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TechnoratiHappiness Consultants Won't Stop a Depression
Anthony Vasquez, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, worked at FedEx Kinkos for about two years. His store's slogan was: "Yes We Can."
"It meant that if a customer asked us to do a job for them, no matter what it was, we were to say ‘Yes We Can!' " he said.
Posters of the slogan were posted on telephones and in the backroom. Corporate auditors enforced the slogan by "Yes We Can" call audits. Employees would be punished as a group for failures, and individuals could be fired. Other slogans at the Santa Cruz, Calif., FedEx Kinkos included "Winning by engaging the hearts and minds of every team member" and "I promise to make every FedEx experience outstanding."
Vasquez worked with a trainee named Sam until Sam was fired. The store managers didn't announce the dismissal. They kept Sam on the schedule to make it appear he was skipping work and then used this as grounds for removal. After two weeks and some conversations with Sam, Vasquez wrote "Fired" in pencil under Sam's name on the schedule. It was at that point that Vasquez got a taste of the ideology of modern corporate management, which uses therapeutic forms of social control and calls for group harmony to impose rigid conformity.
Angela and Nancy, the store managers, reprimanded Vasquez with a "Positive Discipline Documentation Form." They charged him with defacing company property.
"The document explained how I had made ‘false or malicious statements' against Sam," said Vasquez. "Angela and Nancy looked at each other, breathed deeply, and asked if I had any comments. I told them they were being duplicitous and that nothing I wrote had been false or malicious. I told them that if they wanted to make ‘our organization a success' they could start by paying me a fair wage. I went on and on until they both threw their hands in the air and told me to stop being difficult. I told them that I wasn't the one being difficult. They stared hard at me and said ‘We know.' "
Mendez signed the document and left the office.
"It must have been in 2006, the company was holding another mandatory meeting for team members, which is what they call us," he said. "I went with a couple of co-workers to Fresno, where we met a lot of other employees from various stores in Northern California. ... The meeting took place in this rented room, and the woman from corporate had all these toys, markers and candy in the middle of each table. The first thing she had us do was organize ourselves according to duration of employment at the company. While in this line, we had to introduce ourselves and say how long we had been working. The girl on the far end had been hired two months prior, the man on the other had been with the company for almost 20 years."
Vasquez saw that some of his co-workers didn't like having to speak about private, potentially embarrassing information. But the corporate manager tried to pump them up.
"She spun it so hard I felt dizzy," said Vasquez. " ‘Isn't this wonderful?! We have such a wide range of great team members. This really shows what a great place this is to work, and how you can make a career here!' she said."
"One man stared at the floor in anger and embarrassment," Vasquez said. "If he had said anything she would have e-mailed his center manager and he would have been written up and probably denied a raise. By the way, raises are 25 cents a year."
"The purpose of the meeting was, her euphemisms aside, to push merchandise and services onto customers that they didn't want. I believe it's called upselling," he said. "She wanted us to talk about our positive customer service experiences. Most of us struggled with this, as nearly all of our experiences with customers and the company had been extremely negative and stressful. But she was all smiles, no matter what we said, and I noticed she was able to make almost everyone there smile and laugh and have a good time. She used the toys, the candy, the markers, and activities like skits and competitions to get people active and involved with each other. She used the happiness and was able to switch its source from human interaction to the company. You aren't happy because you are being social, you are happy because you work for the company."
The driving ideology of corporate culture is a blind faith in the power and virtue of the corporate collective. All quotas can be met. All things are possible. Profits can always be raised. It is only a question of the right attitude. The highest form of personal happiness, we are told, is when the corporation thrives. Corporate retreats are built around this idea of merging the self with the corporate collective. They often have the feel of a religious revival. They are designed to whip up emotions. Office managers and sales staffs are given inspirational talks by sports stars, retired military commanders, billionaires and self-help specialists like Tony Robbins who tell them, in essence, the impossible is always possible. And when this proves not to be true it is we who are the problem. We simply have to try harder.
The belief that by thinking about things, by visualizing them, by wanting them, we can make them happen is magical thinking. The purpose, structure and goals of the corporation can never be questioned. To question, to engage in criticism of the corporate collective, is to be obstructive and negative. We can always make more money, meet new quotas and advance our career if we have enough faith. This magical thinking is largely responsible for our economic collapse since any Cassandra who saw it coming was dismissed as "negative." This childish belief discredits legitimate concerns and anxieties. It exacerbates despair and passivity. It fosters a state of self-delusion. And it has perverted the way we think about the nation and ourselves.
Corporate employees, like everyone else, are gripped by personal dilemmas, anxieties and troubles. They are not permitted, however, to ask whether the problem is the corporate structure and the corporate state. If they are not happy there is, they are told, something wrong with them. Real debate, real clashes of opinion, are, in the happy world of corporatism, forbidden. They are considered rude. The corporations enforce a relentless optimism that curtails honest appraisal of reality and preserves hierarchical forms of organization under the guise of "participation." Corporate culture provides, as Christopher Lasch pointed out, a society dominated by corporate elites with an anti-elitist ideology.
Positive psychology, which claims to be able to engineer happiness and provides the psychological tools for enforcing corporate conformity, is to the corporate state what eugenics was to the Nazis. Positive psychology is a quack science that throws a smoke screen over corporate domination, abuse and greed. Those academics who preach it 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 publish a Journal of Happiness Studies and a World Database of Happiness. There are more than a hundred courses on positive psychology available on college campuses. The University of Pennsylvania offers a master of applied positive psychology program chaired by Martin Seligman, considered the father of the discipline, and author of "Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment." The School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University offers a Ph.D. and M.A. concentrations on what it calls "the Science of Positive Psychology." Degree programs are also available at the University of East London and in Milan and Mexico City.
