Last week I wrote about prophets before their time, but there is more to be said about prophesy itself. Jewish history contains a tableau of both genuine and false prophets. Swept as he was into the vortex of political upheaval in the seventh century BCE, the great prophet Jeremiah vehemently railed against those he considered false prophets. He proclaimed, “They speak of the delusions of their own minds.” Jeremiah was intuitively wary of self-promoters.
For Jeremiah, these reckless oracles of the future were both perverse and dangerous. The reason may be “the irresistible pull of irrational behavior,” as theorized by Ori and Rom Brafman in their book Sway. Or, as the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein put it, we “human beings are not rational animals; we are rationalizing animals.”
When the exigencies of life seem to cascade uncontrollably, especially in periods of upheaval or social tumult, the desire to regain control often leads us to put our fate in the hands of dubious leaders who promise they will “save us.” While It may be psychologically or emotionally satisfying to do so, putting our fate in their hands often results in catastrophe, disappointment or bizarre results.
I believe that the paradigm of failed prophesy, rampant throughout history, is universal, and that its implications are relevant to us both as a society and to each of us as individuals.
A classic study of this phenomenon was chronicled in the book When Prophesy Fails, written by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956.
The episode upon which they focused began in late September 1954 with a headline in a local newspaper that read: “Prophecy from Planet Clarion Call to City: Flee that Flood. It’ll Swamp Us on December 21, Outer Space Tells Suburbanite.”
The article continued, “Lake City will be destroyed by a flood from Great Lake just before dawn, Dec. 21, according to a suburban housewife. Mrs. Marian Keech. She says the prophecy is not her own. It is the purport of many messages she has received by automatic writing. According to Mrs. Keech the messages were sent by superior beings from a planet called ‘Clarion.’ These beings have been visiting the earth, she says, in what we call flying saucers.”
Two of the researchers contacted Mrs. Keech in early October 1954. Their purpose was to chronicle the events leading up to December 20 when at midnight the flood was predicted to occur. Their operational theory was that “A person with a conviction is a hard person to change. Tell that person you disagree, and they turn away. Show that person facts or figures and they question your sources. Appeal to logic and they fail to see your point.”
The researchers wondered what would happen if, at the appointed hour on December 20, the visitor from outer space who was supposed to rescue believers in a flying saucer did not appear?
Though one might presume that the individuals who had sold their homes, disposed of all their possessions and given up their jobs would acknowledge that their belief had been disconfirmed, it did not happen. The researchers concluded that given certain conditions the “individual (who had committed themselves to the disconfirmed prophesy) will frequently emerge not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of their beliefs.”
Given these conditions Festinger and his colleagues predicted that the belief “would be maintained and the believers would attempt to proselytize and persuade nonmembers that the belief is [still] correct.”
This may help explain the current political landscape. Adherents on both sides of the political divide today can’t comprehend why the other side doesn’t understand that they’re “wrong,” that promises haven’t been kept nor predictions fulfilled.
We know that disconfirmation will not change the faith of those who support a person or an ideology, especially when they have publicly pledged themselves.
So, if political support isn’t entirely about logic then what is it for which we can hope? Perhaps the best we can do now is to get off the sidelines, work for officials and policies we can support, engage constructively with those with whom we disagree and get to work making this nation of ours better. And I think that transformation is in the making. A wave of empathy is rolling across the nation. It is in the incredible mixture of people of every race / religion / age / nationality peacefully walking in protests in every state of the Union. It is the fast-growing recognition of how black people have suffered and been killed by police across the country, but it is also in the growing willingness of municipalities to confront this wrongdoing and the need to address improper police practices head on. It is also in the growing awareness of the under-served, under-schooled and medically under-cared for in our society, hopefully with an emerging determination to eliminate these stains on our national character.
Above all we can be hopeful because there is a radiating determination among more of our citizenry to make of this country a more perfect nation. That’s our job to do, so let’s get on with it.