The Negative Influence of Positive Thinking-

The Negative Influence of Positive Thinking- Enter the Gurus and Coaches

The groundswell of a of all groundswells the hokum of positivism that promises wealth, success and happiness is officially embedded in American culture and is rapidly being carried throughout the world by gurus, new age and alternative therapists and fast talkers who claim the title of motivational speakers. Positive thinking may have had its beginnings in America but that is all. We find ample evidence of positive thinking embedded in cultures all over the world even in Tehran. According to Fassihi (2009) Alireza Azmandian is Iran’s most famous motivational speaker and positive thinking guru who attracts tens of thousands each week to his lectures. Happiness books and dozens of magazines can be found at every newsstand and the “Happiness” magazine is the most popular magazine. Every day, dozens of self-help seminars take place, some underground at people's homes and others in public venues, all around the sprawling capital and in some of Iran's bigger cities. One of the most popular books being hawked by positive thinkers is "The Secret." This book written by Australian author Rhonda Byrne was featured on Oprah Winfrey and tops the best-seller lists in Australia. The Farsi translation is in its 10th printing. State-owned television Channel Four has broadcast the book's companion video, shot in documentary style and distributed world-wide on DVD, four times in the past six months.

Another Australian David Schirmer one of the so-called experts in the DVD maintains that anyone can have happiness, health and wealth and that the secret of success is positive thinking. He maintains that one can transform their lives through their thoughts and that positive thoughts work like magnets, attracting wealth, health and happiness. This is the law of attraction. This is also espoused by Bob Protor who maintains he has discovered and is willing to teach the “science of getting rich.” As expected the only one getting rich here is Bob. In Australia positive thinking is taught at many universities and psychiatrists have adopted it and teach it to teachers under the assumption it will improve everything from depression, body image, mental health and grades.

In England teachers are taught to use positive thinking to get 7,000 high school students out of the depths of depression. They received millions of government pounds to support the training program. This approach is so widely accepted that a positive thinking guru was brought in to motivate the British rugby team as it was taking on its rival Australia in preparation for the Rugby World Cup, they lost. Maybe the Australian positive thinking gurur was better.

January 31, 2010

Essay

Governments around the world are spending billions on so-called positive thinking programs for school children, the military and government employees. Positive thinking entered corporate America in the early 1990’s and is now a staple, permeating executive constellations and in most corporations all levels of management. It can be said that in the modern corporation one cannot gain entry into the executive constellation unless one can demonstrate that they are proponents of positive thinking.

What is it?

Positive thinking has been around for some time gaining wide popularity during the Great Depression and popularized by a Protestant preacher Norman Vincent Peale in his 1952 book “The Power of Positive Thinking.” He preached that one is thinking positively when one has a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. These were the steps he laid out in his book and sermons for developing personal strength and if followed would lead to a successful, healthy, and happy life. He claims to give:

• Confidence-building words to live by

• Ways to overcome self-doubt

• Strategies for achieving good health

• A program to release the vast energies within you

• Accepting ourselves and our individual needs

• Embracing the spiritual forces that surround you

Today positive thinking is a dangerous mixture of ideological “right wing” conservatism, evangelical passion, Ayan Rand’s philosophy, and those who give it legitimization the happiness psychologists and professors.

Legitimizing Positive Thinking

In many American universities there are “positive thinkers” who like to call themselves “happiness coaches.” Coaches, motivational gurus along with executives and bankers subscribe to “positive thinking” ideology and they point to the happiness research that has been pouring out of these universities. Conceptually and perhaps in other ways connected to “positive thinking” ideology is the happiness researcher, a former American Psychological Association President and University of Pennsylvania scholar Martin Seligman who has also been connected to the CIA and Bush’s torture programs. Early on in his career he was a proponent of aversion therapy who actually believed he could cure homosexuality. He chairs the university’s master program in Applied Positive psychology. Seligman is also the author of “Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.” Positive thinkers led by Seligman claim they have “scientifically” discovered what truly makes people happy and they now offer programs where they claim they can teach people to overcome negative emotions (anger, fear, pessimism, and sadness) and replace them with positive thoughts and feelings. They claim they can help individuals identify and cultivate their character strengths and use them everyday to achieve happiness in their work.

