{"id":1303,"date":"2010-02-05T11:25:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T11:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1303"},"modified":"2010-02-05T11:25:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T11:25:00","slug":"dont-visualize-organize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1303","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Visualize, Organize!"},"content":{"rendered":"

That is the takeaway message from Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America<\/a>\"\"<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Like much of Ehrenreich’s writing, it is fueled by righteous anger.<\/p>\n

First, as a breast cancer patient, she is disgusted by the happy-face positive thinking of what she calls “pink ribbon culture”:<\/p>\n

The cheerfulness of breast cancer culture goes beyond mere absence of anger to what looks, all too often, like a positive embrace of the disease  <\/i>(27).<\/i><\/p>\n

From there it’s often into the “motivational” business culture that routes laid-off employees into seminars where they learn to be “a brand called you.”<\/p>\n

And there is “prosperity theology” in the churches, a\/k\/a “God wants you to be rich,” and “positive psychology” for the non-churchgoing.<\/p>\n

Not to mention the “prices will always go up” thinking that contributed to the recent real-estate bubble! <\/p>\n

And in Ehrenreich’s view, it’s 99 percent bullshit, a new synthetic Big Pharma opiate of the masses that prevents people from clearly seeing their economic and political quandaries.<\/p>\n

She does give some space to a fairly mainstream history of creative visualization (or whatever you want to call it) via New Thought<\/a>, Christian Science<\/a>, and so on. <\/p>\n

Reading Bright-sided<\/i> as an adherent of a magical religion, I obviously have some disagreements with Ehrenreich’s wholesale condemnation.  These things work, sometimes with unexpected results–hence the old admonition to be careful what you ask for.<\/a><\/p>\n

So where do we draw the line between possible and not possible? I do think that “visualize world peace” is a fruitless task, although one may act in a peaceful manner. And whatever you seek under the idea that “thoughts are things” has to be backed up and affirmed by tangible actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That is the takeaway message from Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Like much of Ehrenreich’s writing, it is fueled by righteous anger. First, as a breast cancer patient, she is disgusted by the happy-face positive thinking of what she calls “pink ribbon culture”: The cheerfulness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[10,72],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion","tag-magick"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-l1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":986,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=986","url_meta":{"origin":1303,"position":0},"title":"After the Witch Queen Steps Down: Maxine Sanders’ Fire Child","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In the 1960s, when Pagan Witchcraft started to gain widespread media attention, Maxine Sanders (b. 1948?) was one of its visible faces. A tall willowy young woman with bleached blonde hair, she was married in 1965 to Alex Sanders (1926-1988) for whom the Alexandrian tradition is named.He was older, charming,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0919345174","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9764,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9764","url_meta":{"origin":1303,"position":1},"title":"Women + Plants = Witchcraft?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From the Society of Ethnobiology website comes the saga of the battle between ethnobotanist Myrdene Anderson and the city of West Lafayette, Indiana. Instead of a chemically treated and ritually mown lawn, she wanted plants and trees. And she ends up being accused of giving her neighbor cancer . .\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ethnobotany\"","block_context":{"text":"ethnobotany","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ethnobotany"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/myrdene.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8498,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8498","url_meta":{"origin":1303,"position":2},"title":"Books and Movies for a Pagan Mindset","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been thinking that I needed to add a new category of reviews \u2014 not just books etc. deliberately focused on Paganism (which to my mind automatically includes polytheism), but those that promote a Pagan mindset without coming out and saying it. Go ahead and say it: Pagan-ish. My\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":715,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=715","url_meta":{"origin":1303,"position":3},"title":"Back to the caves in academia","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Professor deconstructs literature, philosophy, science--everything except careerism. Satire from Iowahawk.While it has been tough at times, Grok says he has no regrets. \"Western culture is a cancer, and I'm committed to wiping it out. Plus, the whole cave-dwelling thing should help with my promotion case and journal articles.\"","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1157,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1157","url_meta":{"origin":1303,"position":4},"title":"The New York Times Wants You to Stay Helpless","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Don't turn your soft, computer-tapping hands away from the keyboard and pick up a hammer. That seemed to be the message in Sunday's New York Times. Self-reliance is dangerous.This woman made a mistake when replacing a toilet. So, therefore, she should not learn from her mistake and do it right\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"culture\"","block_context":{"text":"culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=culture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10725,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10725","url_meta":{"origin":1303,"position":5},"title":"Caroline Tully on Pagan Art and Fashion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Caroline Tully is an Australian scholar of Classics, archaeology, and esotericism with a background in fine arts: I am an Honorary Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Monash University, Graduate and Postgraduate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}