Self-fulfilling prophecies are actually lies

stealthyeliminator · May 8, 2015

I was thinking about this earlier and when I looked it up, I was surprised to see that self-fulfilling prophecy is practically defined as such. The original claim is a untrue, but making the claim causes what is claimed to become true at some point in the future.

Since it is initially a lie, I cannot condone the telling of self-fulfilling prophecies.

I began thinking about it when I saw something which reminded me of pretentious advertisements which make claims about a business's integration or influence in a community. Like "X community's #1 Y business." If the advertisement is successful people may believe that the company is indeed ranked #1 by some legitimate ranking system, and such might influence their business selection, and thus lead to that company actually holding a market share which effectually puts them at that claimed ranking. The initial claim, however, may have well still been a lie.

stealthyeliminator · May 8, 2015

Nightmare said:
All supposedly rational prophesy is fallacious for men and nature being capable of novelty.

That is the thesis of The Poverty of Historicism, that men have free will, which foundations are developed in The Open Society and Its Enemies.

One must dig a little deeper into quantum mechanics and cosmology for the reasonable observation that nature is capable of novelty. In Popper's terms, determinism and reductionism are fallacious. Smolin calls it The Cosmological Fallacy, trying to attribute the Newtonian Principle to reality.

I had to make about 5 google searches to begin to understand what you're saying, but I think I learned something, so that's positive, eh? lol

stealthyeliminator · May 8, 2015

Hmm breaking from the use of G00gle would be difficult, I use it hundreds of times per day at work, and probably on some days literally that instead of being an exaggeration. In the technology services business, I'm not sure how I'd function without G00gle. Do you use alternative search engines, or none at all? Of course, I could still use it at work and just not for enlightenment, I'm just curious if you use alternative search engines.

utbagpiper · May 9, 2015

We see this in a lot of areas in politics.

Opponents of capital punishment have said that executions do nothing to deter crime and are more expensive than life in prison. They have done their level best to make sure it is more expensive and takes so long that it can't be much of a deterrent except to the criminal executed who then has a much harder time ever again committing another crime.

Here in the Salt Lake area we had a new highway proposed. Opponents said it was too expensive. Then went on to double its cost with lawsuits, delays, realignments, etc over "environmental" concerns. We finally got it built and opened and on a per-passenger-mile basis it was still less costly than the heavy commuter rail line that went in on an existing right-of-way. Both the commuter rail and the new highway run parallel to the existing I-15 that was heavily grid locked at rush hour. Rail opened first, then a few weeks later the new highway opened. The rail made no noticeable effect on traffic load on I-15. The new highway made an immediate and noticeable improvement.

A favorite tactic of tree huggers here in the West is to shut down dirt roads and motorized trails, close down grazing permits, and then claim, "There are no roads or trails, this land qualifies for Wilderness designation".

Or, to put things another way, if you tell a big enough lie, often and long enough, enough people will believe you that those who don't, won't matter.

Charles

Citizen · May 9, 2015

stealthyeliminator said:
I was thinking about this earlier and when I looked it up, I was surprised to see that self-fulfilling prophecy is practically defined as such. The original claim is a untrue, but making the claim causes what is claimed to become true at some point in the future.

Since it is initially a lie, I cannot condone the telling of self-fulfilling prophecies.

I began thinking about it when I saw something which reminded me of pretentious advertisements which make claims about a business's integration or influence in a community. Like "X community's #1 Y business." If the advertisement is successful people may believe that the company is indeed ranked #1 by some legitimate ranking system, and such might influence their business selection, and thus lead to that company actually holding a market share which effectually puts them at that claimed ranking. The initial claim, however, may have well still been a lie.

I would go back and take a hard look at whoever defined a self-fulfilling prophecy as a lie. There is something fishy about that which I cannot put my finger on.

But, I can think through on it a little bit.

The first thing I notice is your example, and the examples given by another poster, are not prophecies--they do not make a predictive statement about the future. "I am going to letter in football." "The dam is going to fail and wash out the valley."

