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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Bright-sided": the dark side of terminal perkiness
Posted as OP by request
http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsided.htm
Americans are a "positive people" cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity.
In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to "prosper" you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of "positive psychology" and the "science of happiness/" Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes--like mortgage defaults--contributed directly to the current economic crisis.
With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of Americas penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out "negative" thoughts. On a national level, its brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best--poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.
SoDesuKa
(3,173 posts)Positive is good; negative is bad. I've been told for years that things that didn't interest me were positive and good and that I was a bad, negative person for not being interested in them. I am happy to report that some very positive people have had their share of difficulties living the life just as much as I have. So there.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)All of our emotions serve a particular purpose. So once you buy into the notion that some emotions are 'good' and some are 'bad', what follows is usually the suppression of one in favor of the other. The only thing that really matters is the result or the action you take based on that emotion. Most people who buy into the notion of good and bad emotions will tell you love is a good emotion while hate is a bad one. However I can point out many examples of how love can result in all sorts of bad outcomes and other examples of how hate results in good outcomes.
The bottom line is all of our emotions are a part of who we are. Many, if not most people are enslaved by their emotions to one degree or another which is rather unfortunate because it doesn't have to be that way.
Kurovski
(34,655 posts)of the happy-horseshit industry, complete with its penchant for violent retribution and instant resolution.
So be it.
treestar
(82,383 posts)It's sort of the default, and it can swamp and paralyze you from action. So we need to try to be positive that we can handle and accomplish things in the future. It's not to be unrealistic when it doesn't go right - it's about still pressing on rather than giving up.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)alterfurz
(2,474 posts)but meanwhile...
MadHound
(34,179 posts)Like with Nickel and Dimed, what she explored in that book had been going on for decades, yet she seemed to think it was something brand new that she had discovered. Sounds like this is more of the same.
It is nice that she exposes what is going on, but I wish she would stop being so condescending and treating these trends as something that she herself discovered, things that are brand new. Anybody living in the belly of the beast can tell you they've been going on forever.
eridani
(51,907 posts)If you have breast cancer and people criticize your attitude, that can be a big motivating factor for investigating the issue more closely.
Ratty
(2,100 posts)I think to me it's emotional dishonesty. You can't tell whether someone dislikes you or is mad at you. There is also pressure to respond in kind, act perky in reply even if you don't feel like it. I never go into Starbucks (though I like their coffee) chiefly because of the perky staff. Sometimes the staff at the coffee shop I frequent are in bad moods. They don't berate me or abuse me or anything like that, you can just tell they're not feeling cheerful. I like that. It's honest, it's human. I have a friend who I love dearly but I can't be around him too too much because his perkiness and energy just grates on me. In his case though it's not false. It's just the kind of guy he is. But still I can only take him in small doses.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)It has the merit of being cheap, but otherwise, I remember being around twenty-five and realizing it was going to take more than gritting my teeth hard and pretending like mad all the time to be in control of my life.
xmas74
(29,674 posts)and I try my best to always find something positive in a situation, even when it's downright awful. I'd rather quit dwelling on things that I cannot change and find ways to change the things I can.
Does that make me a bad person? Does it make me less than honest with myself and my feelings? I don't think it does.