Barbara Ehrenreich: The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143187/barbara_ehrenreich%3A_the_relentless_promotion_of_positive_thinking_has_undermined_america/?page=entire

When Barbara Ehrenreich went to be treated for breast cancer, she was exhorted to think positively; and when she expressed feelings of fear and anger, she was chided for being negative.

Ehrenreich, the author of 16 books, including Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, which examine the blue- and white-collar job markets, took on what she sees as an epidemic of positive thinking in her new book: Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.

Positive thinking is different, she says, from being cheerful or good-natured -- it's believing that the world is shaped by our wants and desires and that by focusing on the good, the bad ceases to exist.

Ehrenreich believes this has permeated our culture and that the refusal to acknowledge that bad things could happen is in some way responsible for the current financial crisis.

In her new book, Ehrenreich examines how the positive-thinking movement was started by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and an amateur metaphysician named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby in response to Calvinism; how being positive became mandatory in corporate culture; and how she thinks prosperity preachers, such as Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston encouraged a culture of debt by telling their congregations that God wants them to have a big house and a nice car.

Emily Wilson: At the beginning of the book, you talk about going to be treated for breast cancer and being told to think positively. Was that what started you thinking about this?

Barbara Ehrenreich: That was my first exposure to positive thinking as an ideology. I was just astounded and dismayed by it. Here I was in a real crisis in my life, and people were trying to market pink ribbon teddy bears to me, and where I thought I would find sort of sisterly support on the Internet, I found instead the constant exhortations to be cheerful and to embrace my disease .

[no_hypocrisy]

1. “You've gotta have pep, by golly!” -- Babbitt

Cultural Dictionary

Babbitt


(1922) A novel by Sinclair Lewis. The title character, an American real estate agent in a small city, is portrayed as a crass, loud, overoptimistic boor who thinks only about money and speaks in clichés, such as “You've gotta have pep, by golly!”

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/babbitt

[indepat]

2. Just recently found a first edition of Babbit and now must put it on the must-read list

:D

[no_hypocrisy]

3. One of my faves.

Add to your list "Elmer Gantry" (I literally talked to the book as I was reading it), "Main Street", and "It Can't Happen Here".

Sinclair Lewis was prescient.

[Gman2]

17. sounds curiously like Rumsfeld.

[aquart]

4. I have never believed in positive thinking.

Just as I believe that relentlessly happy childhoods are bad for children.

[Warpy]

5. Ehrenreich is absolutely correct about that.

I've always been fortunate not to work with Little Mary Sunshine happiness naggers in oncology. I've always worked with people who encouraged patients to express what they were feeling, not what they were supposed to feel. If we thought their spirits needed a boost, we used dirty jokes.

The bosses love having a nation of witless Pollyannas who remark about all the pretty shades of grey on the ashheap they've been left to live on.

After all, if we start admitting just how bad things have gotten, we might want to change them and that will cost them money.

[corpseratemedia]

6. I've encountered this attitude when I taught and in my fellow students

when I was a grad student.


Honesty is being "negative."

If you're honest about something that is difficult, if you're truthful about how much actual practice and discipline you need to get a certain level of expertise in some fields, this culture labels you as bitter, without knowing what bitter means.

A person I know who survived several years of a german concentration camp wouldn't fit into their paradigm at all.

"positive thinking as an ideology"...maybe this is why going postal is so apple pie; our culture can't accept coming to terms with difficult feelings.

[Tansy_Gold]

11. I've encountered this attitude a lot lately here on DU

And it's proved to be very depressing.



Tansy Gold, rushing back to the comfort of WEE where there's lots of honesty, er, negativity

[tonysam]

14. Yep. Especially in those threads about the unemployed

where people think because they had no trouble and faced no age discrimination after age 50 (and no doubt had a spouse there to support them to get retooled at 50-plus--not an option for many of us who are sole support), it should be easy for everybody else and it is their fault if they can't find jobs. These older, unemployed workers are "whiners."

I have been putting those people on ignore. I am not going to get high blood pressure reading their crap.

