Acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking. Watch the RSA Animate of this talk: • RSA ANIMATE: Smile or Die
a fascinating point in all this 'positive thinking' stuff, is that we haven't even seemed to ask ourselves the question 'why would we want to think positive in the first place?', could it be because the reality that we all live in is so fucked up that we rather look away into positive thoughts and feelings than search for real practical solutions to actually establish a world that is a nice place to be born into and live in?
There are two types of positive thinking: 1. Delusional positive thinking (where people exaggerate the positives and deny the negatives) 2. Realistic positive thinking - where people recognise the negatives but instantly focus on solutions or look on the bright side of that negative - focus more on the positive while not denying the negatives. Reframe 'negatives' as opportunities to learn. It seems a balanced approach, as ever, is the way forward with positive thinking.
Neither positive nor negative thinking is needed/required, but realistic assessment of a situation/whatever it is you are facing-stay with reality, out of the mind of illusion and you will heal yourself and together we can heal the world.
The rhetoric behind how we talk about diseases like cancer has always bothered me in the way we talk about an individual "battling" cancer. A survivor "beat" cancer. Well, if we follow that to it's logical conclusion, a person who perishes from the diseases "lost" to cancer.
Barbara Ehrenreich is such a breath of fresh air! We are awash in "positive thinking" pablum. I want to know what is and deal with what is rather than live in a state of delusion. I much prefer the UK title of this book "Smile or Die." The North American title is "Bright-sided; How Positive Thinking is Undermining America." I think the Positive Thinking phenomenon is more global than specific to the US. I also think that Capitalism encourages us to live in a state of denial because there is money to be made from continual distraction and ostensible self-improvement. Lets hear it for realism.
"Attitude is Everything" read a huge banner on the wall opposite the entrance of a major urban hospital. I tried it during my stay as a patient & I had a better time of enduring the endless indignities that a hospital stay entails. I also saw this motto reflected in the hospital staff. Chemical immunologist Ehrenreich is correct about cancer but skips the evidence of elective affinities found both in chemistry & Goethe. The interminably cheerful are as obnoxious as the chronically depressed.
I have always liked Barbara Ehrenreich. She is an intelligent, articulate writer. From her essay critiquing the views of both the political right and left regarding political correctness, to her undercover work as a maid, revealing the inequities experienced by cleaning people, I find she is a kindred spirit.I haven't read Smile or Die, but I have been pondering the same issues she covers in this book for a very long time, and I came to many of the same conclusions she did..
I would only suggest that part of the oppression is exhorting us to ignore how we really feel, and to cover up our negative emotions rather than experiencing them fully, so that we can gain some understanding of their source. Then we have a better grasp of what to do about our condition. The 'self' promoted by the system is really a denial of our genuine subjectivity.
People in general say and believe that we have progressed out of the dark ages of superstition, ignorance and religion, that we now live in the age of science and reason. But really we live in the greatest age of faith and (willful) ignorance in all history. Our entire society is based on faith, economics is based on faith, and now we have entire groups of society openly denying science. I'm thinking of gender feminists, postmodernists, climate change deniers (should be called ecosystem collapse deniers), the anti-intellectual movement in the USA and the UK (voting for Brexit, for example), and the positive thinking cult. I'm sure you can think of some more groups. It's in no way limited to one side of the political spectrum - it's everywhere. This is a terrifying time to be alive.
(The following is said in Yoda-speak - kudos to Master Jedi himself, lol) Looking at the trashed-lot incorrectly you are, grasshopper. Lol, kidding. Overdone positivity, just as overdone negativity can be unhealthy bc it avoids honesty. Without honesty, whoa nelly,. Objective honesty extracts the most, richest meaning. To me at least.
Thanks - great video -- "positive thinking" is what people do when they are (either by circumstances or by choice) not living by their true values. They use this to convince themselves it's OK to exchange their own humanity and morality for money and security. Ps...The interviewer who thinks the whole world does not exist outside his feelings must have a hard time existing in conventional reality. How does he even make it to the supermarket? I really love how solipsistic people make use of all the benefits of our collective, agreed-on conventions, like speaking a language, crossing rivers on bridges, shopping at supermarkets, posting their videos on you tube -- yet meanwhile nothing exists besides their feelings. As if their feelings alone could build a bridge across the Hudson River... or create the internet.
"The interviewer who thinks the whole world does not exist outside his feelings must have a hard time existing in conventional reality." That's not what he said. He said that his moods change the way reality appears to him, which is simply a universal mechanism of the human mind. The first paragraph of your comment is very insightful, though.
