Flying Saucer Cults 2020 Style: or Why Political Discourse is Crazy Right Now

“A man with convictions is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree, and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.

We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in the belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks.

But a man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to that belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable and irrevocable, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but more convinced of the truth than ever before. Indeed, he may even show new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.”

This was written by Leon Festinger in 1954, in a classic social science study of flying saucer cults called When Prophecy Fails. Forgive the masculine language. I’m quoting verbatim and back in 1954, this was gender-neutral. Not Grandma’s style but she is a scholar.

Gather around and have some cookies while Grandma explains why a certain political party is having a group mental breakdown over Recent Events in November. It’s all about cognitive dissonance. Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard this term before, but people have been throwing it around like spiked eggnog at a nursing home, but stick with me. I’m going to explain.

When Prophecy Fails was an awesome read back in the day. And it’s still taught in universities. Kevin Avruch placed this book in my hand in 1983 and it was old then. This book changed my intellectual stance and my life. It’s also a fun and fascinating read on human behavior that every responsible American should be reading right now. And it's about flying saucer cults.

Its application to present-day nonsense is pretty darn clear. No, no, it’s not that a certain party has been kidnapped by aliens but it’s pretty darn close.

Festinger starts with a fabulous chapter called “Unfulfilled Prophecies and Disappointed Messiahs” which begins with the long quote I put forward at the start of this essay. He then provides a list of five conditions where social science would expect an individual or group to have increased fervor and commitment, following a core belief becoming disconfirmed by stark facts.

Condition #1. Belief must be deep.
The belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how that person behaves.

I think many people in the US today with any political awareness on either side of the aisle satisfy this condition.

Condition #2. If the individual has taken important action, it’s harder to walk away from the belief.
The person holding the belief must have committed themselves to it; that is, for the sake of the belief, the person must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater the individual’s commitment to the belief.

Showing up at a rally can be forgotten or even explained away. Painting your car as a rolling advertisement for your belief, a bit harder. Constantly hammering away on Twitter? That one can be hard for a “blue check” account, especially politicians, given Twitter’s long memory and screenshots.

Condition #3. The belief has an anchor in the real world.
The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the truth.

Thus, it’s a bit easier to drop out of Qanon (unless the person has been placed into elective office) because the beliefs aren’t rock-solid rooted in any reality.

It may be a bit harder for individuals to walk away from beliefs about election fraud which is more rooted in reality.

Condition #4. Something has happened that forces a reckoning.
Something undeniable and disconfirming must occur and it must be recognized by the person holding the belief.

And here we have it: the election returns.

Condition #5. The individual must have social support.
“It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence we have specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect that the belief to be maintained and believers [will] attempt to proselytize or persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.

This occurs because (1) the conditions are right for this behavior and (2) we are talking about social human behavior that we are all, every one of us, likely to get caught up in. It doesn’t matter if you’re left or right, these are the conditions that are the foundation of polarization in this country and any other country on the planet.

I am going to start discussing this book (so you lazy children don’t HAVE to read it) in a series of articles here from your old social scientist Grandma. But I’m going to leave it right here for now while I go pick up my ham at the smoker’s. More soon. Don’t worry, there ARE SOLUTIONS if you KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM is! And why we are all just one step away from flying saucer belief systems and we must be more careful with our country.

Love, Grandma