[Tansy_Gold]

15. LOL -- I already have HBP!

As one of those older, UNDERemployed workers supporting myself without assistance, I know exactly what you mean.

I expect to hear that kind of shit from my puke acquaintances; I sure don't expect to hear it from DUers.

Having a positive attitude is helpful, but it ain't gonna get the job done by itself.



TG

[DemReadingDU]

7. Life is not always positive

How can someone be happy and positive when they have lost their job, their health insurance and home. Few people revolt nowadays because they have been repeatedly told to always make lemonaid out of lemons. Well, sometimes, you just can't squeeze any more juice from the lemon.

[Demeter]

8. Denial By Any Other Name Is Just As Corrosive

[Captain Hilts]

9. Yep. I'll never forget Tim Russert and Chris Matthews talking about how their parents

taught them that if you work hard, you'll be successful. Right.

[raccoon]

29. If that were true, then immigrants from south of the border would surely be among the

most successful people in the US, because they work hard.

[Joanne98]

10. My boss promoted that book! Nobody cared.

[bemildred]

12. "Positive thinking" is a fancy way or pretending society is not really rigged in favor of the rich.

[tonysam]

13. "Positive Thinking" was always

a bunch of crap. It has never accomplished a thing in this world. And yes, it does amount to denial.

[Berry Cool]

16. I'm so glad she took on this subject.

When it comes to the tyranny of positive thinking, the cancer culture is the worst. Everywhere you go, you can see people talking about how their positive thinking helped them beat cancer. As if nobody who ever maintained a positive attitude ever died. As if nobody who ever admitted being scared and in pain ever managed to survive.

We are so into denial in this culture. We want to believe that rather than just being a helpful aid to get us through the days, positive thinking ALONE can BRING us what we want. We want to believe that depression and negativity, instead of being an occasional natural and healthy reaction to a bad situation, will actually CAUSE bad things to happen to us or permanently block success from ever reaching us. Look at the way that book "The Secret" has sold; people really want to believe they can have all the good things in life, and prevent all the bad, just by thinking positively, "attracting what they want with their thoughts," and "not attracting negative things with negative thoughts." We say, in our attempt to praise people going through a rough time: "He never complained once," "She never once said anything negative about her situation." As if that were admirable. Perhaps because we believe in the contagion of both positive and negative thinking, and being around negative thinkers can force us to confront the negative stuff we'd rather not see.

While it's true that negativity can "bring everybody down" and create a soul-killing kind of discouragement, it can also be a positive thing, if it strips away the illusion that mere positive thinking and refusal to see the potential for problems will be enough to make us successful. We can then do what we can to arm ourselves for success by anticipating pitfalls.

Being relentlessly negative isn't good, but neither is being relentlessly positive, when it denies the reality of what we think and feel, or denies the fact that some events, good and bad, are just beyond our control, and that the fact that anything is beyond our control is inherently scary.

I see it all as part of our skewed need to believe that the world is predictable because it is perfectly just: that people get only what they deserve, nothing less, nothing more. I also see the belief in "karma" as a part of that skewed belief, as well as forms of Christianity in which salvation is dependent on good works. I also see conservatism and Republicanism as part of it, because conservatives and Republicans believe that everything good and bad that happens to people can be traced back to their degree of personal responsibility; that bad things never happen to the personally responsible, and good things always do.

[tonysam]

19. Excellent post

If I could recommend a post for this week, yours would be it.

[Delphinus]

23. The karma part really resonates.

I am a recovering Catholic and have found my own spiritual, not religious, path. Karma was something I learned about years and years ago and it made sense ... until one day I had an awakening about it. I recognized that karma is used in the same manner as heaven and hell. If you do this, you're karma's going to come back and get you (or if you do this, you're going to go to hell). No difference.

Edit to add: through the healing I've experienced in my life, not cancer, but other things, I've found the ONLY way to healing is by going through the emotions. You absolutely have to own the fear, the anger, etc. Denying those feelings does NOT help the healing process.

