The Positive Thinking Craze
I was reading my weekend NY Times Book Review and came across a review of a new book critiquing the cult of Positive Thinking. The reviewer describes Positive Thinking as an All-American phenomenon that "bears little relation to genuine hope or happiness." She agrees with the basic premise of the book that Positive Thinking is a "delusional and infuriating belief system that arose as a late 19th and early 20th Century reaction against the predominant Calvinism emphasis on sin and guilt." According to the reviewer, a "dour Calvinism" was replaced by something "equally oppressive" in the form of the Positive Thinking movement. She cites Dale Carnegie's 1936 opus, How to Win Friends and Influence People as the primeval motivational text, especially in the business community where Positive Thinking and motivational speaking has taken on nearly sacred proportions.
I must confess that I wish I had written this book because it captures all the things I have objected to the movement for the past thirty-odd years. I would have added a chapter on the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, who gave the Positive Thinking movement a religious platform in the 1950's. No wonder I have felt like a fish out of water in the Reformed Church in America, whose Marble Collegiate Church in New York city became Peale's bully pulpit for positive thinkers, and where his younger counterpart on the West coast, Rev. Robert H. Schuller, gave the movement a new twist in the form of "Possiblity Thinking" from his audacious Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.
Today's megachurches have taken up the torch, thanks to Schuller, Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, and Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA. They have become the New Calvinism of America. The book, however, deals primarily with popular megachurch preacher Joel Osteen who comes from a Pentecostal background, and whose use of Positive Thinking reaches furthest away from his religious roots.
But my fundamental disagreement with this movement is the premise that one can change one's circumstances by the power of their own thoughts. Anyway, the book is called, "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America" by Barbara Ehrenreich. The link is:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/books/review/Rosin-t.html?_r=1&ref=books
You may wish to put me in the bin of those masochistic cranks who say that the essence of authentic faith is suffering. But that's just a smoke screen the Positive Thinking movement loves to exploit for its own purposes. Sometimes life doles out major kaka and perhaps there are other ways of dealing with it than by pretending it doesn't exist. So, when life hands me lemons, I think I'd rather make a pucker face than lemonade!
You may wish to put me in the bin of those masochistic cranks who say that the essence of authentic faith is suffering. But that's just a smoke screen the Positive Thinking movement loves to exploit for its own purposes. Sometimes life doles out major kaka and perhaps there are other ways of dealing with it than by pretending it doesn't exist. So, when life hands me lemons, I think I'd rather make a pucker face than lemonade!
Comments
A number of years ago, when I was going through a tough period, a friend gave me a booklet on positive thinking. It made things worse.
Secondly, when I went through my crash in 84 (divorce, etc.), someone gave me a book on cognitive therapy which helped me. The similarities between ct and the some of the positive thinking stuff are remarkable. My favorite author on this probably is Martin Selegman with his work called "Learned Optimism."
I'm not yet convinced that positive thinking is harmful. But remember that I live in the armpit of the rust belt with 18% unemployment. Today we have brilliant sunshine, a crisp, clear morning and great lakes but not enough jobs. Positive thinking may be slightly illusional but it beats drugs and alcohol. It has no calories and gives no hangover!