Jim Stillman
Nevar“Birthers” and the end of the World
May 25th 2011 21:47
Many sincere people fervently believed the world would end on May 21, 2011. They faced the same dilemma as Birthers. When the sun rose on May 22 and when the president released his birth certificate, many in each group acted in similar fashion.
As nearly everyone in the world who watches television, reads a newspaper and doesn’t live isolated in a cave knows, Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, had predicted the “Rapture” and the end of the world would happen on May 21. Mr. Camping is not just another itinerant preacher. He created the Family Radio Network, a company that now owns 66 radio stations, assets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and an equal number of listeners and followers. For his most recent “end of the world” prediction he and others put up thousands of billboards in many countries and engaged in promoting and warning of the upcoming Judgment day.
This wasn’t the first time Rev. Camping predicted the end of the world; he made the same prediction for May 21, 1988, and September 7, 1999. He now asserts that Judgment Day and the end of the world will, for sure, be on October 21, 2011.
Many people accepted the recent date and acted accordingly. There are stories in newspapers of those spending life savings, retirement funds, refusing to make mortgage or car payments, selling or simply discarding clothes or personal property, including valuable jewelry or abandoning real property all in the certainty that, after May 21; it would not matter.
What happens when the world didn’t end? Something in their most sincere belief system was confronted by an inconsistent set of facts. The answer is that the conundrum may, in fact, reaffirm the belief in the wisdom of the Harold Camping. Enter the psychological term condition, cognitive dissonance.
Dissonance is created when one is confronted with new information that is wholly contradictory and inconsistent with preconceived beliefs and opinions.
People have a need to resolve these conflicts however they can. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one's belief, it will often result in misperception or rejection or refutation of the new information, seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade others to restore consonance. There is a fascinating study in a 1956 book, Where Prophecy Fails, by Leon Festinger. A cult had believed Aliens would destroy the world and that only the cult members would survive.
According to the study, when the world did not end, the cult members had a problem. They faced acute cognitive dissonance: had they been the victim of a hoax? Had they donated their worldly possessions in vain? Most members rationalized that the world had been given a second chance by the Aliens. Their group gained adherents and more certain and dedicated ones.
The identical situation applies to the “Birthers”, those people who maintain that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, believe his “real” name is “Barack Soetoro”, that he never graduated from Harvard Law School, did not attend Occidental College in Los Angeles and then transferred and graduated from Columbia University and many, many other “facts”. They have been presented with documentary evidence which contradicts their fiercely held beliefs and they endure cognitive dissonance. Those who hate Barack Obama (and the operative word is ""hate") become more convinced that he is evil, a liar and not eligible to be president. Only a handful of politicians who doubted Mr. Obama's credentials have recanted; others keep silent not wanting to antagonize the still substantial number of registered Republicans who are Birthers and who vote in primaries.
By the way, Harold Camping has revised his prediction. The “Rapture” and the end of the world will really happen on October 21st, 2011. Believers will now re-create their reality.
For the record, I do not question Rev. Camping’s or his followers’ religious beliefs. Nor will I delight in their discomfort. There is a German word that describes one’s pleasure being derived from the suffering or embarrassment of others: schadenfreude. It is truly an unworthy feeling, although we all laugh at the actor slipping on a banana peel or the old “pie in the face” gag. Perhaps we laugh because we know it’s not real.
To the Birthers, it is all too real and that’s the pity.
As nearly everyone in the world who watches television, reads a newspaper and doesn’t live isolated in a cave knows, Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, had predicted the “Rapture” and the end of the world would happen on May 21. Mr. Camping is not just another itinerant preacher. He created the Family Radio Network, a company that now owns 66 radio stations, assets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and an equal number of listeners and followers. For his most recent “end of the world” prediction he and others put up thousands of billboards in many countries and engaged in promoting and warning of the upcoming Judgment day.
This wasn’t the first time Rev. Camping predicted the end of the world; he made the same prediction for May 21, 1988, and September 7, 1999. He now asserts that Judgment Day and the end of the world will, for sure, be on October 21, 2011.
Many people accepted the recent date and acted accordingly. There are stories in newspapers of those spending life savings, retirement funds, refusing to make mortgage or car payments, selling or simply discarding clothes or personal property, including valuable jewelry or abandoning real property all in the certainty that, after May 21; it would not matter.
What happens when the world didn’t end? Something in their most sincere belief system was confronted by an inconsistent set of facts. The answer is that the conundrum may, in fact, reaffirm the belief in the wisdom of the Harold Camping. Enter the psychological term condition, cognitive dissonance.
Dissonance is created when one is confronted with new information that is wholly contradictory and inconsistent with preconceived beliefs and opinions.
People have a need to resolve these conflicts however they can. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one's belief, it will often result in misperception or rejection or refutation of the new information, seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade others to restore consonance. There is a fascinating study in a 1956 book, Where Prophecy Fails, by Leon Festinger. A cult had believed Aliens would destroy the world and that only the cult members would survive.
According to the study, when the world did not end, the cult members had a problem. They faced acute cognitive dissonance: had they been the victim of a hoax? Had they donated their worldly possessions in vain? Most members rationalized that the world had been given a second chance by the Aliens. Their group gained adherents and more certain and dedicated ones.
The identical situation applies to the “Birthers”, those people who maintain that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, believe his “real” name is “Barack Soetoro”, that he never graduated from Harvard Law School, did not attend Occidental College in Los Angeles and then transferred and graduated from Columbia University and many, many other “facts”. They have been presented with documentary evidence which contradicts their fiercely held beliefs and they endure cognitive dissonance. Those who hate Barack Obama (and the operative word is ""hate") become more convinced that he is evil, a liar and not eligible to be president. Only a handful of politicians who doubted Mr. Obama's credentials have recanted; others keep silent not wanting to antagonize the still substantial number of registered Republicans who are Birthers and who vote in primaries.
By the way, Harold Camping has revised his prediction. The “Rapture” and the end of the world will really happen on October 21st, 2011. Believers will now re-create their reality.
For the record, I do not question Rev. Camping’s or his followers’ religious beliefs. Nor will I delight in their discomfort. There is a German word that describes one’s pleasure being derived from the suffering or embarrassment of others: schadenfreude. It is truly an unworthy feeling, although we all laugh at the actor slipping on a banana peel or the old “pie in the face” gag. Perhaps we laugh because we know it’s not real.
To the Birthers, it is all too real and that’s the pity.
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