She said in the talk that anger and resentment can increase the possibility of heart disease. I don't think she denied that emotions or beliefs can affect our health, only that positive thinking has arguably zero effect - especially because nobody has any idea what it even means. It's a nebulous cover-all concept that seems to mean: deny reality. She didn't say it, but it wouldn't surprise me if this has a very detrimental effect on our health - absolutely our mental health.
I have read a lot of Ehrenreich's work and I am always very impressed with her level of scholarship. From The hearts of men to Nickel and dimed she always uses imepeccable sources. I am an optimist and I can see very clearly how it has stopped me from trying as hard as I might simply because I imagine things will always turn out for the best. I have also been a victim of downsizing so I could relate very strongly to that part of the book.
Yes, it is psychologically destructive to tell someone suffering misfortune to look on the bright side, and it is immoral to blame victims for their misfortune, assuming they brought it on themselves through negative thinking, or the lack of a Protestant work ethic. One of my favorite quotes on this subject is by Herman Melville: "Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made on the fate of those who suffer by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."
I totally agree with Barbra, great work, “delusions [good or bad] are always a mistake”. Positivity seems to be a form of intellectual and emotional economy, which allows people to avoiding facing unpleasant complex problems and in some cases just picking up a newspaper because they find it depressing. It is very common with ideologically minded people who seem to have the ability to just pick and choose whatever nonsense they want to believe that suits them, regardless of facts or reality. Man made climate change is a classic example. It is just too inconvenient, too big, too difficult and too painful to deal with, so they smile and pretend it isn’t happening. Could have something to do with EQ also?
Mark Dandeneau "You left out what it is that negative thinking will do to solve these crises." It makes you more likely to address them by practical means instead of being content with denial and wishful thinking. · 1
There is a difference between practicing positive emotions, and deluding oneself. It is important to practice living an ideal, without succumbing to illusion. This confusion is deliberately fostered by the powers that be in order to keep people in their place.
yep - we are wanting to think positively and drive ourselves to and through positive experiences without considering how this world functions, and how in fact we are ignoring the reality, because we are directly responsibles for it - so we need to change, and to see how our positive and even negative experiences and thoughts are in fact the reflect of our self-intereste.
I have believed things many times so strongly and would be so happy believing things were coming that I desired only to be shocked and heartbroken badly when it did not. Just as I have been confident that bad things were coming in certain situations many times and would be angry and depressed only to be shocked and happy when it did not happen and things went better for me. How do these theories about belief and the law of attraction explain this? I also have known many who got themselves to believe and feel strongly things would go there way which made it that much worse on them when they went the opposite way. Sending them into depression. Again it seems the reverse happens of what people feel and believe In fact I have many times instead of trying to pretend things would go my way I have many times cried and thrown a tantrums over bad situations and instead of attracting bad things as we are told it would, it only made me feel better and things actually then went my way. And I know many who use this for ritual magic too. Instead of believing things would go their way they too instead used sadness or anger over the situation and over how they wanted things to change and cried about it to not only feel better but find things then tend to go their way. Again the exact opposite of what these attraction laws of beliefs say I have said this many times and expected people to argue with me and prove me wrong and instead tons of people have agreed with me and said they have found this to be true for them as well!
@andyplayhouse Would you say to a slave he should just look on the bright side of life or would you say he should get angry enough to work to change things?
Also aound 9.00 she makes a point that solipsism is ridiculous, everyone says that including me. But, I am cyclothymic [sort of mildly bipolar] and when I cant sleep I sometimes consciously go into solipsist mode, it sometimes helps me sleep without or with less sleeping medicine.
People fall into a trap when they "seek a reason" to be positive or happy. If you are positive based on no reason at all and no expectation then being positive is a natural way and good things happen. That means that seeking money, career, marriage, sex, children ,perfect health, gifts, cars, houses and so on to make yourself happy is nothing but a fleeting feeling which ultimately makes people unhappy and destructive.
I think thats the precise point I agree with this critic of positive thinking. It's like "Heil Stalin, socialism is great, but i'm hungry!" or "Long live to tecnology, I love my iPhone, even if its made by slave children in China".
Although she made very valid points, I'd appreciate an explanation on placebos. Although something as basic as positive attitude can't probably boost your immune system, it's a fact that the mind can make your body heal with sugar pills.
Is Interluken 2 released when we are feeling exhileration or joy? And is not Interluken 2 the cure for cancer? These are serious questions, I really don't know, but that I would like to believe.
Negative delusions also exist... She has some good points from a valid perspective for some contexts. Other perspectives are more useful in other contexts. For example, we do create our world. We create our tools, our thoughts. We interact with our bodies & mind. It's a feedback system. A tool of consciousness. To limit our sciences to a purely observational perspective blinds it to most of our interactions with Existence.
