"Bright-Sided"...relentless "positive thinking" used as opiate by business leaders.

[madfloridian]

Barbara Ehrenreich of "Nickled and Dimed" fame has a new book out called "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America."

The St Pete Times Robyn Blumner had some interesting takes on the book this last week. Also earlier in October Ehrenreich wrote about it in the New York Times.

From the St. Pete Times' Robyn Blumner:

The impotence of positive thinking

There have been times in my life when I had to be positive and keep a cheerful outlook just to get through them. But I know what these two ladies mean when they apply it to the way it has used to keep workers satisfied when they should have been fighting against the grain. Blumner speaks about a book by pastor Joel Osteen.

The Secret became a runaway bestseller by telling readers that they could have anything they want just by imagining it. The book was obviously unadulterated bunk, but it sold madly as people grasped at any chance to better their lives. One has to wonder if such magical thinking would have been so popular if people felt they had temporal power to change the conditions of their work and prospects. The reason that so many Americans work at jobs that don't pay enough is not that they don't channel enough positive energy into getting a better salary, but that wages have been stagnant for 30 years. And the reason that wages have barely budged is that America's wealthiest households have kept slicing themselves a larger piece of the income pie.

Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1 percent of American households saw their share of all pretax income nearly double while the bottom 80 percent had their share fall by 7 percent. Ehrenreich quotes the New York Times saying, "It's as if every household in the bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent."

Every working stiff in the bottom 80 percent should be outraged and politically motivated to force change. But if everyone is convinced of the convenient nostrum that our own attitude controls how much we are paid, then workers won't band together to demand a larger share of our national prosperity.

This positive thinking message is a kind of opiate that has been particularly effective on the white-collar corporate work force. Ehrenreich documents how corporations hire motivational speakers to convince laid-off workers that their job loss is "an opportunity for self-transformation." Somehow, she says, white-collar workers have accepted positive thinking as a "belief system" that says a person can be "infinitely powerful, if only they could master their own minds."

Here is more from Ehrenreich from her column in the New York Times this month.

‘Bright-Sided’

Americans are a "positive" people. This is our reputation as well as our self-image. We smile a lot and are oft en baffled when people from other cultures do not return the favor. In the well-worn stereotype, we are upbeat, cheerful, optimistic, and shallow, while foreigners are likely to be subtle, world-weary, and possibly decadent. American expatriate writers like Henry James and James Baldwin wrestled with and occasionally reinforced this stereotype, which I once encountered in the 1980s in the form of a remark by Soviet émigré poet Joseph Brodsky to the effect that the problem with Americans is that they have "never known suffering." (Apparently he didn't know who had invented the blues.) Whether we Americans see it as an embarrassment or a point of pride, being positive — in affect, in mood, in outlook — seems to be engrained in our national character.

...."Surprisingly, when psychologists undertake to measure the relative happiness of nations, they routinely find that Americans are not, even in prosperous times and despite our vaunted positivity, very happy at all. A recent meta-analysis of over a hundred studies of self-reported happiness worldwide found Americans ranking only twenty-third, surpassed by the Dutch, the Danes, the Malaysians, the Bahamians, the Austrians, and even the supposedly dour Finns. In another potential sign of relative distress, Americans account for two-thirds of the global market for antidepressants, which happen also to be the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. To my knowledge, no one knows how antidepressant use affects people's responses to happiness surveys: do respondents report being happy because the drugs make them feel happy or do they report being unhappy because they know they are dependent on drugs to make them feel better? Without our heavy use of antidepressants, Americans would likely rank far lower in the happiness rankings than we currently do.

She speaks of a sort of "reckless optimism" that tends to follow this mode of thinking.

In her remarkable book, Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst, sociologist Karen Cerulo recounts a number of ways that the habit of positive thinking, or what she calls optimistic bias, undermined preparedness and invited disaster. She quotes Newsweek reporters Michael Hirsch and Michael Isikoff, for example, in their conclusion that "a whole summer of missed clues, taken together, seemed to presage the terrible September of 2001."7 There had already been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993; there were ample warnings, in the summer of 2001, about a possible attack by airplane, and flight schools reported suspicious students like the one who wanted to learn how to "fl y a plane but didn't care about landing and takeoff ." The fact that no one — the FBI, the INS, Bush, or Rice — heeded these disturbing cues was later attributed to a "failure of imagination." But actually there was plenty of imagination at work — imagining an invulnerable nation and an ever-booming economy — there was simply no ability or inclination to imagine the worst.

..."similar reckless optimism pervaded the American invasion of Iraq. Warnings about possible Iraqi resistance were swept aside by leaders who promised a "cakewalk" and envisioned cheering locals greeting our troops with flowers. Likewise, Hurricane Katrina was not exactly an unanticipated disaster. In 2002, the New Orleans Times- Picayune ran a Pulitzer Prize–winning series warning that the city's levees could not protect it against the storm surge brought on by a category 4 or 5 hurricane. In 2001, Scientific American had issued a similar warning about the city's vulnerability. Even when the hurricane struck and levees broke, no alarm bells went off in Washington, and when a New Orleans FEMA official sent a panicky e-mail to FEMA director Michael Brown, alerting him to the rising number of deaths and a shortage of food in the drowning city, he was told that Brown would need an hour to eat his dinner in a Baton Rouge restaurant.9 Criminal negligence or another "failure of imagination"? The truth is that Americans had been working hard for decades to school themselves in the techniques of positive thinking, and these included the reflexive capacity for dismissing disturbing news.

