American Positive Thinking: A Painkiller with Side Effect

Shahram (Sean) Gandomchin
Instructor: Professor Kurz
Subject: Page 541:#3
Date: 11/21/2013
American Positive Thinking: A Painkiller with Side Effect
The two essays, “Bright-Sided” by Barbara Ehrenreich and “The More Factor” by Laurence Shames examine the shallowness of the American culture of optimism and insatiable hunger for material success. While Ehrenreich attacks the “positive thinking” ideology that persuades individuals that everything will turn out right if they think positively and work hard, Shames cautions the American society against the belief that America is the land of plenty where there is enough for everyone. However, reviewing the whole of the two essays conveys the message that America is undoing her exaggeration of the possibilities and potential for material success, which currently makes her blind to the possibilities of misfortune and unpredictable negative outcomes.
Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the American folly of believing that everything is possible with positive thinking. Positive thinking supposedly not only makes people feel optimistic, but actually makes happy outcomes more likely. This attitude is a major factor in the American Dream, which Shames argues fuels the hunger for more just like a side effect. Ehrenreich observes that many psychologists offer a rational explanation that “optimism improves health, personal efficacy, confidence, and resilience, making it easier for us to accomplish our goals” (Ehrenreich 535). These goals are nothing more than the collective drive for material wealth and social mobility.
However, Ehrenreich argues that the emphasis on positive thinking reflects America’s anxiety about the reality of things; life is not rosy. Specifically, Ehrenreich asks: “Why bother with the mental effort of positive thinking if the generic “positive thought” is correct and things are really getting better, progressing toward universal happiness and abundance?” (535). It is because, she argues, Americans are not fully convinced that things will actually get better on their own; they need to pump up this self-deceiving ideology through the practicing of positive thinking, despite there being much evidence to the contrary. The desire for more is perhaps an unconscious reflection of this awareness, hence the need to seek security in material possessions. People will feel more secure by amassing wealth.
Another argument raised by the author is that positive thinking is a self-gratifying notion informed by America’s pride of being the greatest nation on earth, which it is not considering that her citizens are not the happiest in the world. More realistically, positive thinking is an apology for the crueler aspects of America’s capitalist economy; greed and economic inequalities. It is the high-class society’s way of justifying their wealth and assuaging the guilt of having so much at the expense of other. If people can achieve success by being optimistic and thinking positively, then there is no excuse for failure. It is an insistence on individual responsibility for success or failure. If one is poor, it is because he does not believe in his potential to succeed in life, and has not worked harder or tried hard enough to get a good paying job. In short, it is lacking in positive thinking that prevents people from achieving their full potential.
On his part, Laurence Shames argues that the Americans’ optimistic nature informs their tendency to speculate good things about their future and take risks while hopping for the best. He calls it “the habit of more,” which persuades people that “there is no such thing as getting wiped out in America” (Shames 91). The habit of wanting more is driven by the American Dream, which encourages people to strive towards material success. The open space provided by America’s vastness is a metaphor for the limitless opportunities and an insatiable desire for more. However, while there is no limit on what one can accomplish in America, it is also a fact that people will never get satisfied. This is reflected in America’s vision for economic prosperity. Like the ideology of positive thinking, the frontier, America’s limitless landmass, is a symbol for the American way of doing things; risk taking, market speculation and the capitalistic spirit of wanting more and more. Both authors portray positive thinking and optimism as the cob-webs in the eye that prevent Americans from perceiving the harsh realities of life, such as a declining economy, increasing debts, gun violence, as well as social and economic inequalities.
Shames conclude that the essential situation of the American society today is that it is running out of more. This view echoes Ehrenreich’s argument that America’s positive thinking ideology is an empty promise; there is positive in light of the social and economic challenges that Americans face. As Shames points out, even in the face of economic hardships and stagnant economic growth, the concept of the frontier (America’s vast open land space and land resources) and its symbolic promise for a limitless opportunities is kept alive by “invocation, allusion, and hype,” (94), which are no different from the ideology of positive thinking. The idea of an economic frontier suggests that America’s economy has limitless potential for one to succeed in. It reinforces the belief that the American economy is one big playing ground where opportunities for success and room for expansion will never run out, a place where one will always get more as long as they work hard for it. The image of the frontier as a reserve of untapped resources evokes wistfulness in the American psych, creating an environment where people desire for more material success. However, the nostalgia of the 1980s about frontiers was a final realization that the playing field was not limitless, it was being fenced and there might not be room for continuous economic growth after all. Thus, this assertion emphasizes Ehrenreich’s position that the American society is not alive to the social economic challenges it faces, but blinded by the illusion of positive thinking and optimism that may act simply as a painkiller. One of the major side effects of American’s addiction to the “positive thinking painkiller” is the habit of “hunger for more”, which is fed by the false belief that opportunities never run out in America, the land of plenty.
An assessment of positive thinking is analyzed by David Collinson through coining the term Prozac leadership that is given as how positivism promotes false happiness and discourages the ability of critical reflection and analysis of organizational functions (Collinson, 87). The companies are left ill equipped to face economic changes owing to lack of critical environmental analysis. There have been a number of shortcomings that has resulted from excess positive optimism that affects the ability of organizations to face both social and economic realities (Collinson, 87). The author makes the assertion that the “reward optimism and discourages pessimism are likely to undermine the capacity to think critically,” (Collinson, 87). This lack of critical thinking and a realization of the presence of challenges, avoiding pessimistic thinking, and taking precautionary measures are always catastrophic to these organizations. One of the main examples of how positive thinking has been a downfall for organizations is the takeover of Dutch bank ABN by The Royal Bank of Scotland in 2007 as the recession began to which the author terms delusional optimism. Despite the problems associated with positive thinking, large organizations perpetrate it through implementing upward positive communication and discouraging criticism. This reduc...