We may indeed hallucinate the world. But if it is a hallucination, it's in no way under our conscious control. Positive thinking is just denial, which is the most toxic thing a human being can do.
Of course we should receive enlightenment from our experience! And use it to practice becoming a better person. What she is talking about is the relentless use of magical thinking to confuse people about the real truth of the world they are living in.
@acerra4921 Good answer. I have a philosophical question. Is it ok to delude somebody in their favor? I think what Barbara should have said was that negativity isn't the problem, but a symptom of one.
Barbara Ehrenreich is punk rock. OK, maybe exaggeration, just a random thought. BE would seem to not disagree that persistent unwarranted negativity or hopelessness CAN lead one to negative results and experiences, by "inviting" a55holes" into their lives. The biggest problem seems to be how to define these "objectively", since this is subjective.
@konstantinosmei Thanks. Here are a couple of question I like to ask people who don't think the money/property system is the ROOT of all problems. 1. Is the minimum requirement of whichever 'system' to make sure EVERY person has the basic necessities of life provided? 2. Do we have the resources and technology to acheive #1 worldwide? 3. Which system is best? And how do we get there? v=YxPPnCW6sMo v=yPmHaTirnCc
Positive thinking can indeed be very dangerous, as it blinds us from reality, even our own reality, which can only be truly addressed and directed by considering the actual reality of the situation without the influence of emotions. Considering emotions are self-centered, it's no wonder we have a world that looks the way it does, when we as humanity cannot see through the veil of 'how we feel', and so tend to do only what makes us 'feel good', without considering those that become compromised.
Trust me I have not misunderstood anything... my life is my life and this is how I experience the world, you clearly experience it differently... btw your whole philosophy is totally Buddhist. To me life is an absolute gift nothing less.
Excellent video. All delusion is dangerous some people do not seem to have listened to what she was saying. She rejected depression as delusional and negative thought. Illness, hunger and poverty cannot be cured by thought and has never been. Look at the facts and the data. Carl Sagan's Video on You Tube "the Pale Blue Dot" says it all. We need more critical thinkers like her. The case of the Tsunami has been emphasised by the recent tragic events in Japan.
We're living on a planet where all exist within polarity,it's kind of naive to think that positive thinking will come without consequences. + and - are in 1 package whether we like it or not, not with a ton of LOA we can change that. We can always decide to not participate within feeling positive or negative,since feelings are unstable and in separation with our physical reality. We can be happy about our new car, while our reality is a world crisis and millions of people without homes period.
false positive thinking can really mess you up! the network marketing arena is REPLETE with the 'positive' thinking junk, many of them live with their heads in the clouds, and you are a terrible person if you KNOW that there is trouble in the mlm biz you are in..
@zapkvr I have seen a lot of magical things, and as stupid as that sounds, it's still the truth. There are paranormal mysteries in this world, look at Coral Castle for instance, rocks that weighed several tons where somehow arranged on a gentlemen's property, he is recorded to have been able to make them levitate. I think taking responsibility for oneself is one thing, but deciding somehow that you have no internal power, is just cutting yourself short.
I find it really interesting that she says she isn't opposed to happiness and yet completely dismisses empirically proven methods to make people happier. She doesn't trust self-report methods of assessing happiness, but if hundreds of people say that writing thank you letters and listing 3 things for which they were grateful made them happy i am inclined to believe them! Positive psychology has nothing to do with positive thinking, it has to do with the empirical study of finding ways to make people happy, sometimes that involves the very things she is talking about. For example "I won't always have my parents, I am incredibly grateful for this time I get to be with them" that is realistic, not delusional at all. I like this talk and I agree with her on a log of things, but I think she threw the baby out with the bathwater. I hate "the secret" and the power of positive thinking as much as anyone, but our society is sick and everyone is obsessed with short term gratification instead of long term contentedness and I think it is great they are teaching college kids how to shield themselves from an epidemic of depression and anhedonia.
Pata Fea Happiness should never be an objective. It's an effect, not an objective. We live in a society addicted to joyless hedonism, constantly chasing happiness, never satisfaction.
Saying cancer 'was the best thing that has ever happened' it guaranteed to get clicks. It's what people like to hear to make themselves feel better, so they buy into these stories. It's got nothing to do with truth.
Many years ago I made a spoof new age album mocking all that flaky positivia/law of attraction nonsense. As a direct result I met my partner who I've been with for 14 years. The irony is delicious.
@Hailias And I really think you should get some help in learning critical thinking and critical analysis of argument. I am well aware of the effect of placebos of the mind. Their effect on physiology and especially on the immune system are well known. Even the man who invented "stress" as a disease, Hans Selye has been comprehensively debunked. If you have come to debate the issue you are going to have to do much better than offer ad hominem arguments.
