Bright-Sided, by Barbara Ehrenreich

It has been something of a theme in the last few of Ehrenreich's books that the middle- and lower-classes get to carry the cross. When bad things happen, it's their fault,whether the bad things happen to them or to somebody else. In Bait and Switch, Ehrenreich specifically targets the coaches and seminars aimed at newly-unemployed white collar workers, telling them how to change their looks and attitudes, and asks "what's wrong with this picture?"

In Bright-Sided, she takes this theme farther. She investigates the actual positive-thinking industry itself, from its presumed origins to the present day, and points to the links between this near-magical-thinking method and the recent economic disasters. A significant case in point was George W. Bush, who hated to hear anything "negative". If we believe all is right with the world then good things will come to us.

Ehrenreich traces the origins of the positive-thinking movement to a reaction to doomsday Calvinist training back in the early days of this country. She picks out a few examples of preachers of different sorts, most particularly Mary Baker Eddy, who rejected the common fatalistic teachings of the day and proposed that all we need is there for the taking if we simply let it in.

While she makes several references to Harriet Beecher Stowe and two of her siblings, she does not, oddly, mention Henry Ward Beecher, another brother, who essentially led the movement away from Calvinism to an early version of today's feel-good religions. He became what was probably the first religious megastar, even accompanied by the scandals that seem to go along with this position. (Take a look at The Most Famous Man in America - and here I note that I am related to the Beechers, just for disclosure.) Somehow Ehrenreich misses Beecher, but she doesn't miss the bigger picture.

From here she moves into the twentieth century and to such luminaries as Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking), Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich), Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People). She looks at the new crop, from Martin Seligman to the co-authors of The Secret to many others.

While the now-huge industry of positive thinking, including motivational speakers, seminars and workshops, books, DVDs and more, relies in large part on the contention that positive thinking actually works, Ehrenreich plunges daggers into that balloon. She dissects the claims that the method is backed by science and finds that the emperor has no clothes.

So what? So what if millions spend their money needlessly on shoddy science? It wouldn't be the first time. The reason for Ehrenreich's anger, which starts at the very beginning of the book with anger at the exhortations of others to see her diagnosis of breast cancer as a positive thing and her chances at beating it as dependent on her attitude, is that this focus on wispy, intuitional, ungrounded methods pulls the rug out from under sounder disciplines and actions. Thus the rise of the corporations at the expense of everyone under the top levels. Thus the damage to our economy, to our housing stability, to our position in the world, and to our own ability to do anything about any of it.

Positive thinking, in other words, is a negative thing. We need to stay not in the negative but in the real world. Base our decisions on sound reasoning and experience. See what is happening clearly, take the blinders off. Get angry if it makes sense.

As usual, the book is simply written, easy to read, and contains many pages of notes and references, allowing one to take it further.

I like that Ehrenreich faced this one down directly, but I want more. I may need to dip more into the heavier texts. We'll see. 

The Mouse That Roared, by Henry Giroux

I would have been able to read this little book in one or two days if it had been written in English. It is written in a sociological jargon, heavy with repetition. It's possible to open any page and find writing like this:

...Disney's view of innocence had to be constructed within particular maps of meaning in which children and adults could define themselves through a cultural language that offers them both modest pleasure and a coherent sense of identity. This suggested that Disney define innocence as part of the logic of home entertainment and also, pedagogically, as a set of values and practices that associate the safeguarding of childhood with a strong investment in the status quo and in the market as a sphere of consumption.

Or how about this:

Pedagogically, this suggests the need for educators, parents and others to analyze critically how the privileged dominant readings of Disney's animated films generate and affirm particular pleasures, desires, and subject positions that define for children specific notions of agency and its possibilities in society.

Frankly, this book is not well-written, which is a shame because it takes on an important topic. The dramatic title suggests that we are to be treated to a definitive analysis in plain language, but instead we get what reads more like a college term paper (I notice that the title is very similar to one of the magazine articles cited in the book; it's therefore not even particularly original).

The overuse of these words tip us off that the writer has bought the idea that jargon somehow adds meaning: “text” and “narrative”, as in “The Disney text” or the “Disney narrative”, “maps of meaning”, “discourse”, "pedagogical" (two particular favorites) and “public memory”. Throughout the book Giroux refers to "culture workers" without once defining the term, and takes time to define "pedagogy" in a late chapter, after having used it in almost every paragraph up to then. The author also makes frequent use of source material that is no more than the opinions of others, a trick typically used in term paper writing.

The oft-repeated theme of the book, that the Disney corporation's products educate our children to become consumers who are malleable, unpolitical and who accept an idealized view of the past, is an important one. Yet repetition in the muddied sociological language Giroux uses does not provide the emphasis or clarity needed. Nor does Giroux back up his charges with real examples most of the time. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the dissection of two Disney-funded films: Pretty Woman and Good Morning Vietnam. In these analyses we can actually see how the films represent specific viewpoints and ignore reality.

The last chapter outlines general suggestions for countering the effects on our culture of Disney and other large corporations. These suggestions are on the order of staging protests or writing letters to congress. There isn't a single suggestion that goes beyond a fuzzy feeling. I am not one who insists that everyone who points out a problem should be required to offer stunning solutions. But if you go there, take it seriously. I don't think Giroux does that.

Because the book was so wrapped in the fur of jargon, I found it very difficult to take away specific concerns in such a way that I could repeat them myself. An important topic, poorly presented.

2-1/2 out of 5 stars