And Ehrenreich reminds us again that this is such a convenient policy for business leaders.

But nowhere did it find a warmer welcome than in American business, which is, of course, also global business. To the extent that positive thinking had become a business itself, business was its principal client, eagerly consuming the good news that all things are possible through an effort of mind. This was a useful message for employees, who by the turn of the twenty-first century were being required to work longer hours for fewer benefits and diminishing job security. But it was also a liberating ideology for top-level executives. What was the point in agonizing over balance sheets and tedious analyses of risks — and why bother worrying about dizzying levels of debt and exposure to potential defaults — when all good things come to those who are optimistic enough to expect them?

Blumner has something else to say that really made some good points. She talks about why Barbara Ehrenreich wrote the book. Ehrenreich was asked to think about her battle with cancer as a "gift", and it caused her to do some research on the positive thinking emphasis.

The book's point is that realism is being elbowed out of the way by all the life coaches, self-help books and prosperity gospel preachers like Joel Osteen who tell us that a positive outlook will lead to success, riches and the fulfillment of all of life's desires. These heaping helpings of sunny optimism are subtly diverting us from grappling with serious social and economic issues in ways that can truly bring about change.

Then Blumner mentions that after all that positive thinking Americans are not the happiest after all. There are many countries ahead of us...most of which have better safety nets. She says "International surveys put us behind places like Denmark and Switzerland where the social safety net is stronger. It seems that happy thoughts don't alter the reality of American life with all its attendant risks to middle class living standards. Behind the smiley face facade, we are privately worried, and we have reason to be."

[Johonny]

1. like her books

put on the Christmas list. Her Daily Show interview made me WANT to buy her book unlike another persons interview that must not be named.

[The Magistrate]

2. An Excellent Piece, Ma'am: Thank You For Sharing It

Both description and conclusions are spot-on....

[Blue_Tires]

41. +1

[Touchdown]

3. Just downloaded her audiobook on iTunes. Thanks!

I think Nickel and Dimed is one of the best investigative books written about class in this society... Right up there with The Jungle and Grapes of Wrath... only non-fiction.

Besides, I hate corporate speak. "Synergy".

[Indenturedebtor]

10. Corporate speak makes me want to rip my ears off

My new favorite is "Cycles". Use it in a sentence? Ok if you insist:

"Bob I know you've been working through lunch and generally putting in about 65 hours a week for the past year, but as you know we just signed a big new contract and we'll need you to go ahead and make it work... we know you have the CYCLES for it."

Cycles is corporate speak for "Your hamster wheel of perpetual suffering is good for another 1,000 rpm if we set your ass on fire".

[snagglepuss]

15. Hadn't heard that one. How completely nauseating.

[tilsammans]

28. Ugh!

Whatever happened to "bandwidth"? (Which is almost as puke-ifying. )

[Indenturedebtor]

65. Bleh "bandwidth"?

What is that... how may emails and calls you can take a day?

[EFerrari]

4. Link to her 40 minute BookTv presentation at Politics & Prose bookstore:

http://www.booktv.org/Watch/10925/BrightSided+How+the+R...

[madfloridian]

5. Thanks, will watch that tomorrow.

Appreciate the link.

[Overseas]

32. Great talk. Thank you. //nt

[enigmatic]

82. I just watched this

I'm getting the book tomorrow

[EFerrari]

95. I only watched it after madfloridian's post.

Did you notice that someone pointed out Junior was a cheerleader? lol

[Touchdown]

6. Damn! Check the repsonses in the comments section.

Queen of Bitterness... Far left liberalism is a mental disorder... Whenever I see the smiley horseface of Blumner... sunshine, rainbows and bunnies are really just evil tools of the right... stupid Americans bought the "yes we can" and Hope and change" Obama fraud express... gulags, and re-education camps..the ACLU was founded to bring to the US... she hates happy people... if you really hate and loathe America, they'll make you President... she should get medication and get out more...

Lots of "Happy, Positive" people in St. Pete's/Tampa.

[madfloridian]

11. Blog comments from Central Florida are really really bad.

I swear I think they are organized out of the many bible colleges and universities around here.

[AllentownJake]

20. I'm always amazed

that the meanest people in the country, all walk around talking about the Love of Christ.

[lovelyrita]

33. Might be. Some of use in Central Florida are sane.

[Silent3]

78. The black-and-white thinking in those negative comments...

...not to mention the irony of thinking they're supporting "positive thinking" while dripping with such ignorant venom, is amazing.

[Pithlet]

7. I just finished this book. I highly recommend it.

I think a lot of us here at DU can relate to a lot of what she discussses. How many of us have been made to feel that we're just complainers or that we're dragging others down because we care passionately about an issue and want to affect change? Don't rock the boat. Don't be so negative. The constant push for nothing but positive thinking can be a destructive force for individuals and for society as a whole. When it's used to ignore issues that need to be dealt with it isn't a positive force.

[Touchdown]

8. That "Secret" book was all over my office last year. People were hooked on it.

I made the cardinal mistake of asking..."You really don't believe that crap, do you?"

Then I pointed out that in the physical universe, Positive magnetics never attract positive magnetics. My days were numbered after that.

I won't say that again.

[Indenturedebtor]

14. Negative thinking is so much more effective

Anticipate the worst, plan for it, incorporate it into your plan for the best outcome.

