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9 J. Conflict Resol. 1 (1965)

handle is hein.journals/jcfltr9 and id is 1 raw text is: Myth, self-fulfilling prophecy, and symbolic reassurance in the East - West conflict JOHN H. KAUTSKY Department of Political Science, Washington University The myth must be judged as a means of act- ing on the present; any attempt to discuss how far it can be taken literally as future history is devoid of sense.-GEORGEs SOREL The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true. The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error.-ROBERT K. MERTON Emotional commitment to a symbol is associ- ated with contentment and quiescence regard- ing problems that would otherwise arouse con- cern.-MuRRAY EDELMAN The purpose of this essay is to throw some new light on the well-known data of World Communism and the East-West conflict through the use of three interrelated concepts-Georges Sorel's myth, Robert K. Merton's self-fulfilling prophecy, and Murray Edelman's symbolic reassurance. It is not meant to provide any new data on its subject or to present any full discussion of the three concepts or their complex re- lationships. Sorel's myth was a complex of remote goals, tense moral moods and expectations of apocalyptic success (Shils, 1961, p. 17). Guided and inspired by such a myth, individuals will behave as they would not in the absence of the myth. Hence the myth, however false, has real behavioral consequences. To Sorel, the myth was sig- nificant in accounting for the behavior and often the success of a single group vis-A- vis some opposition. In the following, we shall deal with a situation where the same myth has been accepted by two opposing groups, one regarding it positively, the other negatively. Each has acted on the basis of the myth and thereby reinforced it in the mind of the other. It is here that Merton's concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy comes into play. But, like Sorel, Merton seems to be chiefly concerned with accounting for the behavior of single groups (1957, pp. 421-36),' while 1 Merton cites numerous examples, particu- larly of the behavior of ethnic ingroups toward ethnic outgroups being conditioned by self- fulfilling prophecies. He does also mention in passing that, actuated by the conviction that war between two nations is inevitable . . .

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