Self-fulfilling Prophecy

"A prophecy that is either true or false is not necessarily a self-fulfilling prophecy. But there are certain situations where predictions, whether true or false, can become self-fulfilling when they influence the behavior of people in such a way that the predicted event is brought about."

Thus wrote the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) in his book “The Open Society and Its Enemies” which was published in 1945.

The story of Joseph, which begins in this week’s portion, Vayeshev, makes me think about self-fulfilling prophecies. Joseph’s story is filled with predictions, or prophecies if you will, which appear in the form of dreams. First he dreams about him rising to greatness and his family bowing to him, then predicts his two fellow prisoners’ future by interpreting their dreams, and finally interprets Pharaoh’s dream, which indeed brings him to greatness.

Human history is filled with mythologies about prophecies and the prediction of the future; it is filled with prophets and with dreamers. A rational examination of all of these phenomena reveals the hopes and wishes of societies, their anxieties and fears and their ideas of their own future.

Karl Popper, who is known to most as a philosopher of science, offered his political critique in his book “The Open Society and its Enemies.”

To Popper, those predictions, or prophecies, prove dangerous as soon as totalitarian regimes attempt to implement them.

Popper wrote his book during the Second World War, and like many other thinkers of his time, tried to answer the question of what made them so appealing to the public. To answer the question, Popper traced Western thinking all the way back to Plato, himself grappling with his own “open society.”

Athens, according to Popper, was one of the earliest examples of an open society where the individual was considered a part of the political process and could influence its outcome through what we call Democracy. Plato, who also witnessed the flaws in the system, tried to find a solution through his world of ideal forms and with the suggestion that philosophers should become kings and vice versa. In other words, Plato sowed the seeds of fascism in Western thought by his suggestion to implement a sweeping ideal with few regards to the individual or the price they pay.

Living in an open society is difficult. Bearing the burden of one’s own responsibility to the political outcome is not easy. One should stay informed and form an opinion, and one should embrace the responsibility for the results of one’s decision.

This, Popper calls, “The Strain of Civilization.” 

Totalitarian Regimes, from the left and the right, attempted to alleviate this strain by providing a comforting vision of a brighter future, or what Popper calls “Utopian Social Engineering.” But as a philosopher of science, he also asked, on what grounds do they base their assumptions?

Popper’s problem with Historicism is that predictions of future human behavior don’t take into account human accumulation of knowledge. Since humans base their decisions on what they know, and since technology develops at a rate which makes it clear that we have no idea what we will know in the future, we can therefore have no idea of how humans would behave either. We might be able to analyze trends in human behavior, but we can never turn them into absolute scientific laws. 

Totalitarian regimes which strive for utopia, such as “perfect equality” or romanticism such as “Make America Great Again,” ignores human accumulated knowledge and disregards the individual. Perfect equality would undoubtedly benefit some, but also undoubtedly hurt others. Reversing progress towards a more conservative approach, might alleviate the anxieties of some, but also undoubtedly hurt others.

For Popper, any success of such approaches must rely on what we would call “self-fulfilling prophecies” where people deliberately change their behavior to fit a greater vision. 

In Popper’s words:

"The belief in the inevitability of a certain course of events may lead to the fulfilment of the prophecy, simply because it leads men to act in such a way that the predicted event is brought about. This is particularly true of ideologies, which shape men’s behavior in a way that is consistent with the doctrine itself."

And later:

"Marxism, as an ideology, is a doctrine which leads men to act in a way which brings about the fulfillment of the prophecy that the system will collapse, and that the revolution will occur. In this sense, Marxism is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Back to our portion, it is interesting to look at our classic texts and think about the different predictions of both our forefathers and mothers, as well as our prophets, and consider Popper's suggestion.  

To me, the important message here is that in order to reduce suffering in our societies, we must not be tempted into the lazy thinking of putting forth perfect predictions and trying to satisfy them. We must accept the “strain of civilization” with the humility in knowing that there is a lot that we can never know, but that here and now we should embrace the difficult task of making our own decisions about our fate.