I seriously want to slap people when they tell me to be positive about something that sucks.

[AllentownJake]

21. I never got myself out of a bad situation

by denying that I was in a bad situation

[Indenturedebtor]

97. Damn straight. It's like people drug themselves into submission with their positive mantras n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

89. There is one thing I am positive about -

I am absolutely positive that bad shit will happen, despite all our best intentions, so the thing to do is expect and anticipate it.

The people who fled Nazi Germany did not CREATE the Nazis - they were merely pessimistic enough to believe that they were not going to be stopped, and took appropriate action.

[Indenturedebtor]

96. Exactly! I get flak at work all the time for being "too pesimistic"

Well I'm in forkin project management... what the hell is the point of my job if not to keep bad shit from happening? How are you going to do that when you assume that good things will happen?

Well guess what... Not a single one of my clients has EVER had an unexpected issue after the project was complete. I'm the only one in my department that can claim that. Put that in your "happy pipe" and smoke it you positive thinking clowns.

[snagglepuss]

16. Its a cult mentality. Not buying into this and saying so is a quick way to a real hate list.

If anything doesn't pan out the realist with the wrong attitude is scapegoated.

[conscious evolution]

24. True words

Been on the recieving end of the sunshine out of the ass crowd more than once myself.

[EFerrari]

13. Don't make me call the Whaambulance.

Imho, this is a very important book. We seem to live most of our more public life catchphrase to catchphrase to the point where, people like Sarah Palin can give whole speeches that make no sense at all and people barely notice.

[snagglepuss]

17. Utterly true. nt

[madfloridian]

31. Our teacher training (indoctrination) was turning into catchphrases...

near the end before I retired.

We would have required trainings where we divided into "teams" to outdo each other on coming up with ideas on which words would inspire children the most.

Talk about a captive audience.

[EFerrari]

36. I went into a clinic for smoke cessation once and on the second day

the staff wanted us to do a "trust" exercises that involved putting yourself at physical risk and "allowing" your "team mates" to catch you. I refused to do it because I didn't know anyone in this group. They looked at me with some pity, because not trusting people you don't know is a terrible thing.

[Indenturedebtor]

98. LOL welcome to the 21st century you rubes

Oh to be a car salesman again and run into those people

I could have retired!

[EFerrari]

122. My dad would have sent them home with a Pontiac for every member of the family.

[LostInAnomie]

84. That's what I thought of immediately.

When I was teaching and was forced to go to workshops I quickly realized that they were nothing but buzz word factories. It was maddening and almost everyone there knew what was going on, but no one would say it openly. They were all afraid that the lemmings and ass kissers that gobbled that shit up would tell on them.

I used to joke that if I were to take out all the buzz words and other junk that the people reviewing my Master's thesis wanted to hear, it would be around 15 pages long.

[Mind_your_head]

9. Yep. Once we face the cognitive dissonace that we are constantly fed HEAD ON

and go back to facing reality ~ the good and the bad. We'll be much happier, more balanced, and happier. Did I mention that we'll be happier? Truly.

[Berry Cool]

27. When I first read your comment, I thought you were talking about the product "HEAD ON"

and then it hit me..."Cognitive Dissonance--Apply directly to the forehead! Cognitive Dissonance--Apply directly to the forehead! Cognitive Dissonance--Apply directly to the forehead!"

Actually very appropriate!

[Karenina]

34. Q: Why do you think so many religions

have super holy rituals to mark your forehead every so often?

[Indenturedebtor]

12. Love it! My wife and I talk about this all the time

Moving from East of the Miss. to the SW is an exercise in controlling the urge to slap people.

True positivity is being willing to first acknowledge that things could be better and then having the chutzpah to make them that way.

[snagglepuss]

19. Good point. Not adopting this attitude doesn't mean one doesn't persevere.

[Indenturedebtor]

99. Agreed. People with this attitude tend to perservere in BAD situations

Who would tell a battered wife to "think positive"??? Her filthy animal of a husband that's who.

When you're company tells you to "think positive" you're getting smacked around.

[AllentownJake]

18. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion

simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness. -The Matrix

I'm a veteran of a leadership training program in corporate America and I must tell you I always got a good laugh when the positive thinking hope squad walked in the room for training.

My personal favorite training I ever went through

Whale Done - Where they compared our employees and family to killer whales at Sea World.

I've never seen such unadulterated bullshit masquerading as scientific reasoning in my life. I don't know what I found more offensive the message of ignoring bad things or the comparing people to killer whales.

[Jakes Progress]

55. Glad I missed the whale farce.

But it was the cheese that did me in. Our office was covered in cheese moving posters and doo dads. God, I hate that book and the charlatans who shovel it.

[Arctic Dave]

63. I just saw that book stting on a shelf at work the other day and thoght to myself,

"WTF is this thing"?

[Art_from_Ark]

71. Are you sure they said "whale DONE"

and not "whale DUNG"?

[snagglepuss]

22. Great summary. Thanks. K & R & Bookmarked .

[Starry Messenger]

23. People who say "cancer is a gift" need slapping.

I live in a part of CA that is rife with this kind of magical thinking BS. I bite my tongue a lot. This "positive thinking" meme has a blame the victim mentality at its base, as it posits that you are personally responsible for whatever happens to you because of your attitude. It's actually pretty right wing, but it has been dressed up in enough hearts and flowers that a lot of Americans buy into it. It's sad.

