Cult of Positive Thinking?
Speed
Thinking," or "wishing makes it so." Reagan was a big proponent of
this idea, though it goes back to Norman Vincent Peale and even
earlier.
I'm sort of a pessimist by nature, about the world's future and the
human condition in general. I've always had people tell me to cheer
up, think positive, the glass is half full, etc. Usually they're
telling me this just before something in their life gets totally
screwed up (often something a pessimist like me could have forseen).
I work at a company that is gradually falling apart (not my first one
either) and we just got through with a company-wide meeting where the
executives gave us the rah-rah "everything's great" speeches (not the
first time I've heard them either) and we all need to think positive
and work on coming up with better "Mission Statements" and "Vision
Statements" for our website. No, let's not fix any of the real
problems in the company, let's come up with a better Mission
Statement. And people wonder why I'm a pessimist about human nature.
Self-deception seems to be necessary for people to function in
society; I've never been great at either one.
Most of the country is infected with this disease. Never mind our
trillions of dollars in debt, jobs going overseas, collapsing
environment, crooked institutions, soaring cost of living, wars,
crime, terrorism, mental illness, mindless TV, addictions to shopping,
eating, sex, gambling, etc. No sir, let's just think positive and it
will all be OK. If you're not happy, just take a pill or get some
therapy and join the Happy Masses.
Ironically, the other popular cult in America today is end-times
Rapture/Biblical Prophecy crap. Go figure.
Sir Frederick
>It seems to me that many Americans worship a religion called "Positive
>Thinking," or "wishing makes it so." Reagan was a big proponent of
>this idea, though it goes back to Norman Vincent Peale and even
>earlier.
>
IMO it goes deeper than culthood :
On the hubris feeling of the common human condition :
One of the common insanities bequeathed to us by our evolved
past, seems to be a common hubris ( a feeling that we are somehow
important in the scheme of things).
A symptom of that is the ET visitation fantasy :
I doubt that we will be visited by any ET, anytime, neither sooner nor later.
That would be like you going to the next block to visit
a nondescript cockroach colony under some fridge. Not at all likely.
In the meanwhile : "Happy Hubris!"
Another symptom are the soul and "life after death" stories.
They help produce the thousands of religions we support.
Even atheists have religious experiences of the common sort,
if not of the Biblical sort. Genetic and developmental variations
apply.
This insanity is so pervasive it must have been very useful to evolution.
Today we would probably be better off basing our continuation on
more objective grounds. Perhaps even choosing hubris as the vehicle,
but when it is driven as an insanity (similar to sex and breeding). it will
cause destructive problems.
It shows up here on Usenet in various forms. Mostly ugly.
Every person I perceive in any media, I perceive as drugged
up on hubris. It is a drug, a genetically induced drug.
Here is a treatment of a similar topic from Edge :
The insidiousness of hubris is shown in this
treatment on "consciousness" in this Edge contribution :
(replace "consciousness" with "hubris" for a try.)
http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_10.html
>NICHOLAS HUMPHREY
>Psychologist, London School of Economics; Author, The Mind Made Flesh
>
>I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an
>inexplicable mystery. Who is the conjuror and why is s/he doing it? The conjuror is natural selection, and the purpose has been to
>bolster human self-confidence and self-importance-so as to increase the value we each place on our own and others' lives.
>
>If this is right, it provides a simple explanation for why we, as scientists or laymen, find the "hard problem" of consciousness
>just so hard. Nature has meant it to be hard. Indeed "mysterian" philosophers-from Colin McGinn to the Pope-who bow down before the
>apparent miracle and declare that it's impossible in principle to understand how consciousness could arise in a material brain, are
>responding exactly as Nature hoped they would, with shock and awe.
>
>Can I prove it? It's difficult to prove any adaptationist account of why humans experience things the way they do. But here there
>is an added catch. The Catch-22 is that, just to the extent that Nature has succeeded in putting consciousness beyond the reach of
>rational explanation, she must have undermined the very possibility of showing that this is what she's done.
>
>But nothing's perfect. There may be a loophole. While it may seem-and even be-impossible for us to explain how a brain process
>could have the quality of consciousness, it may not be at all impossible to explain how a brain process could (be designed to) give
>rise to the impression of having this quality. (Consider: we could never explain why 2 + 2 = 5, but we might relatively easily be
>able to explain why someone should be under the illusion that 2 + 2 = 5).
>
>Do I want to prove it? That's a difficult one. If the belief that consciousness is a mystery is a source of human hope, there may
>be a real danger that exposing the trick could send us all to hell.
