A few weekends ago I happened across an article called Positive thinking is positively bad for you so always look on the glum slide of life by Virginia Ironside.  In it she gave a positive review for a book entitled Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.  The author is Barbara Ehrenreich, an American journalist, socialist and political activist.

I haven’t got a chance to read the book yet so I’ll try to keep my mind open until I do.  All I can do is comment on the article by Ironside and some other stuff I’ve read on the Internet.  What I do know is that Ehrenreich claims overly positive thinking had a part to play in the recent financial collapse.  More tellingly, she is happy to lump together academics like Martin Seligman with health-and-wealth prosperity preachers like Joel Osteem and New Agers like Oprah Winfrey.

• I find the first of these claims overly optimistic for an anti-capitalist like Ehrenreich.  The socialist solution of borrowing and spending our way out of recession is suicidal; the entrepreneurial method of small-but-optimistic thinking is the way ahead.  Even the socialists of the British Labour party admit the need for economic optimism, now more than ever.  It’s a shame that some of our well-heeled American cousins seem determined to cut down the first shoots of  recovery as they sprout.
• And the second of her claims is plain sloppy.  I’ve blogged before about the important distinction between positive thinking and positive psychology.  Positive thinking is a pseudo-scientific sentiment, while positive psychology is an academic movement encompassing some of the greatest minds in modern and contemporary psychology.  Ironside and Ehrenreich display their ignorance here big-time!  I might as well condemn all journalism as vulgar and populist because I’ve glanced at The Daily Sport!

Anyway its an interesting debate.  Here are some other articles for those who want to read around the topic.

Singin’ in the Wane: The positive thinking movement — panacea or national addiction?

Bright-sided: Is feel-good actually bad?

A personal trainer for your happiness

Learned Optimism: How To Change Your Mind And Your Life

Image credit: gwydionwilliams.

Last 5 posts by Allen Baird, Partner

• No More Heroes? #2 - March 10th, 2010
• No More Heroes? #1 - March 3rd, 2010
• The Politics of Depression - February 22nd, 2010
• Class, Race and Sex In Education - February 15th, 2010
• How To Be Fearless - February 10th, 2010