Separately, I wonder how the "definer" distinguished between statements of intention and predictions. For example, if I say it is going to rain tomorrow, that is a prediction. If I say during a sales meeting that I am going to be the highest-selling salesman next quarter, it can be a prediction or it can be a statement of my intention to work really hard for the next three months. I'm sure we've all had stuff like the latter thrown in our face later when it did not come to pass. I have this urge to ask the baiter if he is so dense he actually believed I was making a prediction rather than voicing an intention.

And, when you think about it, there would be a whole category of "self-fulfilling prophecies" that nobody would argue are lies or bad. For example, the CEO who says "We are going to be number one in our industry by the end of the year." Then the CEO inspires most of the personnel to make that happen. And, then it does happen.

So, something seems a little fishy about that definition. Just can't put my finger on it.

stealthyeliminator · May 9, 2015

Citizen said:
I would go back and take a hard look at whoever defined a self-fulfilling prophecy as a lie. There is something fishy about that which I cannot put my finger on.

But, I can think through on it a little bit.

The first thing I notice is your example, and the examples given by another poster, are not prophecies--they do not make a predictive statement about the future. "I am going to letter in football." "The dam is going to fail and wash out the valley."

Separately, I wonder how the "definer" distinguished between statements of intention and predictions. For example, if I say it is going to rain tomorrow, that is a prediction. If I say during a sales meeting that I am going to be the highest-selling salesman next quarter, it can be a prediction or it can be a statement of my intention to work really hard for the next three months. I'm sure we've all had stuff like the latter thrown in our face later when it did not come to pass. I have this urge to ask the baiter if he is so dense he actually believed I was making a prediction rather than voicing an intention.

And, when you think about it, there would be a whole category of "self-fulfilling prophecies" that nobody would argue are lies or bad. For example, the CEO who says "We are going to be number one in our industry by the end of the year." Then the CEO inspires most of the personnel to make that happen. And, then it does happen.

So, something seems a little fishy about that definition. Just can't put my finger on it.

I could be jumping to conclusions.

Perhaps not everything that the average person would consider a self-fulfilling prophecy is a lie. However, I'm not sure if the average person uses the phrase a bit more loosely than it was originally intended. I'm not sure when the phrase was coined if it was intended to refer to actual prophecies, but perhaps it was. I don't necessarily believe predictions, guesses, explanations of beliefs about the future, or statements of intent are lies just because they're structured as statements of fact, since as you pointed out, that's just a common way of communicating them and isn't intended to be deceitful. I think there's a fine line, and it's a slippery slope, though.

I do believe that some statements which could qualify as self-fulfilling prophecies are lies, even if not all of them necessarily do.

ETA the definition I'm going by is "The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true." http://www.jstor.org/stable/4609267

Citizen · May 9, 2015

stealthyeliminator said:
I could be jumping to conclusions.

Perhaps not everything that the average person would consider a self-fulfilling prophecy is a lie. However, I'm not sure if the average person uses the phrase a bit more loosely than it was originally intended. I'm not sure when the phrase was coined if it was intended to refer to actual prophecies, but perhaps it was. I don't necessarily believe predictions, guesses, explanations of beliefs about the future, or statements of intent are lies just because they're structured as statements of fact, since as you pointed out, that's just a common way of communicating them and isn't intended to be deceitful. I think there's a fine line, and it's a slippery slope, though.

I do believe that some statements which could qualify as self-fulfilling prophecies are lies, even if not all of them necessarily do.

ETA the definition I'm going by is "The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true." http://www.jstor.org/stable/4609267

I found out what's going on. Couldn't access the jstor link, but I did google it.

The Wikipedia article credits Merton as the guy who coined the term. If he coined it, he also got to define it.

His definition expressly includes the falsehood. Thus, by definition, all the examples I gave which did not include falsehood were not self-fulfilling prophecies. In order to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, it must, by definition, include a beginning falsehood.

The first three google returns that showed the meaning right on the google returns page omitted the falsehood angle. So, I am guessing that over time the usage expanded the meaning, in effect re-defining the term. Which is just another way of saying people who didn't know what it meant used it wrong.

stealthyeliminator · May 9, 2015

Citizen said:
I found out what's going on. Couldn't access the jstor link, but I did google it.

The Wikipedia article credits Merton as the guy who coined the term. If he coined it, he also got to define it.