[Tracer]

30. I've never heard anyone refer to cancer as a "gift".

But I certainly agree with Ehrenrich that there's way too much referring to cancer as a "struggle" or a "battle" --- two common terms that I especially loathe.

It's neither term, to be frank. It's more like "follow the doctor's orders" and you'll either go into remission, or you'll likely die.

[Qutzupalotl]

38. I don't see it as a blame-the-victim mentality.

Not everything that happens to us (very little, in fact) stems from our attitude. But what we make of the situations given to us does depend a great deal on our thinking.

I actually think it's empowering IF handled correctly: don't ignore the negative, but don't give up prematurely either. Don't deny the situation is bad, but keep working to better it. In most cases, there's something you can do; and it's entirely possible that having too much doubt will keep you from trying. It's not a cure-all or a magic pill; it just increases your odds if you keep trying, provided what you are attempting is reasonable. For instance, you can't magically make a job appear in a market that has none; but if there is an opening, employers are more likely to hire someone who doesn't give up too easily.

[BREMPRO]

76. I like your thinking about this- a balance that is neither optimistic or

pessimistic, but realistic-responsive to circumstances with appropriate commitment and attention to improvement. Your example of a job is a revealing one to explore. Our job culture encourages optimism, and that quality is infectious and desirable in an employee- therefore one is more likely to get most jobs if one is optimistic and enthusiastic, in other words a positive thinker rather than critical and pessimistic is more likely to get the job. It's human nature to be attracted to people who are positive. this can be short lived it is not backed up with real action. The so called "power of positive thinking" has some merit in this way, and particularly in many fields such as sales/marketing, but can range from false hope to catastrophic where a clear eyed realistic assessment of what is actually happening should be a priority over simplistic positive thinking. Doing nothing constructive but simply conjuring in mind a the things you want, in most cases material things, is the snake oil being sold here. The mystical "prosperity faiths" and "the secret" book goes way beyond common sense social science, to the metaphysical realm. The claims that you can simply imagine something and you will get it is insidious propaganda used by unscrupulous authors and motivational speakers to brainwash people and sell books and seminars. They peddle faith in fantasy which encourages passivity in the the real political realm. Real constructive change would take place if people would organize and stop fooling themselves. Our boom and bust economic cycles are likely affected by our willingness to believe to much in positive thinking. Perhaps if we were less prone to undue optimism we would have less dramatic shifts in fortune, and more people would become active in efforts that would make us a more stable and equitable society.

[Starry Messenger]

90. You are talking about something different than the OP. n/t

[Odin2005]

25. I could have told you that several years ago.

Must be one of those Neurotypical ways of thinking this autistic person will never understand. Seriously, I don't get this crap. From my perspective this is just an extreme case for a tendency for most non-autistics to think that their thoughts have a direct impact on the working of the universe.

[alarimer]

54. I don't get it either.

Though, for me, it is because I tend to be skeptical and rational whenever possible.

my own personal mindset is that thinking happy thoughts is not what will cure your cancer. You can have whatever attitude you have; it will make utterly no difference in whether you die from disease. Now, depression is another thing. If you become depressed and then stop taking the medicine or what have you, well, then you might not survive.

But simply having a "good attitude" will make no difference.

And good thought or good vibes will certainly not help anyone else. Doing something concrete, like making dinner for someone who can't or taking them to their appointments will. The rest is just so much bullshit.

And don't get me started on the infantilization of breast cancer will all the pink and teddy bears. Makes me want to vomit.

[SoCalDem]

26. What a shrink told me once

"My job (his) is NOT to "make you happy". It's to help you UNDERSTAND why you are feeling the way you are, and to teach you how to cope with those feelings and why you have those feelings. Feelings are necessary to humans...they warn us, they teach us what NOT to do, as much as what TO do. It's as NORMAL to be sad, angry, upset, lonely, ashamed and unhappy, as it is to be happy. Humans are complex creatures, and happiness is NOT the default."

[Adsos Letter]

73. AMEN! And the whole congregation responded "AMEN!"

Here is to the normalcy of the full emotional range.

[Indenturedebtor]

100. That was a good shrink n/t

[Canuckistanian]

29. I'm reminded of the poor guy in MM's movie "Roger & Me"

You know, the guy who was put in charge of "revitalizing" Flint Michigan's image.

He was practically bubbling over with excitement over Flint's "new optimism".

Meanwhile, his city was falling apart at the seams with rising crime rates and whole neighbourhoods becoming like ghost towns.

The Flint town council ended up wasting money on one failed venture after another, thinking that tourism was the answer.

There are some things that a "positive attitude" can't fix.

[Overseas]

35. K&R. I am so glad when Barbara came forward to say this.

And I do think the economic factors are very important in this. The "think positive to attract wealth" ideas have been like a new opiate for the masses-- it's not the downsizing, it's your thinking that's at fault. Don't look at the extended transfer of wealth from the middle classes up to the super rich since the Reagan administration; don't look at major increases in productivity and stagnant middle class wages; no no no-- it is all your fault.

I had a downsized job in which the reception desk was also supposed to do the accounting, support the chief executive and a few other jobs. When I tried to discuss the difficulties of having this large list of duties heaped onto the front desk, and how it impeded carrying out the organization's mission as a public resource center, my boss' solution was to sign me up for a seminar called "Achieving Your Highest Priorities." Another colleague subjected to the same diversionary tactic attended the seminar and realized that her highest priority was working for a more reality-based boss and finally quit that job too.

