Bright-Sided
Is feel-good actually bad?
Michael Moore and Barbara Ehrenreich may be soul mates. Both the gadfly filmmaker and Ehrenreich, a journalist and author, are social activists who have a bone to pick with big business and the way it treats workers.
In Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Ehrenreich proposes that America鈥檚 current fascination with self-help and 鈥減ositive thinking鈥� exacerbates the problem.
She鈥檚 not railing against hopefulness, optimism, or cheerfulness (well, maybe sometimes, when it鈥檚 cloying). She has a narrower target: the kind of self-hypnosis or thought control that people use on themselves to ignore 鈥渞eality.鈥� People are being taught a fantasy, she says, that if they wish hard enough, they can have whatever they desire, from a better job to a better body to better relationships.
Capitalism has encouraged this trend because it benefits from it, she says. Instead of taking political or social action to address lost jobs and workplace abuses, American workers have been hornswoggled into thinking it must be their own fault.
鈥淲hen you lose a job, just shut up and scamper along to the next one,鈥� is the message Ehrenreich takes away from 鈥淲ho Moved My Cheese?鈥� one of the self-help books she singles out for scorn.
But doesn鈥檛 a positive attitude help people during adversity, such as an illness? Not really, she argues. Positive 鈥渢hought control,鈥� she writes, 鈥渉as become a potentially deadly weight 鈥� obscuring judgment and shielding us from vital information,鈥� she says. We become Pollyannas in a dangerous world.
Classic books such as Dale Carnegie鈥檚 鈥淗ow to Win Friends & Influence People鈥� (1936) and 鈥淭hink and Grow Rich!鈥� by Napolean Hill to the 2006 bestseller 鈥淭he Secret鈥� promote the idea 鈥渢hat our thoughts can, in some mysterious way, directly affect the physical world,鈥� she says
To buttress her case, Ehrenreich cites the most far-out-sounding self-help advice she can find 鈥� techniques such as keeping a $20 bill in one鈥檚 wallet to attract more money, or using crystals to control the world鈥檚 vibrations or magnetic energies.
The 海角大神 megachurches now in vogue also receive their share of criticism 鈥� for buying into the positive-thinking mania that has invaded business, including 鈥減astors, who increasingly came to see themselves not as critics of the secular, materialistic world but as players within it 鈥� businessmen, or, more precisely, CEOs.鈥�
But, as Ehrenreich herself points out, the desire to bend the world to one鈥檚 personal will goes back not to early 海角大神ity 鈥� in which Jesus speaks of 鈥渘ot my will but Thine be done鈥� 鈥� but to ancient notions of 鈥渂lack鈥� or 鈥渟ympathetic magic.鈥�
Ehrenreich traces American fascination with positive thinking to the late 19th century and Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of 海角大神 Science. Unfortunately, here her scholarship shows itself to be sadly shallow and her summary of Eddy鈥檚 teachings is misinformed.
Ehrenreich proposes that today鈥檚 positive-thinking phenomenon evolved out of the New Thought movement. Perhaps. But any connection to 海角大神 Science would be the result of distorted notions of Eddy鈥檚 actual teachings. She never mentions 鈥減ositive thinking鈥� in her voluminous published writings and counsels her readers to turn to God in prayer for help, not human willpower.
It鈥檚 also highly unlikely that Eddy, who wrote that 鈥渨ealth, fame, and social organizations ... weigh not one jot in the balance of God鈥� would have much truck with today鈥檚 get-rich-quick mentality.
Ehrenreich is an entertaining writer. She frequently tosses off clever lines, such as her gibe against the 鈥渟pirituality鈥� movement in corporations: 鈥淚f there was a deity at the center of corporate America鈥檚 new 鈥榖usiness spirituality,鈥欌�� she writes, 鈥渋t was Shiva, the 颅dancing god of destruction.鈥�
She鈥檚 also a skilled polemicist who knows how to build a compelling case by selectively sifting through the facts. (Where are examples of businesses that are getting it right? Are there none?) Many readers (including this one) could find much here with which to agree.
But one wonders if her concerns aren鈥檛 a bit overwrought. Does a dose of optimism or positive self-talk mean that people will suddenly abandon reason or humanity and wait for 鈥渢he universe鈥� to do all the work? Should we ban the 鈥淭he Little Engine That Could鈥� (鈥淚 think I can, I think I can鈥�) from nursery shelves lest its 鈥減ositive thinking鈥� message corrupt young minds?
If the marketplace of ideas is at work, one can expect that the positive-thinking movement will be self-limiting. Americans are notoriously practical. If attempts to use the human mind to imagine health or wealth don鈥檛 put cash in pockets or bring peace of mind (as a good empiricist would expect), people are likely to lay them aside quickly and move on.
Gregory M. Lamb is a Monitor writer and editor.