Positive Thinking: The Dark Side of 'Felicilandia' (The Secret and others) A book analyzes the current self-help ultraliberal triumphs in the U.S.. The secret 'bible of the movement, is three years into the bestseller list in Spain
MADRID CARLOS PRIETO 04/17/2011 19:15 Updated: 04/17/2011 19:15
Homily in Los Angeles for more than 45,000
"The alternative to optimism is realism"
Lost your job? Having trouble making ends meet? Need money urgently? Do not worry: all your problems are almost solved. The money, of course, but also physical and emotional . And not only that. Not content to leave the hole you? Want to win ten million dollars without blinking an eye? That is fact. All you need is to practice positive thinking, wish it would rain money with all their might, to imagine that everything will be phenomenal.
Smile or die, essay by Barbara Ehrenreich, published by Turner, delves into the world of positive thinking, philosophy between marketing and self-help that is raging in the U.S.. And in Spain: The Secret (Urano, 2007), by Rhonda Byrne, the bible of the movement, is now serving three years among the bestsellers. Currently ranks fifth on the bestseller list nonfiction. Sum 165 weeks of permanency. A historical record.
Byrne says you only need to want to become a millionaire
The secret to which the title refers is the "law of attraction." The idea that thoughts influence the lives ... brought to a climax. Byrne says that thoughts can "materialize objects," whatever comes in life is because you have attracted, "and if things go wrong is because you have not liked you best.
Byrne's recipes, which collects tens Dating guru of positive thinking, straight out the perfect manual CrecePelo seller. "Hundreds of people have used The Secret to amass large fortunes" and curing "chronic pain." One only needs to "express their wishes about perfect homes, partners, cars, jobs and promotions" to become reality. And a little effort you can "attract up to ten million dollars." Hurray!
In fact, you just have to concentrate a little to get a fireball, a mansion in Miami or a private aircraft. Because your "only difference with the rich" is that they "use the right thought to attract wealth." The defeatists, therefore, are not welcome in the millionaire world of Felicistán, because "every thought, feeling or emotion negative blocks that good comes to you, that includes the money."
"He's more ideological force of mood"
One of those in The Secret, the philosopher and personal coach Bob Proctor, fulminating in a single sentence XX centuries of studies on social inequalities to ensure the following: "Why do you think that 1% of the population earns about 96% of the money in the world and do you think is coincidence? It is because they understand something. Understand 'The Secret'. And you're being introduced to it. "Social classes do not exist, therefore, rather than mental state.
diving Smile or die in the books that say that positive thinking can" attract "the dibs. Books with titles so foolish as Think and Grow Rich, Wealth beyond reason or Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv where a feverish Eker and instructed his readers: "Get a hand on his heart and say: bless rich people! " I love rich people! " I'm going to be one of those people rich ".
Ehrenreich says that being positive is not so much a "state of mind as a cultural and ideological force" that encourages us to "denying reality" and "blame ourselves for what fate brings." The key word is, therefore, ideology. Because positive thinking has become the favorite spiritual power of American capitalism. A symbiosis which has led to cultural and religious revolution in America.
has become the favorite spiritual power of capitalism
Preachers SA
Protestant Calvinism, capitalism's traditional ally, called for work to suppress the collapse and pleasure. His philosophy fit with productive capitalism, but not at the current stage of consumerism. "The consumer culture encourages individuals to want more and positive thinking is there to remove to tell everyone that he deserves more, and you can get it if you really want," he reasons Ehrenreich, who believes that this philosophy upholds the cruelest aspects "of the free market. For example, culpabilizarte dismissal. "If your business fails or you lose your job, it will be because you are not trying hard enough because you did not believe strongly enough in your own success was inevitable. "
Positive thinking has eaten ground traditional Calvinism what the essayist calls" silent battle for market dominance, the television audience, book sales and attendance at churches. "popular preachers in the U.S. are now positive thinking gurus. In his sermons no longer speak of sin," or expand on the two workhorses of the Christian Right: abortion and homosexuality. "Nor do they mention episodes so little exciting as the crucifixion or the flames of hell. The twenty-first century catechism seems rather a guide to line accelerated at all costs. "What is offered is the promise money, health and success in life right now or very soon ".