[RaleighNCDUer]

91. The 'think positive to attract wealth' only attracts wealth to those who

are SELLING the 'thing positive to attract wealth' mindset.

In essence, it is a con game. Osteen sells it, saying 'just look at me!', while shilling for his latest book which makes him the money.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

37. The "think positive" movement has paradoxically created mass affliction

with one of the symptoms of depression, "learned helplessness."

If you lose your job and your neighbors lose their jobs, it's not the fault of the masters of the financial universe sending your jobs to the Third World. It's because you didn't have the right attitude on the job or because you didn't have the foresight to become a master of the financial universe yourself.

Another side-effect was the housing bubble. When I did the math on an offer for first-time buyers in Portland that all my friends were urging me to take, I decided that it was a bad gamble. Some people scolded me for not thinking positively and not visualizing the money I could make as the house appreciated. Turns out that pessimistic Lydia was right and that some of the positive-thinking types were forced to sell at prices that left them with about four digits' worth of equity.

[Nikki Stone1]

39. It's no coincidence that "magical thinking"--whether The Secret or the new fundie Jesus--emerged as

real wages went down in comparison to inflation, and the American standard of living greatly dropped. I believe that much of this was actually put into place for the purpose of stifling dissent by transferring the blame to the victim. The 80s and 90s were full of this crap: remember Louise Hay? And the born-again Christianity that relied on Jesus to get you a new car, even though you couldn't find a job, is along the same lines. The key to all this crap is that your lack of wealth is your fault for not having enough faith or for having negative thoughts. So if you complain about something that NEEDS to be complained about, you are then blamed for creating your own negative result.

[conscious evolution]

45. I agree 100%

What is happening is the result of a long term plan by the PTB.

[EFerrari]

56. Doesn't Chris Hedges call it "Empire of Illusion", his new book?

GMTA

[Nikki Stone1]

61. Does he really?

Another thing I'll have to read.

[Indenturedebtor]

101. Exactly! Either way it's your damn fault n/t

[treestar]

109. Ronnie Raygun himself came in at this exact time

Telling us what we wanted to hear. Carter was telling us the truth we did not want to hear.

We were already infected with this then.

[Lorien]

111. You nailed it. Very succinct and well put. nt

[Buns_of_Fire]

40. Positive Business Thinking helped me Maximize my Paradigm!

Not only that, I was Proactive about it. Until I got Rightsized right in the cloaca, that is.

There aren't enough slaps in the universe for "managers" who insist on hanging those stupid "motivational" posters around on every equare inch of office wall.

[Solly Mack]

42. K& very highly recommended

[la_chupa]

43. people fear random

You know though there is a woman I work with who is very negative all the time. She walked in the door today bitching up a blue streak about traffic. Granted there is a freeper motivation thing going on in town and traffic is horrible, but if it were not that it would be something else.

Not that I'm buying the happy horseshit stuff, but attitude can really make a difference in how you deal with things.

You're miserable, yea I get that but don't drag me down too. It isn't my fault your life sucks.

as a side note she's also a religious nutter I have no idea if that is in any way related but I think they have misery contests at that church of hers

[Touchdown]

49. You might want to look at her a different way. I know this sounds like I got some snake oil.

I think the idea is that she buys into this bullshit, and that you know it's bullshit and you see it's not helping her.

I have empathy for people with real problems, like making ends meet, buying their kids shoes, making sure they have enough in the bank to survive a layoff. Your patience with your co-worker (at least from what you've said) is thin because she's complaining about stupid shit. Traffic in a city is a way of life, when mass transit is not the priority of our positive thinking public servants. Everybody puts up with it, so why tell me something I already know? Lying about WMDs, or $1T to Wall Street is not supposed to be a way of life. Complain about something important for once.

[RaleighNCDUer]

92. 'people fear random'. What does that mean?

Grammatically, it does not make any sense at all, and I don't see how it connects to what you say in your post.

BTW, her attitude can only affect your attitude if you let it. Maybe all she is wanting is a sympathetic ear.

[treestar]

44. I always thought she was very bright

And that is a good point - the right wing relies on this and it started in the Reagan years - but it can go too far with people being mostly delusional about reality. Talk to any right winger - they think they can become a millionaire if they just work at it (they can't because of libruls and Democrats pushing regulation and "socialism - that is their excuse).

On the other hand, spend time on DU and you'll find just the opposite! Relentless negativity (equally as unrealistic).

[Kingofalldems]

46. Yeah, we need that 'Dare To Be Great' guy

He'll tell us what to do.

[Buns_of_Fire]

66. Glenn W. Turner? Koscot? That guy?

My ex- and I went to one of his seminars way back. We had so much sunshine pumped up our butts we didn't need flashlights for the next month -- we could just open our mouths. (Disclaimer: By the end of it, I was just about convinced to sign on. My wife, bless her heart, just about dragged me away from them by my tongue.)

[Kingofalldems]

87. I think he had a speech impediment

I seem to recall he wound up in jail for something.

[Buns_of_Fire]

106. A cleft palate, if I recall correctly.

I think the Feds finally got him for running a Ponzi scheme (which, looking back, it was) -- multi-level marketing without really anything to market in the first place.

