Blog and Mablog The Cassandra Effect Posted on Tuesday, May 29, 2012 by _Douglas Wilson_ (http://dougwils.com/author/admin)
Cassandra was that unfortunate woman who was cursed with an ability to foretell the future accurately, while at the same time never having her predictions believed. There is a sense in which that particular curse is a type for our times. Of course, it would not apply to simple predictions about the Kentucky Derby or the World Series. Anybody who was always right about win, place, and show, or the point spreads would be a person much in demand, and we would probably all know his name. The difficulty is when accurate predictions are made about moral deteriorations. In such cases, vindication is usually no vindication at all. By the time the predicted moral disintegration is complete, nobody is in any moral shape to analyze what happened. This is true of cultures, and it is true of individuals. Anybody who predicts something like death panels for nationalized health care, as Sarah Palin did, will be greeted with howls of outrage. And that same tribe of people will be howling about something else on the tenth anniversary of the death panels. And technical acknowledgment doesn’t count — I just read a headline from the WaPo this morning that Dan Qualye was right about Murphy Brown and single motherhood twenty years ago. But such technical acknowledgement is not the same thing as repentance, and so we continue to double down in our fatherless ways. The same thing happens to individuals. When someone starts making stupid and inexplicable choices, you can describe for him where it is all going to end up. Those concerns will just be taken as further proof of your lack of compassion. And the problem is, when it ends up right where you said, and he comes out of the closet (say), the chances are excellent that no one will say, “Whoa, boy, did you call that.” No, the more undeniably right you were, the more insufferable it will be for them, and the more bluntly it will be insulted. In such cases, the only thing that brings clarity is repentance. Proof (of this fulfilled sort) will not bring clarity at all. ---------------------------------------- Comments The problem appears in many guises -over and over again. The cause is easy enough to diagnose, failure of imagination. Or simple fear that causes someone to go into a state of denial; the fear is sufficient that rational choice is abandoned. You'd think that there would be a literature on the subject. --- Who is the male equivalent of Cassandra? The effect isn't gender specific but it certainly would help, if you want to 'sell' the problem as worth looking into, if there was a male version of the same thing, otherwise a lot of people, men, won't think it applies to them. Sad but true, but this is another form that denial takes. Maybe Greek mythology isn't the best source for an example. Think of the various male market forecasters who could see the crash of 2008 coming and whose predictions were ignored. --- I think what is needed is a new philosophy based on characterizing whole populations as susceptible to the Cassandra Effect. You see this in many elections. Not only the obvious, when Democrats tell you that a Republican is a brainless idiot or when a Republican assures voters that a Democrat will bring misery if he is elected, but more egregious cases. Even Republicans were criticizing the prospect of Christine O'Donnell as their candidate for senator in Delaware a few years ago -for all kinds of logical reasons. The voters ignored these reasonable considerations and we know how that ended. --- Democrats are sometimes suicidal , too. Don't forget Rod Blagojevich. No less than David Axelrod warned Obama not to support Blago's candidacy for Illinois governor. But Obama would not listen and we also know how that played out. --- The classic case is Gone With the Wind, which was turned down by each and every Hollywood film studio -except one. None of the others, including some that really should not have been so myopic, could see the potential in the film project. No-one who said, "this is a great idea" was listened to. Instead the film studio execs decided that the movie wasn't worth investing in. --- At least they had the satisfaction of knowing how "right" they surely had to be for the year or so it took before the movie was produced. Must have felt good to be so right during that year. The irony is that they probably were doing other things right, its just that when it came to an opportunity to achieve something great, they blew it. =========================================== from the site: Debi Waldek Cassandra Effect or is it Normalcy Bias? Remember the movie where the teen had premonitions of the plane going down? He got off with a few ‘believers’ and everyone else died. The movie did not have a happy ending as the premise was that it was preordained they all should have died……. Not quite the Cassandra Effect (CE) but the CE occurs when one feels they know of an impending disaster or looming event. The worst part is they also feel they can do nothing to stop it or that no one will believe them or act differently. The term Cassandra Effect comes from Greek mythology where the god Apollo gave the gift of prophecy to Cassandra in return, he wanted her love. When she declined-she was condemned to hold the prophetic gift but to no avail, as no one would believe her – hence, the Cassandra Effect. On the flip side of Cassandra’s challenge is one of human-nature or Normalcy Bias where people just find it hard to believe that something that has not happened before (in their lifetime) can happen to them. It may be a natural defense mechanism for