I enjoy reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s work.
Ehrenreich seeks reality. She goes to great lengths to personally experience the phenomenon about which she writes. She combines intimate effort with the research of a successful author who earned her Ph.D in cell biology.
I just finished Ehrenreich’s new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Underminded America in which she describes the promotion and abuse of positive thinking by American institutions, including the media, medicine, downsizing corporations and growing
churches, and the rest of us.
As I read Bright-Sided, particularly Ehrenreich’s description of motivational counseling used to isolate and intimidate employees laid off by large corporations, I could not stop thinking of Jon Rappoport’s brilliant description of the grief counselors brought into Columbine after the high school shootings.
Anytime a person or group of people started to talk about what had really happened and why—such as asking whether the kids involved in the shooting were on Ritalin or any other controlled substances—they would be targeted by the grief counselors. A fortune was spent to persuade people to obsess on their own feelings. Every effort was made to oppose their getting to the bottom of what had happened and why, particularly together. A person who kept asking tough questions would be targeted and isolated by intimidating psychobabble. A community fractured and obsessed with their personal feelings could not organize or take action.
I am a great believer in the power of positive thinking. Some of the people whose work Ehrenreich dissects are favorites of mine. Let’s face it—when you find yourself at war with all the money on the planet, you need some people in your life who can cheer you up and remind you that there is a future outside of Washington and Wall Street. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
That said, reality is the place to begin An honest, accurate map is the only way to navigate our circumstances. Although there is lots of money and social pressure to encourage a positive attitude on the Titanic, some of us are delighted to be sailing our life boats in a different direction.
Let’s use the power of positive thinking to give us power, rather than to isolate and manipulate us.