His definition expressly includes the falsehood. Thus, by definition, all the examples I gave which did not include falsehood were not self-fulfilling prophecies. In order to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, it must, by definition, include a beginning falsehood.

The first three google returns that showed the meaning right on the google returns page omitted the falsehood angle. So, I am guessing that over time the usage expanded the meaning, in effect re-defining the term. Which is just another way of saying people who didn't know what it meant used it wrong.

Yeah, I know, Wikipedia is where I actually copied the definition from. I just didn't want it to seem like I was relying on Wikipedia for my information

The link I posted is the cite listed on Wikipedia. It looks like the site requires registration to read the full document, and I'm no inclined to have yet another online account at yet another website.

I guess that kind of makes me a liar :O It's a fine line, eh?

stealthyeliminator · May 9, 2015

Nightmare said:
The Antioch Review Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer, 1948, article,'The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy' by Robert K. Merton includes this, "... the irascible genius Marx in his revision of Hegel's theory of historical change; ..."

This is precisely the topic thesis of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, 1945, 2013), Volume II The High Tide of Prophesy with sections and chapters:
The Rise of Oracular Philosophy
11 The Aristotelian Roots of Hegelianism
12 Hegel and the New Tribalism
Marx's Method
13 Marx's Sociological Determinism
14 The Autonomy of Sociology
15 Economic Historicism
16 The Classes
17 The Legal and the Social System
Marx's Prophesy
18 The Coming of Socialism
19 The Social Revolution
20 Capitalism and Its Fate
21 An Evaluation of the Prophesy
Marx's Ethics
22 The Moral Theory of Historicism
The Aftermath
23 The Sociology of Knowledge
25 Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason
Conclusion
25 Has History Any Meaning?
Addenda ... Notes ... Index

All this premise to The Poverty of Historicism in which talons we struggle.

http://www.amazon.com/Open-Society-Its-Enemies/dp/0691158134
http://www.amazon.com/Poverty-Historicism-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415278465

If one could only read one of the two, which would be your recommendation? Open Society and It's Enemies?

stealthyeliminator · May 9, 2015

Nightmare said:
NO! The Poverty of Historicism is just 176 pages. My edition, hardback, is pocket sized and perfect for reading anywhere quiet. 'The Open Society' is 800 pages, with 250 pages of end material.

'Open Society' makes frequent reference to Plato and Aristotle, so I have acquired 7,000 pages of their complete works on my e-reader.

Ahh, good thing I asked, then

Citizen · May 10, 2015

stealthyeliminator said:
SNIP I think there's a fine line, and it's a slippery slope, though.

I don't know why this jumped to mind only now; but, you'll also want to factor in the intent behind the deception.

One the biggest self-fulfilling prophecies in English political history was (committed?) by Sir Edward Coke with regard to Magna Carta.

Magna Carta was originally statement of rights of the nobility against the king, obtained by the nobility at sword-point at Runnymeade in 1215.

Edward Coke was an interesting fellow. For much of his early legal career, he was a bit of a lackey of the monarch. When he was elevated to a senior judgeship, he suddenly, inexplicably changed his stripes and became an ardent supporter of rights and freedom. So much so that King James I or Charles I promoted him to Chief Justice of the Kings Bench to shut him up--as chief justice he would rule on fewer cases. It didn't particularly work.

It was Coke who turned Magna Carta into the palladium of liberty it is viewed today. Out of the sky blue. With no historical support. Basically, he just lied Magna Carta into something with a much greater scope than it had before. He didn't really change the rights enumerated in Magna Carta; he greatly expanded who it applied to.

And, today, many people consider Magna Carta as a great document upon which many English rights are founded. A textbook example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Citizen · May 10, 2015

Nightmare said:
There has always in recorded history been tension among the Tyrant(s), the nobility and the commoners.

Aristotle, Politics 4, folio 1294 paraphrased: It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic [among the aristocracy] when they are filled by election.

Holy smoke! I'd come across the idea of elections by lot before, but it never sank in. What you're saying (Aristotle) is that democracy is not one-man/one-vote, but selection of office-holders from among all by lot.

Oh! My! God! Is that ever a massive change in definition!

Self-fulfilling prophecies are actually lies

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