To further their claims of legitimacy, the happiness researchers and consultants have created the Journal of Happiness Studies and a World Data-base of Happiness. Others who lend credibility to this movement are Tal D. Ben Shahar, who teaches a course on Positive Psychology and Psychology of Leadership and Shawn Achor who teaches Positive Psychology and the Science of Happiness, they claim these are the most popular courses at Harvard. Ben Shahar gives advice, self-help tips, and writes books on how to be happy and of course he gives inspirational talks and is called “Dr. Prozac” by his students. Antidotal data suggest that many universities in America are either offering or planning to offer a “Happiness” course in 2010

The side effects of positive thinking

Of course included in this potpourri of magic is a motivation to change corporate American by putting a smile on every employees face and develop and strengthen employee’s positive emotions so that they can work harder and longer hours like noncomplaining robots..

Smile or you are fired: Why executives love positive thinking?

In corporate America it is almost impossible for a manager to avoid those who sell the virtues of a positive mental attitude. The attitude and how to get it is contained in a barrage of books, business magazines, corporate literature, and newspapers, and forms the basic message at corporate “pep rallies,” which range from large scale cavernous meetings of several thousand employees to intimate pseudo group therapy meetings and inspirational retreats. Managers returning from these events eschewed all forms of negativism even to the point of isolating employees accused of spreading “negative energy” or “negative vibes” and in some cases terminating them. What is a negative employee? Typically they are those who cause trouble, give their manager a “headache,” they may seek to mobilize employees against management or some change initiative, but in most cases they are employees who point out flaws, suggest alternatives, and question assumptions. They enjoy critical thinking and they love to diagnose and solve problems. One could say they embrace what the positive/happiness people dread, the diagnostic medical model. As a matter of fact the positive/happiness people don’t refer to it as the medical model of diagnosis they call it the disease model and maintain that it promotes victimization, pathology, and of course, negativity. As a consultant stated in an address to several hundred managers, “We have to stop focusing on problems or what’s wrong, we need to change our attitude and the attitudes of our employees and develop their strengths. Negativity and pessimism spreads like a cancer and the only way to combat it is to get on with what’s good, what works, that’s our strength.” While condemning the medical model he conveniently uses it. Positive consultants aggressively report that negativity is a disease and must be defeated and only a positive attitude defeats this disease. This is indeed simplistic or magical thinking, but it has a powerful voice in universities and among an ever growing field of organizational consultants, coaches, gurus, speakers, and writers.

Ayan Rand and the positive thinkers

What does this all mean for corporate employees? This is nothing more than a brainwashing movement supported and funded by corporate titans and bankers to keep employees happily working at the “grindstone” while filling the coffers of the elite. Consider this, we find the thinking of Ayan Rand intertwined with positive thinkers and happiness gurus. Followers of the late Ayan Rand are found in large numbers among bankers and corporate executives and this fits neatly into the positive thinkers and happiness ideology. These Randians or objectivtists, as they liked to be called, believe that any encroachment by government into the free market system is a recipe for disaster, except when they screw up then its OK to get a bailout. It’s a perfect world. Their rationalizations boggle the mind. While accepting the federal bailout they go so far as to conclude that the 2008 financial crisis is the direct result of government interference and regulation. They also believe:

· Altruism is destructive

· Redistribution of wealth is bad

· Self-interest/selfishness is good

This philosophy (if one could call it that) is not only preached throughout the corporate world it formed the basis for how the Federal Reserve and the American government operated for many years. This was recently borne out when Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman from 1987 to 2006 and a long time disciple of Rand, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that past decisions and the lack of government regulations helped pave the way for the current financial crisis. He angered Randians when he acknowledged that his libertarian (he did not use the term Randian) view of markets and the financial world had not worked out so well. "You know," he told the legislators, "that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." While Greenspan did defend his various decisions, he admitted that his faith in the ability of free and loosely-regulated markets to produce the best outcomes had been shaken: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms." After more than 40 years an admission by one Randian that her philosophy not only does not work but was responsible for the financial crisis and the loss of millions of jobs. In spite of this, corporate titans still pitch the Randian belief system to their employees because it will enhance their wealth. There is no better example of this than John Allison the CEO of BB&T, America’s 11^th largest bank, who gives all his new executives a copy of Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and new employees receive a 30 page pamphlet based on the company’s Randian philosophy and values (Martin, 2009). In 2009 he resigned his CEO position, (he remained as chairman) to travel the country condemning government interference and he took a position at Wake Forest University’s business school. By the way in 2008, his bank, BB&T, received a $3.1 bailout from the government (TARP). In addition BB&T spends $5 million to finance teaching positions and research on Rand. And of course they collectively deny any responsibility for the financial crisis. We now see colleges and universities fighting for the opportunity to teach their undergraduates the wonders of an almost perfect immorality.