[snagglepuss]

47. When will Oprah have Barbara on to discuss "Bright-Sided"?

[Raineyb]

48. I'm glad someone is addressing this. The "positive outlook" nonsense

is always used to shut anyone up who may point out what is wrong. Because if you keep a "positive outlook" it never occurs to you to try to FIX anything.

I had co-workers (back when I had coworkers) who always would say "well it could be worse." I'd tell them it could be better if we spoke up and tried to DO something about it.

This bit of logic was completely lost on them.

[Qutzupalotl]

50. Not necessarily.

A positive outlook doesn't mean you have to let the situation stay the same; it means you believe you can do something about it. A negative attitude means you're less likely to be motivated to fix it, like a person who says "What's the point in trying?"

[Raineyb]

59. That is not the mindset that the book addresses. n/t

[Lorien]

114. It's also an "out" for those who don't want to care, help, or do a damn thing

for anyone but themselves. A fell down a staircase earlier this year while attending a week long artist's workshop. When I returned from the ER a nasty little piece of work knelt down beside me (a woman I didn't even know) and said "You know why this happened right?' I sensed what was coming and said "You're not going to give me that "positive thinking" nonsense from "The Secret" now are you?" And she said "Well, you DID will this to happen. YOU sent a message out into the universe that you wanted to break your ankle, so they universe gave you what you wanted. If you change the way you think this never would have happened." "It happened because the interior slate staircase on this building was covered in water, which I failed to notice until it was too late!" I countered. She smiled smugly and said "If you search your heart you'll realize that I'm right!" and walked away without offering to help get to my dorm room. In her would, every cancer caused by a polluted environment or toxic food and water was something that the victim wished upon themselves, as is every rape, murder, job loss, war, euthanized homeless pet, and natural disaster. She never has to feel bad about anyone's misfortune, offer help to anyone or do anything to change the status quo, because her universe is totally different than ours. She has magical thinking, so she is removed from the rest of us. Little does she know that she's the enabler of the power elite that make it near impossible for her to afford anything bigger than a one room apartment outside of Manhattan....

[Raineyb]

123. I call people like that assholes. But of course they think I'm being negative by saying so.

I call it being a realist.

[cascadiance]

51. Laura Flanders interviewed her on Bright Sided book recently on GRITtv

Link to video segment:

http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2009/10/21/bright-...

[Touchdown]

52. I'm 2/3rds the way into it. She's attacking all the sacred cows.

The Breast Cancer industry (yes, those teddy bears do make a lot of money)
Corporate downsizing, team building, firing people who are "not positive thinkers".
Those stupid black letterboxed posters with stock photos (a multi-million dollar industry by itself)
Amway
Wal-Mart
Joel Osteen
Mega Churches
"Who Moved My Cheese?"
Tony Robbins
Zig Ziggler
Christian Science
Cult like purging of "negative people in your life"
Life Coaches
Mind control over your immune system (hint: Cancer is your own cells. White blood cells aren't programmed to attack your own cells, not matter how much you try)
The Secret
9/11..."A failure of imagination"
Katrina..."Wait an hour so the Chairman can eat his dinner in Baton Rouge"
America: The greatest country in the world!
Rick Warren

The list goes on!

[HughBeaumont]

88. Two applicable letterboxes for reality that I made:

[MonteLukast]

112. Y'know, those Unsuccessories parody posters give me a lot more smiles...

... than the original Successories ever did.

You're guaranteed to make someone smile if you get them to laugh!

[swilton]

53. A Book I Intend to Read

I heard her interviewed on Democracy Now....

Related to this is a book I'm now finishing - a book all DUers should read - Anti-Intellectualism in American Life - by Richard Hofstdter. Written in 1962, it could have been written today because it certainly explains today with the flat earthers, global warming denyers, etc. It explains why Sarah Palin and George Bush was/are so popular to the electorate....

While I don't know if Bright-sided addresses intellectual thought, the state of intellectual thought in America would certainly explain the American fixation with the quick-fix, knee-jerk, inane reactions/opiates that seems to drive what Ehrenreich is describing in BRIGHT-SIDED.

[Jakes Progress]

57. I have a cousin who is a victim of Osteen.

She "hoped" and "thought" her way into enormous debt and misery by believing that crap.

The worst part is that she feels guilty for not being positive enough. That's the out that these crooks have. If it doesn't work, it's not their fault. It's yours because you didn't truly believe you were worth it.

It's enough to make you a devout person just so you can know that there is a hell that these people will roast in.

[EFerrari]

58. I miss Hell frequently.

[madfloridian]

60. Feeling guilty for not being positive enough....

That is a very good point.

An excellent one.

Guilt trips really work.

[Jakes Progress]

69. Plus, the assholes get to blame the victim

instead of taking responsibility for their lies. Perfect Scam.

[Lorien]

115. I have a former friend who got caught up in that crap too

She was single and wanted a husband. So she cleaned out a closet in her house for him, emptied out dresser drawers, bathroom cabinets, thought positive about herself ("don't you feel blessed just knowing me?" an actual quote) and visualized her perfect relationship with her perfect man. 15 years later and she's now in her mid 50's, near friendless, and there's no man in the picture. Had she just relaxed, been herself and taken action outside of "making room for him to come into her life" she may have found someone, but instead she has ended up broke, lonely, and, like your cousin, just trying her best to be even more positive about the whole thing.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

62. advice dog vs. depression dog vs. courage wolf vs. insanity wolf

[Orwellian_Ghost]

64. Excellent post

Have you seen this?

