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Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich
Chosen by Hilary of The Book Foxes
Who wouldn’t want to think positively, if it can be done with clarity and intellectual honesty? As Barbara Ehrenreich points out in her book Smile or Die, negative thinking can be dishonest and delusional too. The thesis of this book is that positive thinking becomes pernicious when it steps into the realm of delusion, of self and others, and when it is imposed as a discipline against the interests of the individual and in the service of a prevailing power. She sees a thread in US policy-making, business and academe of positive thinking gone bad.
Ehrenreich explores the roots of a particularly American brand of positive thinking. It surfaced in religious thinking as Christian Science, and in the secular realm in the Self-Help movement. She traces the phenomenon through health care, workplace, religious denominations, the new academic discipline of Positive Psychology, and finally, in a killer chapter, the implosion of the Economy.
In the first chapter, she experiences with dismay the spectrum of positive thinking that attempted to deny her the right to face up to the risk and the pain of breast cancer and its treatment. There is a sentiment that patients would do well to know their place on the bright side, be model patients. Along the way, she tests and finds wanting the pervasive myth that positive thoughts can in any way alter your medical outcome.
Downsizing corporate America is turned into an exercise in thought control. Mentoring in positive thinking is offered to those being ‘downsized out of the organisation’, with an implied threat if they do not see this as an ‘opportunity’ to stay fit for employment in future. The same mentoring is needed for the remaining workforce, so that they take on board the increased work, longer hours and static pay. Workers with positive, can-do outlooks do well because they feed into and off this culture – so it is how they are encouraged to survive.
The effect of Positive Thinking on religion is also explored. God is hectored to provide that better job, bigger house, win that court case, pay that debt. The lines between the aims of the church and the corporate world are becoming more and more blurred.
This book is impeccably researched and referenced – it is also short, snappy, feisty, droll, sharp as a rapier and in parts very funny. So what is left, once Positive Thinking is demolished? In the final chapter, she points out that there are areas of life where no-one would expect the Power of Positive Thinking to trump intelligence, vigilance and action, such as safely landing an aeroplane, or bringing up children. Why should anyone think that endeavours such as fighting cancer, going to war with Iraq or making a judgment that property prices will rise and rise, are exempt from the discipline of applying reality checks and critical thought? Nevertheless …. .
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