It has become conventional wisdom in western society that one’s outlook can influence outcomes, particularly when one is sick. It is believed that a positive mindset can heal a patient. Indeed, physicians have taken advantage of this in prescribing placebos to patients, comforted in the knowledge that a mere belief in the medicine’s potency was sufficient to heal a patient. However, a meta-study by researchers Asbjørn Hróbjartsson and Peter Gøtzsche published in the New England Journal of Medicine challenged the efficacy of the placebo effect.
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, has challenged the power of positive thinking in her latest book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.
Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Holt/Metropolitan (2009)
ISBN-10: 0805087494
ISBN-13: 978-0805087499
Ehrenreich describes how an entire industry has sprung up around positive thinking, how a few individuals have enriched themselves, how celebrities and prominent psychologists fell for the pseudo-science of positive thinking, and how corporations have jumped on board the positive-thinking boat along with right-wing churches and universities.
Advocates of positive thinking coax terminally ill patients to overcome their affliction with positivity. Ehrenreich describes this as a “deliberate self-deception.” She writes of “a constant effort to repress or block out ‘negative’ thoughts” — a “tyranny of positive thinking.”
Positive thinking may skirt a fear of dying; in this way, positive thinking may be beneficial. However, Ehrenreich notes, “There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.”
Ehrenreich tells of self-help groups that brainwash patients to the facts of recovery from breast cancer. She tells of support groups modifying the language (no longer were people with breast cancer referred to as “patients” or “victims”); adherence to positivism was staunchly enforced to the point that women whose prognosis was fatal were dismissed from the support groups.
The author sees a linkage between positive thinking and American patriotism, and she sees a “kind of symbiotic relationship with American capitalism. ” There is money to be made in the snake oil of positive thinking, after all (Ehrenreich likens positivity hypers with “purveyors of snake oil”).
Ehrenreich finds “irrational exuberance” devoid of realism. The question hangs: isn’t there something to be said for realism?
Positive-thinking advocates not only want to guide/control the essence of your thoughts, they want to control information intake. “All the motivators and gurus of positivity agree that it is a mistake to read newspapers or watch the news.” In other words: ignorance is bliss.
It is not surprising that Christians would concern themselves, in particular, with people preparing for the afterlife. It is curious that scientists (or people posing as scientists) would enter where belief is god until one remembers that money knocks down many barriers.
The science behind positive thinking, reveals Ehrenreich, is questionable. She finds there is “no positive effect of therapy.” She debunks the positive-thinking reductionism as “loony extrapolations” and ridicules the notion of humans existing as waves and particles. She writes, “thoughts are not vibrations, and … There is no such thing as a ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ vibration.”
Magnetism and positive thinking? “As everyone knows, ordinary magnets are not attracted to or repelled by our heads, nor are our heads attracted to refrigerators.”
Positive-thinking advocates claim science demonstrates that we create our own reality … in other words, reality is dependent on the perceiver. Ehrenreich states this is equivalent to saying science depends on personal tastes.
Ehrenreich asks what led Americans into the embrace of positive thinking.
She writes of a “religious melancholy” and the grip of historical religion. One imagines the fanaticism of Renaissance reformer Savonarola reaching across the centuries.
Sometimes at odds, old religion and new positive thinking converge on the “insistence on work.”
The positive thinking industry preys on those most vulnerable: people facing illness or loss of job.
There are Orwellian overtones to how corporations seize advantage of positive thinking and book motivational speakers for their employees. Ehrenreich describes a CEO image change to that of a motivational speaker. Corporations inculcate workers to believe that their positive-thinking determines their succeed. The workers assume responsibility for what befalls them. Downsizing is their controllable fate, but with positive thinking workers can propel themselves forward on the path to success again.
Positive-thinking advocacy is prevalent among many psychologists. With psychoactive drugs prescribable by regular physicians, Ehrenreich asks “what was left for a psychologist to do?” A cynic might reply that there is work trying to legitimate torture in the American gulags.
A major proponent of the efficacy of positive thinking in the field of psychology is Martin Seligman who made a name for himself with pioneering research into learned helplessness. Seligman came up with an equation for happiness: H=S+C+V, where S is set range, C is circumstances in life, and V is factors under voluntary control.
Many psychologists have long yearned for their discipline to become a hard science, and applying mathematics to psychology was one method. Ehrenreich says to express happiness as an equation is to “invite ridicule.” And just what are the units of measurement she asks?
Ehrenreich apparently irritated Seligman by questioning his “science.” Ehrenreich does not flinch. She calls Seligman’s reliance on a simple arithmetic equation Wizard of Oz-like.
How does one interpret the correlations between positive thinking and and other manifestations? Ehrenreich asks, “Are people happy because they are healthy or healthy because they are happy?”
Ehrenreich does her research and concludes that Seligman has spun the results of selected studies.
Ehrenreich identifies one obvious barrier to happiness is poverty. She points to studies that show richer people tend to be happier. Positive thinking, however, through its connections with capitalism and corporations can be accused of immiserating people and providing a false rationale for the acceptance of the status quo. Ehrenreich points to the economic destruction wrought by positive thinking: every household in bottom 80 percent is subsidizing the top one percent with $7000/year.
What is the answer? People must think critically. They must use their minds to evaluate the veracity of information, to assess the reliability of the source of the information. To expose myths posing as conventional wisdom requires a little analysis and reflection.
Is Ehrenreich correct? Is the professed power of positive thinking a sham? Inform yourself, analyze the information, discuss with others, and form your own conclusions backed by your own solid reasoning and facts.
The lesson in Bright-sided is clear and valuable: adjure gullibility and scrutinize knowledge — new and old.