Nov 06 2009
Bright Sided: How the Relentless Pursuit of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Tragedy struck the nation’s largest military base yesterday in Fort Hood, Texas when an Army Psychiatrist shot 43 people, killing 12 and wounding the rest. He was about to be deployed to Iraq. Already the resulting media blitz is focusing on the greater need for mental health counseling for the extremely high rates of depression, suicide, and violent outbursts among troops strained by repeated deployments to the wars of the past 8 years. But it’s not just troops. Studies attempting to measure happiness globally found that Americans rank surprisingly lower than expected. The United States as a whole consumes more antidepressants than any other country. And yet, ours is a nation that is pioneering the industry of positive thinking whose hallmarks include for purchase DVDs, seminars, life coaches, and mental training. Can we overcome war, hunger, ill-health and joblessness simply by “thinking positive”? In fact, how does the concept of positive thinking actually distort our ability to heed the warning signs of looming natural disasters, terrorist attacks and shooting rampages? Best selling author and analyst Barbara Ehrenreich attempts to answer these questions in her new book, “Bright-sided: How the Relentless Pursuit of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.”
GUEST: Barbara Ehrenreich, author of more than a dozen books, including the bestsellers Nickel and Dimed, and Bait and Switch. She is a frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation
One Response to “Bright Sided: How the Relentless Pursuit of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”
I agree with the points made in the interview. However, I think that positive and optimistic thinking can be crucial in one’s individual’s life and collectively for the human race as a whole.
Speaking for myself, thinking positively has been invaluable–yet it wouldn’t work if I denied real, tangible adversity.
In regards to our collective need to think positively, here’s a statement by Naomi Klein (from the featurette on the Children of Men DVD):
“. . . Utopianism is the impulse to dream, to dream your way out of the present. So I’m not against utopianism at all. I think that impulse to dream we need to cherish, we need to develop. I think we have a very stunted ability to imagine a different world and to work towards it. . . . ”
Of course a key phrase is “to work towards it.”
I recently rewatched Soylent Green and Mad Max III: Beyond Thunderdome, and sadly, those futures seem more plausible than ever and certainly more likely than, say, Star Trek.
In my opinion, we need inspiring visions of the future “to work towards”–and hopefully scenarios different from Disney’s future where everything is run by GE, Monstanto, and Chevron. But this should be in addition to–not a replacement of–cautionary visions like Soylent Green, 1984, Road Warrior, and the ORIGINAL Planet of the Apes.
Just as there are Anti-Malls, maybe there should be an Anti-World’s Fair, where an inspiring non-corporate future is depicted and demonstrated. For example, there could be attractions that people ride through on bicycles rather than futuristic vehicles. People could see ways of achieving happiness with less.