Note on “When Prophecy Fails”

November 2nd, 2007 Posted in Reductionism

The shared problem for mankind is to describe and understand the universe (the all and everything including us). There are multiple parallel ways that call on different types of knowing and different tests for truth.

The classic realms are the familiar material and ideal. I would add others that are in everyday use but not usually recognized as formally different modes–like design (art), sentiment, practice. Each has a separate source, identity, and test for truth.

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CHART: Identifying Some of the Realms of Experience

Realm…… Source…… Identity…… Test

Material…… Senses………. Empirical…….. Science

Ideal………… Imagination. Spirit…………… Faith

Design (art). Intuition……. Aesthetic……. Beauty

Sentiment…. Emotion……. Visceral………. Feelings

Practice……… Experience….Craft………….. Pragmatic

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Reduction only occurs between realms when there is an objective overlap. Then the different tests for truth can offer contradictory results. Otherwise the realms are not intersecting–they are separate existences, separate worlds. mutually exclusive.

We are all aware of incidents of contradiction where the explanations of a particular event diverge. Water dousing, expulsion of evil spirits, identification of character traits, haunting ghosts, dreams, luck, transportation of consciousness. These are all familiar subjects for discussion, fictional treatment and sociological analysis. The reductionist conflict can be an entertainment as well as a deadly encounter.

A case in point: a study of a millennial cult by a group of social psychologists reported by Festinger and others in “When Prophecy Fails.” The leader of a small cult predicted the end of the world on a near future date certain–an empirical event predicted by ideal concepts and therefore subject to both scientific and faith based tests.

There were two questions for the scientists: (1) the physical prediction and whether it occurred or not and (2) the social and psychological order that generated the prediction and how it would react if the prediction failed. Festinger emphasized the reactive phase.

A third issue concerns the social order of the infiltration of the cult and its consequences. The academics presumed their own objectivity and failed to anticipate that their spying would become an active part of the event.

Two levels of reduction at work here. Festinger’s empirical test of the cult prediction and our soft-science critique of Festinger’s hard-science method.

The world didn’t end. The space ship expected to evacuate the faithful did’t land. The failed disaster a disaster in itself. But the cult members used their own conceptual resources to rationalize it–perhaps the intervention of the social psychologists tipped the balance against total destruction–and they kept on believing. The faith test reinforced the faith.

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Festinger and associates, were a group of professionally well regarded social psychologists in the Kurt Lewin tradition, specialized in the development and use of scientific experiments. Such projects are notoriously difficult to set up for social groups and societies. These academics were especially ingenious in finding experiment-like situations in real life.

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The sensual-empirical test only convinces the followers of the secular-scientific way. It has little value against the test of faith of the religious-spiritualists who have their own reasons. So even though Festinger (and Houdini and the like) score their points they do not win the game for which no universally acceptable score can be kept.

The critical issue for the ideal realm lies within. The faith test can not decisively choose among competing theories. The faith that makes it immune also makes it imprecise.

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Festinger’s narrative could be converted into a Hollywood movie or a TV dramatic series by adding in a love story of a research assistant from academia and the daughter of the prophet. A comic Romeo and Juliet counterpoint to the comic struggle of the academics and the cult members.