Barbara Ehrenreich, Positive Thinking, & Smiley Faces Like Tony Robbins & Joel Osteen

When author Barbara Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was bombarded with wildly optimistic, inspirational phrases. But a cheerful outlook, she argues, does not cure cancer.

In her new book, Bright-Sided, Ehrenreich explores the negative effects of positive thinking, and the "reckless optimism" that dominates America's national mindset.

"We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles," Ehrenreich writes, "both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking." More

All the Oprah-ready gurus you would expect to populate this polemic [about positive thinking] show up to share some advice—here’s Joel Osteen warning us never to "verbalize a negative emotion," there’s Tony Robbins exhorting us to "Get motivated!" In turning the United States into a 24-hour pep rally, charges Ehrenreich, these professional cheerleaders have all but drowned out downers like "realism" and "rationality." Their followers are trained to dismiss bad news rather than assimilate or reflect upon its importance. Motivators counsel an upbeat ignorance—the kind of illusory worldview that might, say, convince a president that his soldiers will be greeted as liberators in a foreign state, or a mayor that his city’s crumbling levees can withstand the force of a hurricane.. . . .Life coach/professional-motivator-types are soft targets. They don’t seem particularly bright, they use verbs in dumb ways (as in "God will prosper you"), and they cultivate a general air of overcaffeinated quackery. One wonders how anyone takes them seriously. But no one takes them more seriously than Ehrenreich, who believes them capable of driving Americans toward a bizarre array of conflicting behaviors. In blaming so much evil on positive thinking, she casts optimism as both an opiate—numbing us into a kind of stoned complacency, as with the wronged employers—and a stimulant, pumping us up for an ill-advised investment or attack on a foreign nation. More

The Peril of Positive Thinking

Don't like the news because it's always glum? Well, quit thinking the glass is half empty. Hey, it's half full, chum, and it's going to get fuller. Somebody will come along and top it off for you. Just don't ask me who. As for the news, you can always change your attitude toward events by getting your daily dose of Happy News.

"Ever since psychologist Martin Seligman crafted the phrase 'learned optimism' in 1991 and started offering optimism training, there's been a thriving industry in the kind of thought reform that supposedly overcomes negative thinking. You can buy any number of books and DVDs with titles like Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, in which you will learn mental exercises to reprogram your outlook from gray to the rosiest pink: 'affirmations,' for example, in which you repeat upbeat predictions over and over to yourself; 'visualizations' in which you post on your bathroom mirror pictures of that car or boat you want; 'disputations' to refute any stray negative thoughts that may come along. If money is no object, you can undergo a three-month 'happiness makeover' from a life coach or invest $3,575 for three days of 'optimism training' on a Good Mood Safari on the coast of New South Wales."

What more could you want? Hmmm, let's see--maybe a dose of reality.

"What makes you think unsullied optimism is such a good idea? Americans have long prided themselves on being positive and optimistic — traits that reached a manic zenith in the early years of this millennium. Iraq would be a cakewalk! The Dow would reach 36,000! Housing prices could never decline! Optimism was not only patriotic but was also a Christian virtue, or so we learned from the proliferating preachers of the 'prosperity gospel,' whose God wants to 'prosper' you. In 2006, the runaway bestseller The Secret promised that you could have anything you wanted, anything at all, simply by using your mental powers to 'attract' it. The poor listened to upbeat preachers like Joel Osteen and took out subprime mortgages. The rich paid for seminars led by motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and repackaged those mortgages into securities sold around the world." More from Barbara Ehrenreich

What Happened to The Women Involved?:Feminism and Abu Ghraib

Lynndie England and Man Told to Masturbate

Feminism and Abu Ghraib Prison

Of the seven U.S. soldiers now charged with sickening forms of abuse in Abu Ghraib, three are women: Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Pfc. Lynndie England and Spc. Sabrina Harman.

What we have learned from Abu Ghraib, once and for all, is that a uterus is not a substitute for a conscience. This doesn't mean gender equality isn't worth fighting for for its own sake. It is. If we believe in democracy, then we believe in a woman's right to do and achieve whatever men can do and achieve, even the bad things. It's just that gender equality cannot, all alone, bring about a just and peaceful world.

Barbara Ehrenreich:

"The photos did something else to me, as a feminist: They broke my heart. I had no illusions about the U.S. mission in Iraq — whatever exactly it is — but it turns out that I did have some illusions about women.

Of the seven U.S. soldiers now charged with sickening forms of abuse in Abu Ghraib, three are women [already named above]..

It was Harman we saw smiling an impish little smile and giving the thumbs-up sign from behind a pile of hooded, naked Iraqi men — as if to say, “Hi Mom, here I am in Abu Ghraib!” It was England we saw with a naked Iraqi man on a leash. . . . ." Found at a 2004 Alternet site.

Barbara Ehrenreich reminds us of the experiments by Stanley Milgram. I am reminded of those by Philip Zimbardo, known as the Stanford Prison Experiments.

What Happened to Them? 

Lynndie England remains unremorseful and believes the prisoners ended up better off than she is. Prisoners' "lives are better. They got the better end of the deal.” She was sentenced to three years in prison and was  dishonorably discharged from the Army. From Newser 20 March 2012 on Lynndie England..

Sabrina Harman pointing to body of Manadel al-Jamadi,
Iraqi tortured to death at Abu Ghraib

Sabrina Harman wrote a letter home in which she said this: "The only reason I want to be there is to get the
pictures and prove that the US is not what they think. But I don't know if I can take it mentally. What if that was me in their shoes. These people will be our future terrorist. Kelly, its awful and you know how fucked I am in the head. Both sides of me think its wrong. I thought I could handle anything. I was wrong." She served six months in prison, received reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge.

Ambuhl observing England pull "Gus"
 from his cell by a leash.

Megan Ambuhl was convicted by court-martial on October 30, 2004, for dereliction of duty. In punishment, she was demoted to Private, discharged from the Army, and docked half a month's pay. In 2005 Ambuhl married Charles Graner, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison, demotion to private, dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of pay and allowances. He was released after 6 and a half years. Lynndie England during her trial was pregnant with Charles Graner's child.

Ali Shallal al-Qaisi

Ali Shallal al-Qaisi. The hooded man standing on the box. He has undergone six surgeries because of the torture. Al-Qaisi said: "I'm spending sleepless nights thinking about the agony I went through... I even have recurring nightmares that I'm in my cell at Abu Ghraib, cell 49 as they called it, being tortured at the hands of the people of a great nation that carries the torch of freedom and human rights." He owned a football pitch and US soldiers commandeered the pitch, using it to dump "severed body parts and left-over waste from fighting." Qaisi contacted the foreign media and broke the story to them. And that did it. "My picture was published in a news article with my complaints. The Americans then raided my home and arrested me," he said. "I wasn't a military commander or a government official. I was just a resident of Baghdad, where I grew up, and just like any other Iraqi I was against the US invasion and I spoke out against it," Qaisi said.

Not a single commissioned officer was sentenced. Higher-echelon commissioned military personnel also got off Scot-free. In short although those at the bottom of the pay grades were punished none of those supervising them were.

Also see Mind Shadows Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib, 19 May 2004.