Friday, July 17, 2015

Operation Jade Helm 15 and When Prophecy Fails

I'm sure you have read about Operation Jade Helm 15 and the commotion it has raised in the Southwest, especially Texas.  Bilbo recently proposed some viable suggestions for making a lemonade out of this lemon.  There's more to it.  Whether you take it as nutters on the loose who got worked up about nothing or the vigilance by concerned citizens, it also bears interest from a social psychological point of view.  

Specifically, this has to do with the theory of cognitive dissonance.  This refers to a situation in which there exists a contradiction between a belief and what is found to be reality.  Specifically, if a group believes that a military training exercise will lead to a curtailment of civil liberties, confiscation of firearms, and martial law but those dire events don't come to pass, the believers should experience cognitive dissonance.  And they will find some way to reduce that dissonance.  But how?

Many years ago, social psychologists Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter studied the social processes of a group that believed that the world was coming to an end through a flood on a specific date (December 20, 1955) but they would be carried off by a flying saucer.  The date came, and the flood didn't happen..

False alarm, folks!  In did not end, either with a bang or a whimper.

Anyway, Festinger had an idea that this would happen; what he was concerned with was how the group took that non-experience afterward.  Was it: (a)  Gee, it didn't happen, our bad.  And feel like a bunch of boobs* afterwards.  Or (b)  We just got the date wrong; our calculations are a little off.**  Or how about (c) Our faith warded off the end of the world.  As explained in their book, When Prophecy Fails, they chose to view their efforts and faith as being instrumental in having the God of Earth not cause the flood!  Out of this naturalistic study and experimental studies done later, Festinger, Reinken, and Schachter formulated a theory of cognitive dissonance to deal with how people handle this absence of fit between their expectations and what will happen! 

Now I'm totally expecting Operation Jade Helm 15 to be a non-newsworthy event.  Not like Kim Kardashian's keister!  So how are the concerned citizens of Bastrop and other places in Texas going to react to this disappointing non-event?  My prediction is that this motely group of loons will decide that their organizing scared the bejeesus out of the U.S. Army and caused it to back off!  And that way they can give each other high fives and feel like the cat's pyjamas and hold a victory parade down Bastrop's main street!  Someone might even sell t-shirts with the message: "Operation Jade Helm: First Place" or "Texas 1 Army 0, or "I Survived Operation Jade Helm".

Then someone will point out that some earlier training exercises went unnoticed.  And they will wonder what dastardly deeds occurred during those earlier operations.  Like, what about the Louisiana Maneuvers of 1940?

*Not that kind.
**Like the Millerites in 1844.


Can that be a threatening slogan?

8 comments:

allenwoodhaven said...

Excellent analysis, Angel. I agree that they'll be convinced they stopped this "Obama takeover". The leaders probably already have it printed on t-shirts and having it needlepointed on pillows. It's amazing what humans can delude themselves into thinking.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer said...

It sounds like they can't lose with that thinking. Odd minds work in strange ways.

TexWisGirl said...

texas will puff up its chest and take credit for scaring the feds back.

Mike said...

I don't think the extreme right wing crazies are smart enough to recognize cognitive dissonance.

Françoise said...

Bastrop Texas sounds not too important. Why would someone want it?

Vinegar Tom said...

The slogan for Jade Helm sounds like something a dominatrix would adopt.

Cloudia said...

Aw Angel you are intelligent, creative and obviously paying attention. You are my fave prophetess now:


"My prediction is that this motely group of loons will decide that their organizing scared the bejeesus out of the U.S. Army and caused it to back off! And that way they can give each other high fives and feel like the cat's pyjamas and hold a victory parade down Bastrop's main street! Someone might even sell t-shirts with the message: "Operation Jade Helm: First Place" or "Texas 1 Army 0, or "I Survived Operation Jade Helm". "

Bilbo said...

There's a great picture out on the Internet of a smiling President Obama holding up a t-shirt that reads, "I invaded Texas, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!" As I predicted in my post (thanks for the shout!), I'm sure that when nothing happens, the tinfoil hat brigades will loudly declare victory and buy more guns so they'll be better ready for the next attempt by the dastardly feds to conquer Texas.