Lisa Simpson revised her essay when she went to Washington. When she was done, she walked into the auditorium and said, “I would like to read a different essay, if I may.” Sufficed to say, it was all a little much for the editors of Reading Digest.¹⁾

Lisa had the best essay by far, way better than “Lift High Your Lamp, Green Lady” and “USA A’OK.” She knew this even though she didn’t win a prize. She wasn’t praised just for participating, either. She concluded herself that she had succeeded. She saw the reaction she got from the audience when she delivered her key argument:

The city of Washington was built on a stagnant swamp some 200 years ago, and very little has changed. It stank then, and it stinks now. Only today, it is the fetid stench of corruption that hangs in the air. And who did I see taking a bribe but the "Honorable" Bob Arnold! Don't worry, Congressman, I'm sure you can buy all the votes you need with your dirty money! And this will be one nation, under the dollar, with liberty and justice for none. (Wikisimpsons, “Cesspool on the Potomac”, Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, 1991, http://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Cesspool_on_the_Potomac)

OK, so the thesis statement could clearer, and it could more directly answer a why question, rather than just muckrake. Still, Lisa had a realization. When she saw the congressman take the money, she not only had new information, but a problem. In a sense, her essay is a solution to that problem. So she knew that she had succeeded because, in the end, she saw that she herself was changed by this discovery. In a cultural analysis of this episode, — suggests that, in spite of Lisa’s discovery, the episode ends with her naive affirmation of the idea of democracy. When the congressman is expelled from Congress, she exclaims, “The system works!” I would like to suggest that the system in question is research. Lisa didn’t care how other people judged her work. She examined herself and concluded she was different. She couldn’t see the world the same way again.

Several years later (or later that same year) in preparation for Springfield’s anniversary, Lisa sets about researching the town’s founder, Jebediah Springfield. After a visit to the Springfield Historical Society, she finds evidence that Jebediah Springfield is actually Hans Sprungfeld. She concludes from this that the origin of Springfield is not what she learned in school. Rather than a city on a hill, it was a den of pirates. When she consults with historian Hollis Hurlbut²⁾, he rejects her argument out of hand, and her evidence. Teacher and student, guru and disciple, mentor and mentee are all very rewarding relationships. But they are defined by a tension that cannot be removed. So, Lisa has to break way, and keep going on her own. She knows what she is saying makes sense. The pieces fit.

Finally she wins over Hurlbut, not with her own logic, but when her persistent critique forces him to admit his own irrational commitment to an illusion. In this episode, Lisa ultimately chooses not to publish her work. She says, “The myth of Jebediah Springfield has value too” as a cultural symbol. I accept this more than “The system works!” It is more honest about the relationship of knowledge to reality. She doesn’t say that she will deny what she knows, of course. More importantly, though, is that the conclusion she reached changed her, and so it doesn’t matter whether people know what she knows, or agree with her, or tell her she is right. Again, the value of her research was to bring her to a point where she cannot ever see the world the same way again.

Lisa is often a vexing figure. When the teachers at her school go on strike, she teaches herself, but this teaching consists of reproducing the atrocious intellectual conditions of Springfield Elementary: “Is that gum? Is that gum?” (citation needed) “Very good, Denise.” (Mehan 1979: 2xx). Sigh. Later she panics and Marge can only mollify her by writing an A on a piece of paper. I prefer to think of her when she learns, publicly, that she is failing gym. “Gym? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!”

Her relationship to knowledge is often troubling. We see her smarmily correcting adults. (“It’s not foilage, Mom. It’s foliage.” [citation needed]) At times she obsesses over her cultural capital, showing off her knowledge of fine art and literature. She pleads with Stephen Jay Gould to support her position on some matter. Sometimes, she’s just prop for Bart, offering some kind of pop psych koan, or silently providing a rocket for a message. Other times, though, she shows her friends tide pools, and she sneaks into a museum of Egyptology. Those moments, and her research³⁾ are my favorites. This is where she models true education.