"It is at this cost that you can eat sugar in Europe" said the negro to Candide
Voltaire, the 18th Century French essayist, wrote about it in his 1762 smash hit, Candide: or the Optimist, and now one of my favorite social critics and class warriors, Barbara Ehrenreich, has attacked it in her latest offering, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America (October 2009).
As an early skeptic of heedless happiness, I can tell you it’s a lonely position to assume, kind of like being against puppies, or summer barbecues. Who in their right mind would peg optimism as a bad thing, and how could it positive thinking possible have, well, negative side-effects?
What Warren Buffett famously said about financial markets and other forums of mass self-delusion also turns out to apply to the cult of positive thinking: it’s only when the tide goes out that you find out who’s been swimming naked.
Now that the gravy train of conspicuous consumption and exhuberance has come to a shrieking halt, you can practically hear the air wheezing out of the positive thinking balloon. The movement is now under attack by the twin spear carriers of logic and reality.
My own opinion on this cultural craze went from indifference to alarm with the dizzying popularity of The Secret, a kind of insidiousphilosophy (and book, and DVD, and multi-million-dollar franchise) which purports that the Universe will work with you to achieve your goals - whatever they are, from health, wealth, or romance - if you believe yourself deserving of them. In other words, it’s a question of mind over matter.
This is not very far removed from Leibnizianism, the popular philosophy Voltaire spoofed in Candide, that sought to prove by logical brain acrobatics and so-called rational thinking that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”. This theory relies heavily on the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful and mysterious God, whose actions on Earth may seem confusing to mere mortals, but who is ultimately perfect. His perfection means that, however nonsensical and odd His works may seems to us, they must be perfect because He is perfect. Nowadays we would refer to this kind of thinking as a “divine plan” or else we might tell ourselves that everything happens for a reason as a means of coping with a terrifying and unpredictable world over which we have little control, if any.
Positive thinking à la The Secret, The Millionaire Mind, and their self-help ilk is similar to that mode of fatalism in that it also tries to impose an element of control over what is, in essence, a very random reality where luck, accident and coincidence play bigger roles than people would like to admit. The same kind of fatalism prevalent in very poor, terminally violent countries is simply the other side of the delusion coin. The rich, first world nations get to call it “The Power of Positive Thinking” while people whose children still routinely die from malaria and starvation are likely to surrender their collective will to a higher power than themselves. In other words, why bother trying to change things when only those things that are “meant” to happen, ever will? In a prosperous place, people allow themselves to think they “deserve” only good things, while the remaining 80% of the world’s population, mired in misery, will surrender to debilitating fatalism where it’s generally pointless to try and have a better life here on Earth.
This is where, for wealthy societies like those of North America, the Cayman Islands, belief in a benevolent, obliging Universe preoccupiedwith responding to the hopes and positive “vibes” of credulant Earthlings becomes a problem.
Take cancer.
The Cayman Observer ran a brilliant and absolutely terrifying New York Times article a few weeks ago about the gap in perception of cancer survival rates, and actual cancer survival rates. With all the money poured into cancer research over the past 30 years, long-term survival rates have barely budged. But that’s not the impression you and I get when we read the labels on certain foods, or when fruits and vegetables like broccoli and strawberries are touted for their “antioxidant” or cancer-fighting abilities. Of course, none of these foods are promise they’ll prevent cancer, just like The Secret, or The Millionaire Minddon’t promise wealth, health, and happiness, but they imply a correlational relationship which suggests that if you don’t achieve your heart’s desire, it’s very likely because of something you did, ate, thought, didn’t do, didn’t eat, or didn’t think.
And that’s cruel. Not only is it cruel, but it becomes downright dangerous when positive thinking replaces action based on a realistic outlook, paving the way for quick-witted, unscrupulous opportunists to fleece the eternally optimistic among us for all we’ve got.
Like, for example, the recent fleecing of investors, employees, and home-owners by an unregulated and highly speculative financial system. Yes, there is a connection here, and it’s the way wishful thinking has completely replaced our natural aversion to risk taking. It’s more than just the marriage of a keep-up-with-the-Jones’s mentality and the over-availability of consumer credit that’s worrisome, but the injection of spirituality that positive thinking brings into the mix. We should no longer keep our Earthly desires in check because we deserve total fulfillment and happiness, whether in the form of a safe, happy family, or a pair of Gucci pumps. It’s the emotional equivalent of taking materialism out of the closet and placing it on a public alter of worship.
Which brings me to Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their “prosperity gospel” mega-ministry/business. The Copelands have eschewed preaching humility and simple, conscientious living in favor of spreading the Word of God through conspicuous consumption and the lusting after material delights. The idea is that by giving (presumably, to the Copelands and their network of ministries) you can achieve happiness here on Earth, instead of waiting around for a heavenly reward. And they’ve made millions. About a hundred million a year, actually, lifted entirely from an economic class of people that religion professor Dr. Jonathan L. Watler says resides “in that nebulous category between the working poor and the middle class”. People like truckers, and elementary school teachers, and nursing assistants. People who’ve had plenty of reason to mistrust the banks that sold them predatory sub-prime mortgages, and a government that pockets large chunks of their meager salaries and offers very little in return. Why not resort to a kind of delusional positive thinking that promises payoffs through prayer, when lifetimes of working hard and being productive citizens have resulted in exorbitant personal debt, foreclosures, and the looming threat that they are one medical crisis away from complete ruin.
It’s only normal that people, whether those stricken with scary diseases or personal disasters, turn to spirituality. It’s only normal to want - to need- to believe that we are more than just these imperfect vessels of hardship, disease, and misfortune. This is why the words of a poor Judeancarpenter who praised compassion and humanized the poor still resonate today. He voiced a truth suspected by most, that spiritual comfort could not be found in material things or endeavors. But for a world order that depends so mightily upon the United States, and other wealthy nations’ willingness to spend, spend, spend, Jesus’s original message proves decidedly impractical, if not outright subversive.
Positive thinking, on the other hand, offers an adequate substitute for true spirituality while insidiously fuelling the fires that ravage our daily existence.
While I don’t suggest that we boycott Oprah until she starts running a ”Oprah’s Most Reviled Things” segment, or CNBC unless they create a show featuring failed entrepreneurs, I wonder if all future cancer patients might not be served better with a realistic approach to the disease and better end-of-life counseling. Maybe then we’d see fit to prioritize funding of new and risky types of research (like stem cell) over spending on more F-16 fighter jets. Or if a realistic picture of how easy it is for middle-class people to fall into poverty might not breathe new life into debates over welfare, health care, and other social programs. Hope is great, until it gets turned into a business model.
Optimism that is not tempered by critical thinking breeds selfishness and passivity in societies, and at the personal level, instills the same kind of guilt Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam burden their less-than-perfect flock with. Did the cancer come back because of something I did? as opposed to: cancer is notoriously difficult to beat. Am I struggling to feed my kids because I am lazy? versus large swathes of people suffer because they are simply a low priority for their governments who are more interested in giving tax breaks to corporations without asking for anything in return.
What kind of social change can be affected with a little less positive thinking, and a little more positive action?
I wonder.