--
The human condition, consider it!
"Happy Hubris!"
Thus your hatred of Americans is short sighted, try the human race
as a whole.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Marvin
"Speed" <no...@nope.com> wrote in message
news:dsaf135it0cu5jf1l...@4ax.com...
There may be more of a relationship here than there appears to be. The
beliefs of Evangelicals appear to have changed somewhat since I was growing
up, and it's possible that most of them no longer hold to these beliefs. I
haven't really stayed in touch for the past thirty years. Of course, there
were always variations and degrees of belief within the movement.
Prayer and answers to prayer used to be a major topic. The doctrine was
that prayer is always answered if the person praying has sufficient faith.
Believers were encouraged to "claim" the answer by telling others that they
were healed, the bills were paid, Cousin John was "under conviction," or
whatever other result had been prayed for. My family were great believers
in divine healing, and we kept a little bottle of rancid olive oil to
"anoint" the sick (my mother died believing that was the way olive oil
smelled and that it wasn't fit to be food). I was a pretty healthy child,
but I had rather severe headaches occasionally. After the prayer I was
expected to "claim" my healing, because if I didn't have enough faith, I
wouldn't be healed. After a day or two the headache would go away and I'd
be fine for a month or so, and I'd convince myself it took that long for my
faith to kick in. When it finally occurred to me that it would eventually
go away anyway and that all the other people were "claiming" their healing
just as I was, I lost a lot of confidence in prayer for healing. I tried to
believe in other kinds of answered prayer for a number of years after that,
but the fact that I was deluding myself became so obvious I finally had to
face it.
As I see it, the doctrines of "claiming" and of positive thinking are
closely related, and perhaps identical.
Marvin
Kate
Ah, the old rah rah, blame it on the employees whilst pretending to
make everyone feel better crap that gets sold to the management by
hucksters.
This is a constant in civil service and probably a real reason why
some go postal now and again.
It's almost as much fun as the schemes that make you go to meetings
once a week and keep diaries about your goals, like anyone gives a
rat's ass what your goals are.
ta
> It seems to me that many Americans worship a religion called "Positive
> Thinking," or "wishing makes it so." Reagan was a big proponent of
> this idea, though it goes back to Norman Vincent Peale and even
> earlier.
And yet the placebo effect is something pretty well documented. There
is also fairly extensive anecdotal evidence of self-healing, or
spontaneous healing. It seems possible, at least to some degree, to
"create your own reality" as they say. To what extent that is true
seems highly uncertain to me, however.
At the very least, it's something worth investigating based on both
scientific and anecdotal evidence. Ultimately though, first-hand
experience is the best way to find out.
> I'm sort of a pessimist by nature, about the world's future and the
> human condition in general.
You probably watch too much tv. I don't think anyone is a pessimist
"by nature". It's anti-survival. Pessimism is a conditioned response.
> I've always had people tell me to cheer
> up, think positive, the glass is half full, etc. Usually they're
> telling me this just before something in their life gets totally
> screwed up (often something a pessimist like me could have forseen).
You can learn to choose how you react to events. And given the choice
between defeatism and optimism, shouldn't we choose the latter?
> I work at a company that is gradually falling apart (not my first one
> either) and we just got through with a company-wide meeting where the
> executives gave us the rah-rah "everything's great" speeches (not the
> first time I've heard them either) and we all need to think positive
> and work on coming up with better "Mission Statements" and "Vision
> Statements" for our website. No, let's not fix any of the real
> problems in the company, let's come up with a better Mission
> Statement. And people wonder why I'm a pessimist about human nature.
Well, of course some executives will use that pitch to get the most
out of you. But that fact does not mean the whole concept of positive
thinking should be discarded. You just have to learn to be able to
discriminate between the two -- you have to learn how to detect
credibility in others.
Successful organizations really do care about fixing the real problems
-- it is in their best interest to do so. Surely not all organizations
engender the sort of culture you have described.
Re: positive thinking and your company's demise, you have two ways to
think about it: 1. You're doomed, all companies suck, the world sucks,
humans suck or 2. This is an opportunity to get out of a crappy
situation and into a better one.
I've been part of failed organizations, and in retrospect, I'm
extremely grateful for having gone through it. There are so many
incredible things that I have learned and experienced that would have
never happened under different circumstances. I wouldn't have met
certain people, I wouldn't have had certain opportunities, I wouldn't
have discovered certain things that I only could have discovered by
being flushed out of that situation.
> Self-deception seems to be necessary for people to function in
> society; I've never been great at either one.