THE CULT OF POSITIVITY

The Cult of Positivity is all over our media. It's an inability to tell it like it is, a constant desire to sugarcoat the bitter pill of dire economic news, a refusal to confront the crisis head on.


These days its often not just about having the required CV and a presentable appearance - its about having the right attitude. You can't just do a job and then go home, you've got to have 'goals', you have to be part of the team, you have to be 'on board' re the corporate mission statement. Capitalism just doesn't want our labour - it wants to hijack our minds as well.

The Cult of Positivity has also infiltrated down to what are often referred to as the more menial low-paid jobs. A friend of mine recently went for a part time cleaning job. She had to fill out a four page application form. She was also asked by the interviewer what her goals were. She was tempted to say that her goal was not to be a part time cleaner but she didn't. She played by the rules and mouthed a few platitudes that she thought the interviewer wanted to hear.

She didn't get the job. Her acting abilities clearly let her down.

You can also find The Cult of Positivity down at Work and Income where 'the long term unemployed' (ie people who don't want crap jobs) are sent on privately-run courses were they are told that the only reason they can't got a job is that they don't think positively, they have low esteem, etc. Apparently its got nothing to do with the deficiencies of the economic system that impinges on us all everyday.

...

http://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2009/03/cult-of...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

81. Karl Marx didn't see this coming.

Religion is the opiate of the masses -- but now it's branched out into positive thinking at work, to disempower the workers.

Same thing with time-motion studies and business management. I read a review of a book in the New Yorker called The Management Myth:Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong, by Matthew Stewart.

Time-motion studies enabled the boss to make the worker work harder and produce more for the same amount of money. This was more exploitation of the workers. The first people in the U.S. who did this were Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, of "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Belles on their Toes" fame.

Even Louis D. Brandeis (the Supreme Court justice) was snowed and impressed by "scientific management". As it turns out, it's a bunch of rectal numbers.

[Withywindle]

67. Oh, I really want to read this book. Thanks for posting this!

I was just thinking today about those people who died in that plastic-shaman "sweat lodge"* in Sedona. That's where this leads. Buying into this sort of "create your own reality" horseshit may have led people to ignore their own bodies telling them they were DYING. It may have led them to not extricate themselves from a very dangerous situation because of fear of "failure", of not being "spiritual" or "evolved" enough, or whatever jargon they use in that particular cargo cult.

Isn't that what the American public tends to do on a massive scale? Suffer in silence, ignoring the body's screams of GET ME OUT OF HERE THIS IS BAD VERY BAD because we don't want to admit weakness, admit that we are scared and sick and need help, afraid of breaking the groupthink and looking vulnerable in front of others, because the whole cult experience we've paid ridiculous amounts for is devoted to telling us that it's our fault if we fail?

You aren't really experiencing massive organ failure because you didn't drink water for 36 hours and then went into a too-hot, plastic-tarped oven in Arizona. It's because you haven't focused your mind enough into a white-hot positive-thinking laser of will! Same reason anyone would be unemployed or sick and health-care-less or disabled or homeless or just plain poor. It's a failure of WILL. (With a nasty subtext of "and of course nobody cares about the weak, that's only right and natural.")





*I put this in quotes because I don't want to disrespect real sweat-lodge traditions. The Indian nations that practice this have very strict rules about it how it must be done and who is allowed to conduct a ceremony and who is allowed to participate--probably most of those rules have to do with making sure people don't get hurt. Which they pretty much never do when this sort of thing is done correctly.

[dana_b]

68. I love her books

I am kind of a smartass cynic too so her humor is perfect for me.

[jwirr]

70. Positive thinking - like we are in the recovery.

[HughBeaumont]

72. And R!

Yes, you too can POSITIVELY THINK your way out of massive economic forces and climates that you have absolutely NO control over! Got a disease? HAPPY that thing to death!! Wages just not up to par? Er. . . . LOOK, SHINY OBJECT! BE HAPPY!!!

America is a land of eternally lobotomized and numb lapdogs who'll settle for a shit sandwich if hot actresses were on TV eating them.

[1]

74. i hate positive thinking. that why i love it here!

[G_j]

77. +

[CanSocDem]

103. No kidding!!

Before I found DU, I had no idea there were so many forces working against my personal happiness...and well being.

.

[SpookyCat]

75. I have nothing but contempt for these people.

We have a big to-do every January at work. We all have to go to the auditorium and listen to drivel like this. It's only a couple hours out of my life every year, but it is insufferable.

One year we had this idiot woman whose entire presentation was, in a nutshell, if you're sad or depressed, well, you just aren't trying hard enough to change your...wait for it...

GLADITUDE! (big wide eyes, inhuman open mouth smile, fast nodding head)



This particular event was not too long after I started there, so I just fumed and said nothing. Now? Oh, now I would have taken the mike as it went around for Q&A and as calmly as possible explained to this snake oil saleswoman that a statement like that could very easily kill someone. Someone with clinical depression who CAN'T just "change their gladitude and talk themselves happy!" Someone who already thinks they are defective and that it won't ever get better and considering the stats for suicides in the clinically depressed she could kill people with this careless rhetoric.

<rant off>

[busybl]

79. How could we have bought into when so many

of us are on anti-depressants. This whole "Oh being positive is a bad thing" is
just the flavor of the week. All these book writers just know all the answers, don't they?
It's just bullshit they made up and hope some suckers will buy, thereby putting them in a higher income bracket.
I think I'll start a new religion. I'm sure I can think of some crazy shit people will buy.

