booooook!

[dragonyphoenix]

I stopped in a used bookstore today and picked up Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine for $1.05. Yay! It's my favorite Ellison collection and I'd lost my copy in the dire mess that was the flooding and moldy basement.

Comments

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the think positive crowd. "It's all good" always makes me want to shout "No! It's not! Not everything is good!"

I'm not sure why but I get a big knee-jerk reaction to that phrase.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why but I get a big knee-jerk reaction to that phrase.

It's extremely narcissistic on a number of levels. It assumes that we are all powerful AND that we can effect change by ourselves. It focuses on the individual and ignores systems theory or systemic social problems. It ignores mental illness, disability, chance and luck; it ignores the fact that none of us lives in a vacuum. It's a very white, middle-class, abilist mindset.

It tends to focus on material benefits. ("The Secret" - Gawain disavowed this focus in her later books, without acknowledging her own role in contributing to that movement. I think her focus is on the spiritual, but it was taken over by a focus on acquistion fairly quickly.)

It places the blame and responsibility for EVERYTHING in your life on you. If only you'd thought the "right thoughts!" It's the agnostic/atheist version of old judeo-christian thinking. Remember the story of Job? His friends and family assumed he MUST have done something to bring his own misfortune upon him? It's an attempt to understand chance and misfortune and why the unexplainable occurs, why good things happen to bad people. And it makes no sense. Are babies starving around the world and dying of disease and malnutrition because they (or their parents) didn't "think positively enough"?

I remember I had a car accident and my mom said "you must have done something to bring this upon you." And that was the point I was DONE, because the cause of the accident was entirely mechanical - something the mechanic hadn't adjusted correctly in the brakes when the car had been worked on last. All the positive thinking in the world couldn't have corrected it.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the explanation. That does help me see why I find that phrase so annoying.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

A little search online shows that there are plenty of studies suggesting that "positive affirmations" work great with people who are already optimistic, or believe the affirmations already - sort of like a quick tune up. For people with low self esteem or who tend to be pessimistic, it can backfire because of the cognitive dissonance that makes depressiin and self-esteem worse; or because another method is more helpful (making lists of what the challenges are and working out how to overcome them.)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-positive-thinking-be-negative/ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-positive-thinking-be-negative/)

And they can be a form of "gaslighting". IMO.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I was gaslighted once. Luckily it was at work and about something that's easily verified so I was able to put a stop to that specific incident. I did eventually have to bring her behavior up to our team leader.