{"id":4186,"date":"2014-10-25T11:11:30","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T18:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2014-10-25T11:13:08","modified_gmt":"2014-10-25T18:13:08","slug":"positive-thinking-as-social-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/positive-thinking-as-social-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Positive thinking as social control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I found the following video in a <a href=\" http:\/\/zoebaillie.wordpress.com\/2012\/12\/15\/the-powerlessness-of-positive-thinking-barbara-ehrenreich\/\" target=\"_blank\">blog post<\/a> written by Zo\u00eb Siobhan Baillie (@Zoe_Baillie). The audio is an excerpt from a speech by Barbara Ehrenreich, where she elaborates on ideas from her book <a href=\" http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0805087494\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0805087494&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=janhenderson-20\" target=\"_blank\">Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u5um8QWWRvo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Ehrenreich&#8217;s observations deserve to be understood and appreciated. Unfortunately, there&#8217;s a huge commercial market in positive thinking, so her insights face an uphill battle. Judging by the comments left on YouTube (e.g., &#8220;This seems like an incredibly shallow and nonsensical analysis&#8221;), the hill is quite steep.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>At least the delightful animation in the video (provided by <a href=\" http:\/\/www.wearecognitive.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cognitive Media<\/a>) may enchant viewers into watching the entire excerpt. The complete version of Ehrenreich&#8217;s lecture (34 minutes) is available <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thersa.org\/events\/video\/archive\/barbara-ehrenrich-smile-or-die\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, compliments of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thersa.org\" target=\"_blank\">Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)<\/a>, which is &#8220;a 258 year-old charity devoted to creating social progress and spreading world-changing ideas.&#8221; Thank you, RSA.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related posts<\/strong>:<br \/>\n<a href=\" http:\/\/www.thehealthculture.com\/2011\/02\/the-unavoidable-and-burdensome-responsibility-to-be-happy\/ \" target=\"_blank\">The unavoidable and burdensome responsibility to be happy<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\" http:\/\/www.thehealthculture.com\/2010\/12\/the-problem-is-you\/ \" target=\"_blank\">The problem is you<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\" http:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/the-history-of-self-help-some-books-to-read\/ \" target=\"_blank\">The history of self-help: Some books to read<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\" http:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/self-help-from-norman-vincent-peale-to-the-new-oprah\/ \" target=\"_blank\">Self-help from Norman Vincent Peale to the new Oprah<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\" http:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/self-help-as-psychological-healthism\/ \" target=\"_blank\">Self-help as psychological healthism<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\" http:\/\/www.thehealthculture.com\/2011\/03\/the-duty-to-be-happy\/ \" target=\"_blank\">The duty to be happy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>Zo\u00eb Siobhan Baillie, <a href=\" http:\/\/zoebaillie.wordpress.com\/2012\/12\/15\/the-powerlessness-of-positive-thinking-barbara-ehrenreich\/ \" target=\"_blank\">The powerlessness of positive thinking \u2013 Barbara Ehrenreich<\/a>,<br \/>\nZo\u00eb Likes Medical Anthropology, December 15, 2012<\/p>\n<p>Barbara Ehrenreich, <a href=\" http:\/\/www.thersa.org\/events\/video\/archive\/barbara-ehrenrich-smile-or-die \" target=\"_blank\">Smile or Die<\/a> (video of complete lecture)<\/p>\n<p>Barbara Ehrenreich, <a href=\" http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0805087494\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0805087494&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=janhenderson-20\" target=\"_blank\">Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America<\/a> (2009)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I found the following video in a blog post written by Zo\u00eb Siobhan Baillie (@Zoe_Baillie). The audio is an excerpt from a speech by Barbara Ehrenreich, where she elaborates on ideas from her book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Ehrenreich&#8217;s observations deserve to be understood and appreciated. Unfortunately, there&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[119,126],"class_list":["post-4186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-self","tag-psychology","tag-self-help"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4186"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4196,"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions\/4196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janhenderson.com\/self\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}