RSA Animate: Smile or Die. Narrated by Barbara Ehrenreich of Bright-Sided.

[madfloridian]

Run time: 10:23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo   Posted on YouTube: March 17, 2010 By YouTube Member: theRSAorg Views on YouTube: 509477   Posted on DU: November 09, 2010 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 769

 
"Acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking."

Here is some background on her book Bright-Sided.

"Bright-Sided"...relentless "positive thinking" used as opiate by business leaders.

Robyn Blumner of the St. Pete Times had this to say:

Blumner speaks about a book by pastor Joel Osteen.

The Secret became a runaway bestseller by telling readers that they could have anything they want just by imagining it. The book was obviously unadulterated bunk, but it sold madly as people grasped at any chance to better their lives. One has to wonder if such magical thinking would have been so popular if people felt they had temporal power to change the conditions of their work and prospects. The reason that so many Americans work at jobs that don't pay enough is not that they don't channel enough positive energy into getting a better salary, but that wages have been stagnant for 30 years. And the reason that wages have barely budged is that America's wealthiest households have kept slicing themselves a larger piece of the income pie.

.."Every working stiff in the bottom 80 percent should be outraged and politically motivated to force change. But if everyone is convinced of the convenient nostrum that our own attitude controls how much we are paid, then workers won't band together to demand a larger share of our national prosperity.

This positive thinking message is a kind of opiate that has been particularly effective on the white-collar corporate work force. Ehrenreich documents how corporations hire motivational speakers to convince laid-off workers that their job loss is "an opportunity for self-transformation." Somehow, she says, white-collar workers have accepted positive thinking as a "belief system" that says a person can be "infinitely powerful, if only they could master their own minds."

More from Ehrenreich about her book.

...."Surprisingly, when psychologists undertake to measure the relative happiness of nations, they routinely find that Americans are not, even in prosperous times and despite our vaunted positivity, very happy at all. A recent meta-analysis of over a hundred studies of self-reported happiness worldwide found Americans ranking only twenty-third, surpassed by the Dutch, the Danes, the Malaysians, the Bahamians, the Austrians, and even the supposedly dour Finns. In another potential sign of relative distress, Americans account for two-thirds of the global market for antidepressants, which happen also to be the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. To my knowledge, no one knows how antidepressant use affects people's responses to happiness surveys: do respondents report being happy because the drugs make them feel happy or do they report being unhappy because they know they are dependent on drugs to make them feel better? Without our heavy use of antidepressants, Americans would likely rank far lower in the happiness rankings than we currently do.

More from Ehrenreich:

And Ehrenreich reminds us again that this is such a convenient policy for business leaders.

But nowhere did it find a warmer welcome than in American business, which is, of course, also global business. To the extent that positive thinking had become a business itself, business was its principal client, eagerly consuming the good news that all things are possible through an effort of mind. This was a useful message for employees, who by the turn of the twenty-first century were being required to work longer hours for fewer benefits and diminishing job security. But it was also a liberating ideology for top-level executives. What was the point in agonizing over balance sheets and tedious analyses of risks — and why bother worrying about dizzying levels of debt and exposure to potential defaults — when all good things come to those who are optimistic enough to expect them?

[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. A new form of blaming the victim.

When I was working, I got to the point where I DID NOT CARE ANYMORE if anybody saw me cry at my desk from stress.

I knew that a)Nobody would notice; b) nobody would give a shit about my feelings, since they had never indicated so before; c) I was powerless and they wouldn't give me any approval even if I did what they wanted me to; so d) I didn't have anything to lose by being "unprofessional".

[madfloridian]

3. It's amazing to me how all that "cheery" stuff has worked for years.

Positive thinking may be fine, but they have carried it to extremes.

[LibDemAlways]

4. Years ago I spent 13 months in the human resources

department of a large insurance company. One weekend all of the peons were required to attend a seminar called "Achieve Your Potential," which was a bunch of "feel good" nonsense that was supposed to improve morale and productivity. Of course the managers had no problem achieving their potential. They were on the receiving end of huge salaries and generous bonuses.

The peons, on the other hand, were underpaid, overworked, and subject to the whims of the higher ups. One poor woman begged for an extra day off at Christmas so she could visit family in another state. Request denied by an asshole who was spending the entire week between Christmas and New Years at a ski resort. The "no vacations at Christmas" rule didn't apply to him.

All of the Power of Positive Thinking crap is meaningless in a workplace where the employees are treated like shit - which is most everyplace I've worked.

[Locrian]

5. [phone]

Ya know, the BLUES was invented for this very reason.....


I'll take listening to someone sing the blues over any "feel good" crap seminar any day.