[busybl]

80. Conversely, in business, who wants to buy

something from some dragging ass, low energy dirty haired person. No, you want a person with a good
outward going personality.
ps. I hate typing.

[hunter]

83. I'll bet the Bay Bridge repairs in California were approved by wack happy optimists...

"Yep, that ought to fix it! Woohoo! We're open for traffic! Good job, good job, have a cookie!"

There was probably some gloomy gus standing there saying, "You know, this shit's probably not going to make it through the first stiff wind," but nobody else was buying that. They're probably blaming the poor guy right now for bringing some kind of bad vibe woo-woo to their work.

I want my engineers to be pessimists, the kind who can't sleep until they've figured out every way something can fail, the kind who will tell you flat out, yeah, the tail's gonna fall of this airplane if gets in this situation, and this bridge is gonna fall down if the earth shakes this hard.

The hard cold numbers of reality don't change just because someone is a bouncy cheerful positive thinker, not even in business, which is also why the U.S. economy won't ever be coming back clean from the toilet we've flushed it down.

[RaleighNCDUer]

93. If the person who has what I want is a dragging ass, low energy

dirty hair person, I'll buy from him no problem.

You see, it's not about HIM.

And FYI, salesmen comprise only a fraction of the people in the business world. And their job is to lie to you. So who cares if they're dragging ass as long as they are doing their job?

I HATE 'outgoing personalities'. My first thought is, "what's the con?"

[soleiri]

105. I agree about out-going personalities

or anyone that claims to be a "Type A" personality
It's just an excuse for rude, a-hole behavior.
right away the dislike meter goes way up.
you never hear from "type B or C" people.

[eridani]

85. The late great USA--wiped out by terminal perkiness n/t

[madfloridian]

107. heh heh

That's a good way to put it.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

86. Excellent comments throughout this thread

Think about the insanity of the "It's all good" society being foisted into the daily lexicon and psychological terrain whilst Rome burns.

Remember the final scene in "Life of Brian" with everyone on the crucifix singing, "Always look on the bright side of Life?"

I'd also add that the self-help industry is a 20-30 billion dollar/yr boondoggle. So while everyone (meaning the liberal-leisure class mostly for who else has so much time and money to "work on themselves"?) is busy contemplating their proper sacred choices, breathworking, micro-managing their dietary habits and otherwise "looking inwards" the need for a mass social movement based on justice and solidarity is subsumed and the folks who aren't able to get with the Dale "Pep" Carnegie bandwagon are deemed to be failures. This is a neat trick as it serves to deflect any attentions from the larger system and it's gross injustices.

I mean really now can someone explain to me how any of these self-help "let's be happy", "it's all good", work on yourself techniques apply to the children of Iraq? Let's get real here are they just suppose to have a better attitude about the whole thing? Are they suppose to look for the positives within the situation? If so would this improve their lives on a daily basis in any meaningful way? Exactly how would this work?

On a side note the author of "The Secret" did in fact say, in an interview, that it was quite likely that the people in Darfur did commit crimes in a past life. Guess those crimes could've been they were too pessimistic about colonial masters?

[treestar]

108. There was a Holocaust survivor who said something to the effect

that no matter where you are, you can choose your attitude. The self help gurus are always quoting him. Like they are trying to tell you that there is no situation that thinking positive won't get you out of. Beyond ridiculous, almost like that Darfur comment. How mentally lazy. Other people are suffering and coming up with an explanation why they deserve it - how low can they get?

[MonteLukast]

113. Viktor Frankl (bless him) is a lot more palatable when...

... you ignore anything about "choose your own attitude" and just focus on his conclusion that the biggest human need was meaning.

I've never felt any real personal power in "choose your own attitude". And no, I do NOT believe that just by changing myself I will change the world.
Maybe the idea is, you change your immediate social environment by altering how you interact, and SOMETIMES that leads to something larger scale. But only sometimes.

[RagAss]

94. More than a few of us smelled this bullshit out back then...we were called "Disgruntled employees"..

Fuck'em all !

[Indenturedebtor]

102. Grrr I hate that crap. There's a whole business around going in and brainwashing people

Makes me fucking sick!

[slampoet]

104. i once got laid off for "being too negative." Within a year, 85% of my co-workers were out of work.

All that exists of that company today is a database of songs you can access through cell phones. Not a single employee is still there.

[MonteLukast]

110. Nice excuse on their part.

What's with this need to twist the knife?

The company was in deep trouble. In critical condition, in fact. Why can't they simply say "we're losing money, we need to let you go" and leave it at that? The employee would still be out of a job, but at least they wouldn't effing blame themselves for their predicament. There's more than enough sadness to go around when you lose a job, without deliberately inflicting this emotional abuse.

[slampoet]

117. Yup, about right. There were some brilliant people on this job but management were all.........

emotional morons.

[Name removed]

116. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

118. Bumping

[distantearlywarning]

119. Love this.

Been saying stuff like this for years, at the expense of my own popularity.

[Joanne98]

120. It's not an opiate it's torture. Everybody hates it.

[jonnyblitz]

121. thank you. i bought the book because of this thread. my mother,

like Barbara E, had breast cancer and actually fell for all this new age woo CRAP. she was told it was her fault for getting breast cancer because she wasn't thinking positive enough. it's SICK SICK SICK.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

124. Gotta bump

Excellent thread