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Capa or self-realization

Robert Capa he really existed?
Did you know that the story of Robert Capa was born of an incredible hoax? It all began in 1934 when Endre Friedmann, a young Hungarian photographer arrives in Paris. His girlfriend Gerda Pohorylle , a German Jewish refugee, pat the legends of his photos and he serves as an agent with Parisian newsrooms. Their medium business market until it had a brilliant idea: they are invented out of whole cloth a character whose agents they are, a famous American photographer, supposed to be rich, smart and who live a hectic life, between worldliness and stories around the world, therefore unreachable. The two young men now offer pictures of Endre as those of this fabulous Robert Capa Gerda whose claims agent. To be credible, it triples the price of shots and it works! It must be said that at that time nobody could googling to check. The maneuver ends up being more or less stale but it did not prevent the editors of Seen and Regards Endre post and Gerda cover the English Civil War. Their photographs (his own and those of Gerda) go around the world. Endre Friedman gradually disappears behind the legendary Robert Capa which he finally adopted the name. Legend Forged all p ièces in 1934 is gradually becoming reality: has near death of Gerda, accidentally killed during the English war in 1937, Endre, Robert Capa covers all fields battle with extraordinary success. In 1939, he emigrated to the United States and became naturalized American. After the war, he led the life of gambler he had imagined for her character, drinking shots with Hemingway, Steinbeck traveling and playing poker with John Huston. He flits from one mistress to another, living in luxury hotels and squandering the money of the prestigious Magnum agency he founded after the war with Cartier-Bresson. And of course all he surveyed the battlefield from which it takes pictures legendary. His end is worthy of his legend: he died in reporting, won by a landmine in Indochina.

The mysteries of the prophecies self-fulfilling Robert Capa he really existed? Yes, of course if it is seen simply as the nickname of Endre Friedmann. No, it is recognized that the initial lie about it was probably what he has set foot in the stirrup. Side undecidable this lie that is not really a tickle our logic. As Baron Munchausen (the source of the image is here), who manages to get out of the marsh where it became stuck, he and his horse, pulling hard on her hair, lying on eradicates the ability of his condition and converted as magic indeed. This process of "bootstrapping" (which literally means "to rise by pulling on his shoes") is the characteristic of self-fulfilling prophecies that come true only because their statement upsets the difference. Speech, yet very human, creates reality as if it was divine and it's probably not a coincidence that the oracles of the Pythia were operating on this principle, to the great misfortune of Oedipus. Less class but closer to home, Michael Vendetta is a nobody become ultra-famous just because he claimed he was going to be everywhere: the method Coue or the wishfull thinking, it works ... sometimes! In all cases, they are a good illustration of these cascade reactions that fascinate me so much.

Cascades collective
The runaway group from a vague statement or rumor can have dramatic effects. In 1973 the rumor in the United States that the oil shock would cause a shortage of toilet paper . People rushed to replenish their stocks as a precaution. This group has actually led to rush an early shortage that created panic, validating the rumor afterwards. Financial bubbles or obey stock crash the same principle, without any need to blame traders or hedge funds: already in 1637 the price of tulip bulb reached twenty times the annual salary of a craftsman, creating the first bubble history . How is such madness possible? Very simply: it is enough that each reasons not based on what he thinks is a fair price, but based on what he believes to be the opinion of the market on this price (even if he is even convinced that the market is wrong). optimism of some other cause for optimism that in turn reinforces the general optimism. And the opposite in case of a crash.

The price curve at the Tulipomania in 1637 (source: Wikipedia )

Even in normal times self-fulfilling prophecies are common on the stock markets. They work much like the reasoning by induction math: if the market is influenced by the number of sunspots, just a recognized expert shows that such influence was indeed observed in the past and predict that of such influence will endure. Even if everyone thinks it's crazy, everyone's interest to take into account the possibility others will follow this prediction. Therefore speculate as if each thought himself the prediction, which validates it for sure. You laugh but for the Dow Jones, the correlation is quite spectacular, but we understand exactly why:

Comparative evolution of the average Dow Jones (DJIA averaged over 11 years) and the number of sunspots ( Source: pdf)

polls may have the same effect, when each voter adjusts its own electoral strategy based on polls, as if it were a reality indifferent his own choice. Polls can and credible a particular application. In 2002 they had the opposite effect (self-defeating prophecy) because voters left scattered their votes gained by believing instead of Jospin in the second round .
loops inter-individual
If prejudices die hard, partly because they often have this gift of self-realization. Our expectations conscious (or unconscious as we saw in this post ) influence our behavior in order to confirm them. This loop behavior known to Pygmalion effect was dramatically demonstrated in laboratory rats. Researchers have been led to believe that a student group of rats (actually chosen at random) were gifted to exit a maze, in contrast to another group of rats had no particular aptitude. Students have they been more friendly or friendlier with the first group? The fact is that both groups of rats are generally performed according to the label they had been assigned (arbitrarily remember). Many experiments similar, with students we had to be particularly gifted examiners have confirmed this strange phenomenon.

Basically, most of the conflicts arises from this kind of self-reinforcing loop when one of mistrust that fuels the other. For such pathological behavior: the morbid jealousy for example, or feeding the paranoia of all the efforts that the entourage is to avoid provoking a new crisis. This is no joke: it gets really paranoid when everyone conspires against you!

Auto-suggestion: the ability to lie to yourself? When
works without anyone except himself, the self-fulfilling prophecy takes on a mystery. The placebo effect, for example, which works because I believe in the prediction that treatment will heal me. Its twin, the nocebo effect that works in reverse, is equally spectacular.
More prosaically, self-suggestion is a powerful engine: it succeeds all the better what we are undertaking convinced (wrongly or rightly) that we will succeed. And like Robert Capa, one reaches heights rarely without a small dose of megalomania. Is this evidence that psychological explain that we have found the best 1991que Athletes are those who are most successful at fooling themselves , that is to say those which occur most easily be satisfied simultaneously a thing and its opposite? Even as Spain has won the World Cup, simply because the octopus had predicted? This strange result would in any case consistent with everything we have just seen: we have more chance of winning if we are convinced we can beat his opponents. But such a belief necessarily requires that we ignore all of its weaknesses. In other words, to be a fighter should learn to lie a little to himself when the time comes. Well, well ...

Sources
The biography of Robert Capa, the site of the BNF who recently had an exhibition.
Wikipedia, as usual

Related posts
Consciousness in flagrante delirium, our good-bad faith
Discrimination in cascades, on the way born and rooted prejudices