You seem to have conflated self-deception with positive thinking,
which I think is a logical error. Self-deception is that act of
deluding oneself, usually toward the goal of avoiding certain
unpleasant realities. We find the current situation so uncomfortable
that we invent ways of postponing those feelings (I say "postpone"
because eventually everything comes home to roost). Self-deception
taken to the extreme leads to bona fide psychological disorders.
Positive thinking, however, comes from the awareness that we have
choices on how we deal with the current reality. For example, we don't
deny that we are overweight or unhappy or unsuccessful; rather, we
accept that fact as reality, and from that point, decide on how we
deal with it. There is no deception involved.
To take the overweight example, we can choose to modify our behaviour
to include healthier eating and exercise habits, but only after we
come face to face with the fact that we really are overweight and that
our lifestyle is unhealthy. Seeing "what is" is the first necessary
step. Positive thinking then is the realization that *how* we deal
with that reality is really our choice.
The key though is a healthy sense of self-esteem. People who deceive
themselves are acting from a point of low self-esteem; they don't feel
confident enough in themselves to be able to take on the real
challenges presented, so they deny and avoid.
People who think positively are acting from a point of high self-
esteem. They recognize the scientific fact that there are many
possible outcomes, and they have a great deal of control over which
outcome is manifested.
People with low self-esteem are victims.
People with high self-esteem take responsibility.
Positive thinking results from having high self-esteem.
> Most of the country is infected with this disease. Never mind our
> trillions of dollars in debt, jobs going overseas, collapsing
> environment, crooked institutions, soaring cost of living, wars,
> crime, terrorism, mental illness, mindless TV, addictions to shopping,
> eating, sex, gambling, etc. No sir, let's just think positive and it
> will all be OK. If you're not happy, just take a pill or get some
> therapy and join the Happy Masses.
Yep, definitely too much tv. ;-)
Ultimately you get to choose what you put your attention on. If you
put your attention on these things, then how could anything other than
pessimism result? Putting your attention on the many positive things
in life (most of which you won't hear on the "news") does not mean we
deny that these other things exist. It just means we choose to focus
on things over which we have control.
If the floor is dirty, pick up a broom (paraphrasing Mother Theresa).
> Ironically, the other popular cult in America today is end-times
> Rapture/Biblical Prophecy crap. Go figure.
Good example of avoidance/denial.
Immortalist
Hey, nothin wrong with neutral or even negative thinking, as long as
one doesn't blame other people and event in the world for the various
moods that result. If you can accept that those times when your
thinking gets out of hand and moods follow, that it was mostly your
own choice and doings. Not to mention many ingrained long term hard to
undue habits of letting your thoughts go anywhere even into an
attitude that might interfere with what might have happened had a
little bit more responsible thinking had taken place. Actually you may
have learned to think properly and don't get bad moods, which would
contradict your position since thinking would naturally lead to half
good and bad moods if left alone to go its own way.
-----------------------
There is within Stoic philosophy, a distinct and interesting theory of
human psychology which entails not only a normative account of human
growth and development but also a corresponding theory of
psychopathology based on that account. The theory also encompasses a
system of therapeutic techniques formulated to expose and correct
these pathologies. In sum, there exists what can only be described as,
a unique and well-formulated system of Stoic Psychotherapy.
Stoicism does not just contain a theory of psychotherapy, as part of
its larger philosophical theory, but Stoicism itself is more
accurately conceptualized as primarily a psychotherapy, albeit, with
an extensive philosophical underpinning.
http://www.geocities.com/ptypes/psychotherapy.html
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is based on the concept that
emotions and behaviours result from cognitive processes; and that it
is possible for human beings to modify such processes to achieve
different ways of feeling and behaving. REBT is one of a number of
'cognitive-behavioural' therapies, which, although developed
separately, have many similarities - such as Cognitive Therapy (CT),
developed by Psychiatrist Aaron Beck in the 1960's.
In the mid-1950's Dr. Albert Ellis, a clinical psychologist trained in
psychoanalysis, became disillusioned with the slow progress of his
clients. He observed that they tended to get better when they changed
their ways of thinking about themselves, their problems, and the
world. Ellis reasoned that therapy would progress faster if the focus
was directly on the client's beliefs, and thus was born the method now
known as Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy.
A Brief Introduction to Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy
By Wayne Froggatt
http://www.rational.org.nz/prof/docs/intro-rebt.htm
General Semantics and Rational Emotive Therapy (RET)
by Dr. Albert Ellis
http://thisisnotthat.com/sampler/ellis_akml.html