy of Harvard University's Department of Psychology.
The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what T has been told are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. T is led to believe that (in following E's instructions) he or she is administering electric shocks as punishment for imperfect performance – though in reality there were no shocks. The putative "electro-shock generator" played pre-recorded exclamations of discomfort, progressing to screams and pleas for mercy as the "shock level" increased. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
The Milgram experiment serves as a cautionary tale for interpreters and educators because it demonstrates the potential for authority figures to influence and shape the behavior of others, even to the point of causing harm. When visitors come to our sites to learn about our resources, they have placed us in positions of authority. People look to us to gain knowledge and to gain a better understanding of the world around them. As interpreters, we are also often answering to those in positions of authority above us.
In the last few years, we have seen a growing movement to censor curricula, remove exhibits, sanitize historical narratives, and limit the stories that can be told in public spaces. Some organizations, interpreters, and educators have been told:
- “Don’t bring up race unless a visitor asks.”
- “Remove the LGBTQ+ history section.”
- “That exhibit about environmental injustice is too political.”
- “We need to avoid language that might make visitors uncomfortable.”
- “Tone down anything related to colonization.”
This is not theoretical. This is happening now — in museums, parks, historic sites, zoos, aquariums, nature centers, and classrooms across the country.
Like the participants in Milgram’s experiment, interpreters are faced with a choice: follow the pressure or follow their responsibility to tell the truth.
And unlike Milgram’s participants, the “shocks” are not imagined.
The consequences of erasing stories are real. For communities. For democracy. For the health of our field.
Authority Comes With Responsibility — Including Yours
Visitors place us in positions of authority when they ask questions, attend programs, read our exhibits, and trust us to help them understand the world. Our supervisors, boards, and funders also hold authority over us.
This dual pressure means interpreters hold both power and vulnerability.
But Milgram reminds us: Authority does not absolve responsibility.
We are accountable for the stories we choose to tell — and the ones we choose not to.
So we must ask ourselves:
- Are we telling the whole story?
- Are we allowing the silencing of perspectives?
- Are we unintentionally reinforcing harm by omitting truths?
Ethical interpretation requires courage.
Especially now.
Milgram reminds us: Authority does not absolve responsibility. We are accountable for the stories we choose to tell — and the ones we choose not to. Photo in the public domain.
How Interpreters Can Resist Harmful Pressure
Here are updated strategies to help interpreters navigate this moment with integrity and professionalism:
1. Know Your Professional Ethics — and Use Them as Your Shield
Your training, your code of ethics, and your field standards are not optional. They are armor. Ethics may not always win the day — but they give you a foundation to stand on.
2. Understand Your Biases and Stay in the Work
Self-reflection is not optional in times of censorship. When we don’t interrogate our own biases, we become vulnerable to the biases of others.
3. Stay Informed — Especially About Suppressed Topics
When institutions try to restrict content on race, gender, colonization, disability, climate, or justice, that is precisely when interpreters must double down on learning. Knowledge is a form of resistance. If you are being asked to remove a story, someone in your community is being erased.
4. Be Transparent: “Here’s What We Know, Here’s What We Don’t, Here’s What We’re Allowed to Say”
You don’t have to be defiant to remain ethical. You can practice transparency with visitors:
- “This topic is currently under review by our leadership.”
- “There are multiple perspectives on this history, and some are not represented here.”
- “Here’s what the research tells us, and here is how our institution currently frames it.”
Honesty builds trust — even when you’re limited.
5. Admit Mistakes and Model Growth
Censorship thrives when people are afraid to be wrong. Courage thrives when people acknowledge and repair. When you misstate something, or when content changes, say so. Visitors respect interpreters who show humility and transparency.
This moment demands interpreters who are thoughtful, informed, ethical, brave — and willing to tell the truth even when it is inconvenient. Photo in the public domain.
What Milgram Teaches Us Today
Milgram showed us how easily people can be guided toward harm by authority — but he also showed that some participants refused. Some said no. Some pushed back. Some spoke up for the person being harmed in the next room.
Interpretation today requires that kind of courage.
You are not administering shocks.
But you are deciding whether to let harm happen through omission.
We must remember:
- Our job is to illuminate, not dim the light.
- Our role is to expand stories, not shrink them.
- Our responsibility is to communities, not to discomfort.
This moment demands interpreters who are thoughtful, informed, ethical, brave — and willing to tell the truth even when it is inconvenient.
Now more than ever, people need the full story. And interpreters have the power — and obligation — to tell it.
Ultimately, the Milgram experiment highlights the need for interpreters to use their authority in a way that promotes critical thinking, autonomy, and ethical decision-making rather than simply promoting obedience and conformity. This means encouraging visitors to think for themselves, question authority, and act in accordance with their own values and beliefs. Interpreters can have a significant impact on the lives of their students. We have a responsibility to use our authority in a way that promotes growth, learning, and ethical behavior.