Confront The Con Front

Madame:

That is the most common usage/meaning of the word.  However it also means something inserted between other elements or parts.  Steinbeck was famous for doing that in his novels.

One of the central tenets of Hedges’ assertions in this new chapter you have opened [I didn’t hear the champagne cork, lol.  I don’t believe Hedges would be so bah, humbug as to get irked at that bit of humor!] is that positive thinking, cheerful continual optimism, and other elements of positive psychology want to wave away reality.  And we already have a big enough problem from doing that in this culture.  This culture of illusion and spectacle diverts us from waking up to the fact that this culture is crumbling, and it even further diverts us or disengages us from addressing REAL solutions.  Oh, we talk about what could “easily” be done if “only” the ever-pervasive influence of X was not preventing it.  But those statements often aren’t real solutions, but only mindless mantras, platitudes, and ridiculously simplistic political theatrical phrases. 

Hedges lays out the danger of some of that: “It is a generation that will channel positive emotions through corporations and spread them throughout the culture.  The moral and ethical issues of corporatism, from the toxic assets they may have amassed, to predatory lending, to legislation they may author to destroy regulation and oversight, even to the actual products they may produce , from weapons systems to crushing credit-card debt, appear to be irrelevant.  There presumably could have been a ‘positive’ Dutch East Indies Company just as there can be a ‘positive’ Halliburton, J.P. Morgan Chase, Xe (formerly Blackwater), or Raytheon.” (117)

This objective of “merging the self with the corporate collective” takes on many forms.  Retreats, strategic planning getaways, team buildings, leadership exercises, problem-solving obstacle courses, etc. all can be innocent on the face (and sometimes really are).  But they can also, as Hedges says, have the feel “of a religious revival.  They are designed to whip up emotions.  In their inspirational talks, sports stars, retired military commanders, billionaires, and self-help specialists…claim that the impossible is possible.” (117) 

Here is where manipulation intrudes again.  The poor lower rung individual, already hard pressed and struggling on so many fronts, is told that it is HIS/HER fault, that if only he/she  would adopt an outlook that anything is possible and banish any negative talk about “problems,” or “structural realities,” success would result.  If people are poor and struggling, the way out is merely by thinking positively, and further IT IS THEIR FAULT for staying poor and struggling.

A little clear thinking can easily show the hogwash aspect of this.  What’s more important, as Hedges alludes, is the reason for all this clap trap AND WHO AND WHAT IT SERVES.  “The purpose and goals of the corporation are never questioned,” and those who bring up reality are condemned as “obstructive and negative.  The corporations are the powers that determine identity. The corporations tell us who we are and what we can become.  And the corporations offer the only route to personal fulfillment and salvation.  If we are not happy there is something wrong with us.  Debate and criticism, especially about the goals and structure of the corporation, are condemned as negative and ‘counterproductive.’” (117)

This corporate gospel “throws a smokescreen over corporate domination, abuse, and greed.  Those who preach it serve the corporate leviathan.  They are awash in corporate grants.  They are invited to corporate retreats to assure corporate employees that they can find happiness by sublimating their selves into corporate culture.  They hold academic conferences. “  They teach courses, they publish journals.  All this positive propaganda “encourages people to flee from reality when reality is frightening or depressing” when a rational and awake being would CONFRONT reality. (117-119) This culture kicks its problems down the road, but the problems only get bigger and more frightening every time it does so.   True courage and sacrifice—SHARED sacrifice—has been replaced with denial, deflection, and personal, political, and societal theater.

Someone once remarked that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.  Is that a proper use of positive psychology?  As you’ve intimated, there is granularity in this.  However, Hedges is convincing in relaying to us that “for those who run into the hard walls of reality, the ideology has the pernicious effect of forcing the victim to blame him or herself for his or her pain or suffering.  Abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed, the mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those grieving for lost loved ones, those crushed by poverty, the terminally ill, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those facing foreclosure or bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, need only overcome their negativity” (they are told) to see a different outcome.  (119).   And, of course, real compassion (and respect for dignity) from those not presently suffering those calamities often becomes lacking.  Or worse, turns callously and arrogantly dismissive.

Hedges helps us to see what all this really comes to work for: “This flight into self-delusion is no more helpful in solving real problems than alchemy.  But it is very effective in keeping people from questioning the structures around them that are responsible for their misery.  Positive Psychology gives an academic patina to fantasy.” (119-120)

He’s said it.  You’ve said it.  I’ve said it:  Please wake up all you Neos!