peace and harmony….until the dreaded event happens. I truly believe this is why so many suffer in times of natural or financial disasters. I have suffered the Cassandra Effect since 1990….11 long years. I predicted the dramatic rise in autism, drug prescriptions for everything including ADHD..the numbing and dumbing of our children to baby boomers being prescribed 1-5-10-20 drugs, and financial upheaval. But what is one person to do…that voice in the wilderness? No one wants to hear about bad things happening, let’s just talk about the top 11 on American Idol or figure out who the Bachelor is going to choose…this time. But there are two pressing issues..I don’t know which is worst, our current Economic or Health care situation? First: Our Economic situation: Currently the American dollar holds the status of the World’s Reserve Currency, meaning every country accepts the dollar and we can purchase all imports with our dollar whereas other countries must convert their currency first to the World Reserve Currency or the country that is importing, currency. Unfortunately, this has allowed the U.S. to borrow, bail-out, allow us to borrow, borrow, borrow and increase our debt where the size of the country’s interest payments alone match the entire cost to run the country. We answered back and simply printed more dollars. I am not a financial analyst and leave that to Stansberry & Associates and others, but simple analysis indicates the dollar will lose its long held status as the World’s Reserve Currency and when that happens, the dollar, your home and our assets will be worthless or highly devalued. These analysts have told us for ten years to buy gold, silver, put money in off-shore accounts, buy land and more. But no one does it. What we do instead is let out mouth water over that large, beautiful new home that required no money down and an interest only payment …why? We justify it because it is in a nice school district. We then see that shiny new SUV and figure that $40,000 is not too much when insuring the safety and entertainment of our children (how many come with DVD players in the head-rests?) No worries, its just $500/month and $180 in full-coverage insurance…. I could go on and on, but we, the people are in debt, seriously and the little we invested or attempted to save has dwindled. I am livid when I see the TV Ad of the nerd- child hiding and embarassed to get into his mom’s old Volvo when cool-kid looks in pity at the nerd while he drives off in a shiny SUV with his private DVD player and headset… my God-what a message! Now, let’s look at my passion-health care, especially the health of our future generation. The train wreck I saw coming 10 years ago resulted from my own diagnosis with an autoimmune disease and the resulting medication. When I became pregnant, no one knew at the time of the complications the medicine would cause in an unborn child…but it did. That was October 1989. Everything I was told just didn’t make sense. Drugs, drugs and more drugs but when I asked why I had the condition in the first place…it was a mystery or genetic. Genes-the failsafe answer to all of our health problems, yet there has been a 1000% increase in autism, 4-fold increase in chronic childhood illness and now, 60% of the population is overweight/obese… and so are our kids. These changes have happened in just the past 3 decades and cannot be blamed on genetics alone. But who cares? I wrote three books, the first addresses the why’s to the dramatic increases in disease with practical information for prevention. The second highlights little-red-flags and warning signs that trouble is coming in our body…..puffy hands in the morning …may mean high blood pressure down the road? Really? The third book deals with the economics of thought as it relates to our finances or challenging the normalcy bias. I wake this morning and the Cassandra Effect is tugging terribly at me. Probably worse is the guilt. Many closest to me would not listen or take action, so what did I do…. I kept talking about it but did I really live by it? Thankfully, in one area I did, that was the health of our children and mine. But for a while, financially, things seemed ok….the normalcy effect. It took a while for reality to sink in but finally it did….. that’s ok, I buy gold for me and my children, my children naturally understand how to eat a low-glycemic diet, how to supplement, how to exercise and enjoy it, how to set goals and plans of action, how to save, plan and buy without getting into debt…. Maybe it is ok- I am saving ‘generation next’…. Sad thing is, it’s just MY future generation. Savvy publicist tell me to come up with SASSY SOUND BITES and 140 Character tweets, I try, but in the meantime, as a nation, we are becoming sicker, fatter and poorer. Sorry folks, the answer doesn’t come in a pill and certainly not in a 140 character tweet…there is much information to dissect and digest. I met with a girl yesterday, newly diagnosed with aggressive MS. The medication suggested has a 1 in 500 chance of causing brain damage based on her personal history, so she has opted to try natural approaches for at least 6 months or until her next MRI. I explained my research around the ‘why’s’ to autoimmune disease and she said, ‘That is too much, just tell me what to do and I will do it…” Sure, we all do it for a while, but unless we understand the real WHY to what we are doing, we never stick it out…… we jump on the next band-wagon, and the next….. I hope people will slow down a bit and take time to understand their body and finances…. I can’t see much peace of mind when we are sick and poor…… -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