We not only see an underlying connection between the Randians, positivists thinkers and happiness gurus spreading their ideas in corporations, banks and government but we also see a bizarre unholy alliance between the Christian Free Enterprise evangelists and the Randian atheists. While the Christian Free Enterprisers would most likely not accept Rand’s position that Jesus devoted his life in an erroneous attempt to help a bunch of losers, they would suggest something akin to that positive thinker Ronald Reagan who’s “trickle down” theory that maintains one should be free to accumulate as much wealth as one wants and those so-called losers will somehow benefit. We see the religious roots in positive thinking beginning with its founder the Reverend Norman V. Peale and this is carried forth in the studies by Robert Emmons the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology. Emmons includes religion in his happiness studies. He says that religious people are grateful and gratitude is found in religion and religious people see God as the ultimate benefactor. This is spelled out in the title of a chapter in his latest book “Thanks be to God: Gratitude and the Human Spirit” (Emmons, 2007).

It comes as no surprise that the “right-wing” ideologist’s have embraced positive thinking and have used it to lambaste the “Left” by accusing them of being negative. The late William Safire writing for VP Spiro Agnew called Vietnam protesters “nattering nabobs of negativism.” President Obama was condemned by the “Right” as being negative when he pointed out the policy mistakes America has made in the past.. When Obama says; “For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs,” Mr. Obama warned. “More families will lose their savings. More dreams will be deferred and denied. And our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.” He is called Mr. Negativity and even the Wall Street Journal rarely misses an opportunity to condemn him as too negative. To be critical, to suggest something is wrong and needs correction, to worry outloud is the new bad. College and university professors who see criticism are an intellectual endeavor are thoroughly condemned. As one senior professor commented “I found myself apologizing in class the other day for being too negative. Given this current climate of political correctness coupled with blatant positivism I actually felt I was going overboard and that I was going to be dismissed as a negative person.”

Believe it or not, there is another group, an offshoot of these positive/happiness/evangelical/Right-wing/Randians. This is a growing group of so-called organizational development consultants who preach a model of consulting based on positive thinking. They call it “appreciative inquiry” or “AI”. Following the positive thinkers their approach focuses on what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn't work. It is the opposite of problem solving or critical thinking and rejects diagnosis. Narcissistic CEO’s and bankers love “AI” because it never considers inadequacies, blame, or the need for remediate skills or practice. They preach a “you can do it if you just believe you can” attitude that claims if one builds on successes, strengths, and focuses on how to create more exceptional performance than one need not understand what is “broken” or dysfunctional..

These “AI” consultants, “positive thinking” preachers, and “happiness” coaches entered the financial corporations in the early 1990’s and told managers and executives just what they wanted to hear. They were told to be positive, dismiss trouble and critical analysis. They were selling blind optimism and bankers were buying. Gurus and motivational speakers told executives, managers and bankers to be successful “go for it”, “you deserve success”, “negativity is for losers” and have a “yes attitude”. This type of thinking feeds into the development and maintenance of narcissistic cultures and what Ehrenreich and others maintain led to the financial crisis of 2008. They claim that financial executives, influenced by these gurus and coaches, took extraordinary risks and avoided caution, and engaged in behaviors that went beyond the boundaries of good business practice. These “success gurus” sold a delusion that success comes when one wills it. The “go for it” mentality is the equivalent of saying its OK to be greedy, you deserve it. Narcissistic corporate cultures brought in these gurus, consultants, and motivational speakers for two reasons. First, they needed to justify their behavior of greed, selfishness, and the fact the millions were loosing their jobs as executives got rich. Just as the compensation consultants obtained fat fees for suggesting outrageous compensation for CEO’s, these consultants and coaches told executives they deserved to be rich and were handsomely paid for their advice. Secondly, consultants, motivational speakers and coaches were used to pump up employees. Based on the flimsy notion put forth by Tal D. Ben Shalar, the Harvard happiness professor, who maintains that if a traumatic experience could create a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than an exceedingly positive, euphoric event could create a happy joyful employee. As a result we witnessed the meteoric growth of corporate “pep rallies,” or what some called “brainwashing events.”