[Gman2]

18. The worst part of being ill, is that people write you off, cuz you are negative, in their space.

Isolation is the norm for anyone going thru hard times. Got a divorce, youare making others uncomfortable. Ill, unemployed, hungry? Dont even bring it up, even to family. Family JUST wants to know you are alive. So they can go back to what they were doing before you so rudely had issues.

[raccoon]

30. Amen to that. nt

[undergroundpanther]

20. pronoia

is a delusion that the world conspires to create good in your life.Positive thinking,and beliefs like you create your own reality is DENIAL of real reality.

A glorified way to again blame someone for their own misfortune, as if they had control over it.Blamming the victim,instead of attacking the people and situations that caused the person to be victimized.It's sick.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25727809-401,00.html
http://www.skepdic.com/newthought.html

[trthnd4jstc]

21. I call it Appearance over Substance. Have you ever been fired for not being a Yes-Man? nt

[thelordofhell]

22. Behind every silver lining

There's a dark cloud

[zeos3]

24. I was going to buy a book called "The Power of Positive Thinking"

...but then I thought, what the hell good would that do?


:evilgrin:

[greenbird]

25. Add to this the false and harmful idea that

"you create your own reality". Wifty bullshit. Tell that to someone who's lost a child, who has been betrayed by a friend . . . life is hard. Life can be painful. Wishful thinking doesn't change that.

[tiny elvis]

26. it is how schemers find the courage to fuck up

the producers

BLOOM
Max, as I was saying, maybe we
should go easy on the spending. I
mean these offices and everything.

BIALYSTOCK
Why? Take it when you can get it!
Flaunt it, baby, flaunt it!

BLOOM
But if something should... God
forbid... go wrong, at least we
could give them some of their money
back. It would look better in court.

BIALYSTOCK
Stop talking like that, you white
mouse! Nothing's going to go wrong.

burn after reading

LINDA
I need a can-do person, Ted! I hate
your negativity! I hate all your
reasons why not! I hate you! I hate
you!
...
You're not here for me! I need a can-do person! You're all... defeated!
...
HARRY
Boy, I am through banging my head
against the wall. I am gonna start
doing what's right for me.

LINDA
That's how I believe, also. You have
to do what's right for----

HARRY
Yeah! Hell yeah! I mean I had a
shock recently, and I realized you
know, life is not infinite. No one's
immortal.

LINDA
No one's immortal.

HARRY
You have to get from each day its
full, uh, squeeze the juice from every
day because there but for the grace of
God----

LINDA
Exactly. The important thing is to
maintain a positive outlook. Always
up. Always ebullient.

HARRY
That's right, don't sweat the small
stuff...

Linda chimes in:
... and it's all small stuff.

disaster ensues

[LuckyLib]

27. Americans grab on to this in much the same way they embrace religion without question.

Believing that you have control gives you comfort in a frightening world. Spending some time in developing countries causes one to question this world view (which is why few Americans want to experience the world from such places) -- what have people done to "deserve" their poverty? Why so much struggle just to live? Calling the reality of exploitation and oppression what it is makes folks uncomfortable. Cheery, positive thinking, believing that you were born on third base (or can get there through having the right attitude) is easier to deal with.

[alarimer]

28. I agre;I am sick of the relentless fake optimism.

I absolutely LOATHE the infantilism of the breast cancer awareness movement- all pink and teddy bears. It is vile.

And she is absolutely right about positive thinking. It is just utter shit and more evidence of the complete and utter lack of critical thinking skills on the part of the vast majority of Americans.

[clyrc]

31. I want to read this book

I always thought that constant positive thinking was at best silly, but it hit me that it can really be ludicrous when a friend told me I was having a difficult pregnancy because I didn't have the right attitude. Apparently desperately wanting a baby didn't count, I was just doing the pregnancy thing all wrong. Of course I see the value of positive thinking, sometimes, but facing reality is a good thing, too.

Any idea of "Everyone gets what they deserve"faded from my mind when I became an expat and I saw how some people have to live. Now that shallow, facile view makes me angry. I know it was nothing but shear luck that I was born into my life, which is so much better than so many people's lives that I sometimes feel guilty.

[raccoon]

32. "A Course in Miracles" is also of this stupid philosophy. nt