Their temples," in which there are almost crosses "are the so-called megachurches. 1,210 temples scattered around the country with capacities gigantic 4.4 million customers. The numbers here are critical because, as Ehrenreich has some of the most successful pastors (R. Schuller, R. Warren and B. Hybels) commissioned market research before building your churches. "The positive message not only sold better with the public that religion before it was ever more personally relevant to the preachers, no longer considered critical of the secular world and materialistic, but businessmen. "Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church (Houston), is called the" most influential Christian in America ". In 1999 it bought the Compaq Center, former Houston Rockets Stadium, to transform it into a church than 16,000 locations. He says he managed to buy it because "managed to watch it." I began to see "our congregation praising God at Compaq," he says. "Freedom from thinking small, and start thinking like God. Think big. Think more. Think abundance, "Osteen calls his parishioners.
subprime
Positive thinking was "ubiquitous" the past decade. "He had no rival in American culture," says Ehren-reich. Larry King and Oprah Winfrey as advertised on TV. And The Secret has become a phenomenon called to treat "the bills as if they were checks." The battle cry when you saw "the car of your dreams" was: "I can afford it! I can buy it!" Roared Byrne. The ideology of spending spree without worrying about the consequences (pulirte your entire life savings was not the surest route to poverty but to wealth) spread like wildfire.
The traditional American optimism ("our disposal to borrow up to their necks and keep spending is closely related to optimism, "according to economist Robert Reich) reached crazy levels. The cheap credit began to flow. People who had never agreed to a managed loan [subprime mortgages accounted for 40% of the total in 2006], but "the credulity and optimism of the citizens do not fully explain the financial crisis," said Ehrenreich. The fever also affected the sales of mortgages, which grew rich by selling debt to poor quality investors.
The epidemic of self-deception "typical of the bubbles are launched." Corporations changed rationality depressing professional management by the emotional appeals of mysticism, charisma and hunches, "says Ehrenreich. The essayist interviewed Eric Dezenhall, a Republican who worked in the Rea-gan Administration and works as a crisis manager." Dezenhall, to which companies turn to when things get ugly, he said he believed that managers had come to believe the "law of attraction" of positive thinking. "They believe it. Multinationals can be ruthless when it comes to making money, but as for realism. "
neoliberal Buzz
Angelo Mozilo, chairman of the mortgage Countrywide Mortgage, which "granted loans so crazy that you can consider herself kicked out of the crisis of subprime mortgages," received the 2004 Horatio Alger Award for being a "person of humble origin" who had achieved the American dream based on "work, willpower and positive thinking."
Adam Michaelson, mate of Countrywide, said in a recent book that the company had an "attitude as a sect", with palm clashes between managers and gurus talk of positive thinking to motivate staff . In 2004, Michaelson doubted that home prices would rise forever. "You know why. You worry too much, "he said." One runs many risks when it does not fit into an environment like that so feverishly enthusiastic, "confessed Michaelson.
Ehrenreich provides accounts of executives who were harassed by implying that there was no physical law that prevented that house prices go down. Ivy Zelman, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said he "lost clients because of his pessimism, but he could not pretend that all was well." "A who expressed negative ideas aloud he was dismissed, "he said banking analyst Steve Eisman.
" This is the mental state that promote the apostles of thought positive. Senior executives, perhaps somewhat cynically promoted it among their subordinates, giving them motivational books or inviting them to conferences at which they talked about visualizing success, to work more and complain less. The problem is that they came to believe it, and so, within a very short time, about three trillion dollars held in pension plans and savings accounts evaporated in the same ether in which all our positive thoughts float "Ehrenreich ditch.
