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Barbara Ehrenreich has a PhD in cell biology, a 40 year career as an activist and an incredibly impressive curriculum vitae as an academic, journalist and writer. Listening to several interviews promoting her new book, including this appearance on The Daily Show, we hear the incredibly griping story of how her battle with breast cancer illuminated the immense problems with the ‘power of positive thinking’-fueled self help industry and the effects of an ideology Jon Stewart calls a “secular religion” on our society.

On one such interview on CBC’s The Current, Ehrenreich explained how the positive thinking ideology infiltrated corporate culture and contributed to the 2008 financial collapse:

Anna Maria Tremonti:

So what are the consequences for a world full of people who believe that everything you decide is true, is true ?

Barbara Ehrenreich:

I think we saw the consequence in 2008 when the huge financial meltdown happened. Because what I got very interested in tracing in this book is how is positive thinking became the corporate culture; how it infiltrated the corporate culture through the motivational speakers who were brought in, through the many many books, motivational books …

It really grew: in the middle of this decade you could be fired for being a negative person.

That meant if if you said, “hey, I’m worried our bank has too much sub-prime [mortgage market] exposure,” [they would say] “hey, that’s negative that’s a downer. Let’s get rid of this person.”

…we created  – around this positive thinking – a workplace culture  where the idea is not to get a job done, so much as it is to flatter and reassure the boss. Just say good things. Never be the bearer of bad news. Never raise a question or a doubt.

Sound familiar?

AMT:

What’s so bad about feeling bad?

BE:

Well, this is an ideology, what can I say? It is an ideology that says everyone should be cheerful and smiley at all times. And if you want to, you can think of it as a brilliant form of social control. If you tell people who are suffering from one thing or another, illness or layoffs or whatever, that they’re really supposed to be happy about it, and that the solution is in their minds anyway, you don’t get a lot of social protest.

Listen to the whole interview: [MP3]

Barbara also blogs at ehrenreich.blogs.com

I leave you with her answer to Jon Stewart’s question about ends vs. means: “I never think delusion is OK.”