Ok, so; Positive Thinking/Psychology has been taken WAY to far. Yes, the people that coined it out right stole some equations from physics (flow dynamics of some substance, I don't remember which one, but there has been a book written about it.). However, there IS some useful stuff in it. My take away from PS has become to learn what the things are that you feel happy doing and do more of those. Also, I've personally noticed that there are a lot of things that I feel SHOULD make me happy and some of them indeed USED to make me feel happy but they don't anymore for various reasons. One of those reasons is depression; but, there could be other stuff for people. IE: That thing changed and isn't the same. Or, something else in life changed that made us feel that the other thing wasn't as good any more. So, learning to be happy with the things that we FEEL should make us happy IS important. ----That last part is because our inner critics will frequently step in and criticize anything we're doing. Which sure, it might not be the best. However, we all know that practice does make us better at what we are doing and that giving into that critic means we typically don't practice and get better. As for the whole thoughts attracting things? It's more like our thoughts enable or disable us to seek out or make things happen. We're NOT going to seek out new things that we will feel happy doing if we don't feel happy about what we have. We're also not going to work through the pain of learning a new skill etc to be able to do something that will help us feel happy. Learning to be happy with what we have helps us find happiness while going through that pain of learning and growing. So, positive thinking / psychology IS helpful. The goal isn't to just sit around and go, "I'm happy that I have no money to do anything." or "I'm happy that I'm always starving." It's to go, "I'm happy that I am able to eat one meal a day." Or, say to take $2 to go on a city bus ride and appreciate the changing scenery and be try to be happy with it. You grow that happiness and use those good feelings to figure out a way to be able to eat MORE food or go on vacation somewhere. Not being able to tap into a well of happiness can keep us from doing ANYTHING to change our circumstances. So, we would continue to starve and probably eventually NOT having any food because we will get so depressed that we are not able to do the things to even get that ONE meal any more. I've been a similiar road myself several times with not being happy about my life in general. The only times I'm ever able to do anything about it are when I'm practicing gratitude and learning to be happy with the things that I feel that I should be happy doing.
Positive thinking is another way of saying Ignoring Reality by deluding oneself with an 'Alternate Version' of reality in one's mind. And a method of avoiding our Responsibility here to sort out the mess we're creating in Reality which is anything but 'positive'. When it comes down to it, we need to get out of positive/negative Thought and into Action to make a difference in reality. We're either walking solutions or mental delusions and accumulating consequences.
Gee Barbara, funny how on-board you were with happy-peppy-optimism-at-all-costs "let's dream about rainbow ponies for all" in 2008. You sure loved it then.
@Antiks72 Christianity is about truth. Truth is Independent of human perception, just like the sun shines even if the world was blind. We can't invent truth, but we can invent lies. Without truth lies can't exist.
Life is NOT a privilege, that's just ridiculous. Life just is. I don't hold too much for buddhism but really calling life anything else but a simple fact is plain stupid.
yea, we are creating the Earth so ugly, we don't want to look at it, to face the consequences of our where abouts. Is positive thinking waiting for doomsday in fact...!
This lady lives in a dreamland. The only thing she said i agree with is the power we all have in collective power. The power of the Middle Class of America is one greater than any company or government official has. This lady wants everyone to be happy, but without reason to be happy.
So many very spiritual teachers have died on cancer while despots live long, healthy lives. Ram Dass died broke. So all this spiritual materialism about how you can control your destiny by being 'good' is nonsense.
The comments on this video are a perfect demonstration of the stupidity that Barbra talks about. "Positive thinking" is a sham. The real world operates on logical rules that can be analyzed, determined and predicted. You cannot change the outcome of any situation with your mind.
@SusannaMrsBMomEtc Oh for God's freakin' sake! I thought I was having a discussion with a ratonal thoughtful intelligent sentient human being. Turns out I was dead wrong. You can beleive in magic or religion or superstition all you damned well like. Personally I blame the U.S. education system for your lack of critical thinking faculties. For me, will gladly rely on science when I get sick.
Well i can tell u this i have tryed being negtiave and its crap.. I read Ekarte tolle book and it works.. Ok let's try it your way and all be misrable..
I think you are missing the point. You are right in that you can close your eyes and create your own "subjective reality" using meditation... problem with that is you close your eyes to seeing what's outside your own bubble objectively. Ignorance is bliss.
Typical. When a country succeeds, it's because of capitalism. When a country fails, it's due to socialism. No doubt if Venezuela was succeeding now, you'd be claiming that it's due to global capitalism lifting it up (and yes, I've heard this from capitalists a lot of times!). Oh and by the way, I don't like socialism.
