Slang Sözlüğünden edindiğim bilgidir.

And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, ‘Keep tomorrow dark’, and which is also named ... ‘Cheat the Prophet’. The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.

"Cheat the Prophet" eski bir oyundur. Şimdi ise kavram olarak kullanılıyor. Aşağıdaki örnekleri bulabildim.

http://generationalhelots.blogspot.com/2007/06/cheating-prop...


G.K. Chesterton, in the early 20th Century, described the humorous tendency of men to predict the future based upon current trends. (Most people believing in linear "Progress" or "Cycles") In the first chapter of his great novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, he wrote:

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun...

... But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work was this. They took something or other that was certainly going on in their time, and then said that it would go on more and more until something extraordinary happened. And very often they added that in some odd place that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it showed the signs of the times.




source: http://transparentre.com/2007/03/03/cheat-the-prophet.aspx

On Friday, national political columnist George Will wrote about a favorite concept of mine called "Cheat the Prophet"... I first heard of this arcane reference over 20 years ago in a business school finance class as a defining trait of contrarian investing. It happens when you're told, by the mass media or authoritative sources, that something is inevitable.... and it kind of rankles you.

And that can provoke them to play the game that G.K. Chesterton called "Cheat the Prophet". The players listen politely to explanations of what is inevitable, then they make something else happen, which defeats boredom.

It's the same concept behind supporting the pitiful underdog when you're watching a sporting event you don't care about - just to make the game close and exciting. Will discusses how the campaign of Hillary Clinton is faltering because the media had played out her front runner status, only to suddenly find Barack Obama stealing thunder because the Clinton campaign is... well... boring (the title of Will's article is "Color Hillary Red for Republican" for her no-take-chances campaign so far). Philosophically speaking, it almost doesn't matter whether Obama really is a better candidate... he's cheating the prophet.

"Cheat the Prophet" players stir things up for NO reason other than to shake up the status quo... and they have fun doing it. Bloodhound's Greg Swann is my favorite example, and I appreciated his acknowledgement when I first started blogging by referring to "TransparentRE.com weblog ... as a profoundly unapologetic disturber of the peace".