Pumping up Employees- “Smile or your fired”

What do Wall Street bankers and retail giants like Wal Mart and Home Depot have in common? They both embrace this mixture of Randian, positive thinking, happiness ideology as well as free enterprise fundamentalist philosophy that seeks to maintain traditional male and female sex roles where men are the conquerors and heroic hunters (in this case wealth accumulation). Executives stage major corporate events that become celebrations of Christian manliness by emphasizing power, correctness, and dominance over all things, especially women. The pep rally in and of itself is a masculine activity. Like a football pep rally, the warriors are celebrated as they go off to battle and women are turned into submissive cheerleaders in skimpy outfits. At these corporate rallies they hear inspirational speeches from military heroes, celebrity professors, gurus, positive consultants and retired billionaires. They use an array of techniques to foster a collective or mass psychology by putting employees through a variety of exercises or activities where they visualize themselves as successful, instill a passion to be successful, and tell them if they “will it,” they will be wealthy. They complete happiness questionnaires and are told to memorize and follow certain steps that will make them happy. They sing, clap, cheer, laugh, yell and cry. They are told that being a happy and eager follower is “servant leadership” and a good Christian value. They rally around corporate slogans “You can do it” “We can do it”, “You can have it your way”, “It’s up to you”, “Just do it”, “It’s up to you”, etc. Psychologically they merge their self system with the corporation and its leadership. They become children of the corporation and if the event is successful they become children of a cult. Employees identify with their corporate executives and in the process want their leaders to have wealth and privilege. Under these conditions leaders can do no wrong. If the company falters it is not the system or leaders who are responsible, it is the employees. They are the problem because they are not working harder.

There is another side to this. There are those employees who attend these events and go through these brainwashing programs and maintain an intact self system by using the defense of cynicism. They go through the motions, play the game and hold on to their job. Just as the elf in McDonalds looks the customer in the eyes and says “have a nice day” if they are good actors the customer believes it is genuine and not part of the requirements of the role. However, if the customer realizes that if the elf fails to express the correct mood and may be fired then the customer is drawn into the conflict between employee and management.

This brings us to the real function of these positive, Randian, fundamentalist, happiness programs. Their aim is to eliminate employer-employee conflict and create an unquestioning workforce that will idealize its leadership by cherishing their power and wealth while never realizing they are being exploited and oppressed. Also, we can see why these corporations are so vehemently antiunion. Unions are a threat to the executive’s power, masculinity, and all the accoutrements that go with it; wealth, private jets, limousines, etc. Unions form a collectivity that is capable of defeating the elitist executives and stockholders. However over the years the unions have been reduced to a quarrelsome sort, making concession after concession to the new power elite and there threats. Meanwhile a workforce faced with the anxiety of being terminated and loosing everything, defends against the dread by conforming to the bosses who say “smile.” Those who fail to “smile” or fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter what the external reality is are considered maladjusted. They are either fired or sent to “positive adjustment” events or rallies where they are pumped up with positive emotions in a climate that resembles a religious revival. They are convinced that they must adopt an upbeat vision of reality. This belief creates a state of mind where one must deny reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings.

These specialists in "happiness" argue that we are capable of attracting those things in life (Law of Attraction), whether it is money, relationships or employment, both good and bad if we focus on them. What does this mean? It means those who are abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those crushed by poverty, the terminal illness, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those who are terminated, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity. It’s their fault because they are focusing too much on negativity. Hummm I wonder what they would say about the writer of this book. The positive, happiness, right-wing, evangelical ideology justifies the cruelty of Rands unfettered capitalism and absolves CEO’s and bankers of guilt by shifting the blame to those they oppress- “If you are in a sorry state it’s your fault, not mine”.

Psychotherapists and psychoanalysts get to work with these employees after the power elite and their positive happiness gurus, coaches and consultants have done their damage. When the employee is burned out, rejected, failed, or accused of being responsible for all the failure in their lives, they then seek genuine help, if they can afford it. But beware, the happiness people are entering the field of psychotherapy with promises of how positive psychology or PP interventions can be used to alleviate depression, anxiety, ADHA, and relationship problems.