-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sid Shniad Sent: Sunday, December 13, 2009 12:43 PM Subject: Barbara Ehrenreich: Our Maniacal Optimism Is Ruining the World
http://www.alternet.org/story/144114/barbara_ehrenreich:_our_maniacal_optimi sm_is_ruining_the_world?page=1 In These Times November 23, 2009 Barbara Ehrenreich: Our Maniacal Optimism Is Ruining the World "The shift had a lot to do with down-sizing, when corporations grabbed onto it as a means of soothing their disgruntled workforce. The alternative is realism." By Anis Shivani "Many people are not getting by. The human species faces dire ecological threats. Pretending everything will be OK helped get us into this mess, and it won't get us out." In her new book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (Metropolitan/Holt, October 2009), Barbara Ehrenreich traces the origins of contemporary optimism from nineteenth-century healers to twentieth-century pushers of consumerism. She explores how that culture of optimism prevents us from holding to account both corporate heads and elected officials. Manufactured optimism has become a method to make the poor feel guilty for their poverty, the ill for their lack of health and the victims of corporate layoffs for their inability to find worthwhile jobs. Megachurches preach the "gospel of prosperity," exhorting poor people to visualize financial success. Corporations have abandoned rational decision-making in favor of charismatic leadership. This mania for looking on the bright side has given us the present financial collapse; optimistic business leaders -- assisted by rosy-eyed policymakers -- made very bad decisions. In These Times recently spoke with her about our penchant for foolish optimism. Anis Shivani: Is promoting optimism a mechanism of social control to keep the system in balance? Barbara Ehrenreich: If you want to have a compliant populace, what could be _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