Dr. Tal D. Ben-Shahar, who wrote "Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment," taught hugely popular courses at Harvard University titled "Positive Psychology" and "The Psychology of Leadership." He called himself, when he taught at Harvard, the "Harvard Happiness Professor."
"There is mounting evidence in the psychological literature showing that focusing on cultivating strengths, optimism, gratitude, and a positive perspective can lead to growth during difficult times," Ben-Shahar has stated.
Positive psychology therapy instructs patients to write a letter of gratitude to someone who has been kind to them. Patients pen little essays called "You at your best" in which they are asked "to write about a time when they were at their best and then to reflect on personal strengths displayed in the story." They are instructed to "review the story once every day for a week and to reflect on the strengths they had identified." And the professionals argue that their research shows that many of their patients have "lastingly increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms."
Ben-Shahar pumps out the catchy slogans and clichés that color all self-improvement schemes. ‘‘Learn to fail or fail to learn," he says, and ‘‘not ‘it happened for the best,' but ‘how can I make the best of what happened?' "
He argues that if a traumatic episode can result in post-traumatic stress disorder it may be possible to create the opposite phenomenon with a single glorious, ecstatic experience. This could, he says, dramatically change a person's life for the better.
Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance. Their attitudes need correction. Once we adopt an upbeat vision of reality, positive things will happen. This belief encourages us to flee from reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings. These specialists in "happiness" have formulated something they call the "Law of Attraction." It argues that we attract those things in life, whether it is money, relationships or employment, which we focus on. Suddenly, abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and 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 whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity. The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress. And many of us have internalized this pernicious message, which in times of difficulty leads to personal despair, passivity and disillusionment.
This flight into the collective self-delusion of corporate ideology, especially as we undergo financial collapse and the pillaging of the U.S. treasury by corporations, is no more helpful in solving our problems than alchemy. But there are university departments and reams of pseudoscientific scholarship to give an academic patina to the fantasy of happiness and success through positive thinking. The message that we can have everything we want if we dig deep enough inside ourselves, if we truly believe we are exceptional, is pumped out daily over the airwaves in advertisements, through the plot and story lines of television programs and films, and bolstered by the sickeningly cheerful and upbeat banter of well-groomed television hosts. This is the twisted ideological lens through which we view the world.
"From my two years at the company: positive psychology is a euphemism for spin," Vasquez went on. "They try to spin their employees so much they can't tell right from left, and in the process they forget they do the work of three people, have no health insurance, and three-quarters of their paycheck goes to rent."
This ideology condemns all social critics, iconoclasts, dissidents and individualists, for failing to seek fulfillment in the collective chant of the corporate herd. It strangles creativity and moral autonomy. It is about being molded and shaped into a compliant and repressed collective. It is not, at its core, about happiness. It is about conformity, a conformity that all totalitarian and authoritarian structures seek to impose on the crowd. Its unrealistic promise of happiness, in fact, probably produces more internal anxiety and feelings of inadequacy than genuine happiness. The nagging undercurrents of alienation, the constant pressure to exhibit a false enthusiasm and buoyancy, the loneliness of a work life in which one must always be about upbeat presentation, the awful feeling that being positive may not in fact work if one is laid off, are buried and suppressed.
There are no gross injustices, no abuses to question, no economic systems to challenge in the land of happy thoughts. In the land of happy thoughts we are to blame if things go wrong. The corporate state, we are assured, is beneficent and good. It will make us happy and comfortable and prosperous even as it funnels billions of taxpayer dollars into its bank accounts. Mao and Stalin used the same language of harmony and strength through the collective, the same love of spectacles and slogans, the same coercive power of groups and state propaganda, to enslave and impoverish millions of their citizens. And, if we do not free ourselves from the grip of this ideology and the corporate vampires who disseminate it, this is what will happen to us.
Chris Hebdon assisted with reporting this story.
79 Comments so far
Show AllThis article seems to combine a blistering and valid critique of current corporate culture with a complete misunderstanding of positive psychology, which is a research based attempt to improve the human condition. I can't see how corporate mental manipulation in any way qualifies as representing positive psychology. I think Chris Hedges needs to do some more thoughtful research before taking on this type of editorial.
Happiness is a choice, or more accurately a series of choices. Each person must define happiness for themselves, but the attainment of said happiness is limited to those things that can actually be effected. Humans can only control input and response, everything else is controlled elsewhere, by another. If our happiness is pegged to an outcome, we will likely fail to find it, but if our happiness is pegged to the effort and to making the best of the results of those efforts in future endeavors, then happiness is secured. If you don't enjoy the means, the ends will never satisfy.
As has been stated in this article and perhaps in other comments, psychological depression results from the sense of powerlessness that eventually arises in the mind of those who often over estimate their capacity for control. While it has not been "proven", other, more pernicious, perhaps physiologically based mental illnesses arise from a chronic fixation with controlling "results".
The sadder truth is that much of our society is built on lies of this sort. The American Dream, itself, is one such lie. No, you can't be anything you want to be. You will always be who you are, or you will always be a problem to the rest of us, in one way or others. In the past, Americans were free(er) to do much of what they wanted to do, but no human being has ever been free to control the outcome of those actions - in any way. Much of this confusion arises from the fact that most of us live in an interdependent social conspiracy, where a multitude of well-placed inputs seem to drive results, particularly if your desired results are related to inventing a false need, and filling it. If we all lived alone, set completely apart from our co-conspirators, we would eventually begin to appreciate how little we actually control in this universe, and how liberating it is to accept responsibility for only those few things we can.
In corporate cultures the biggest problem is a failure of purpose. If these entities would stick to doing what they can actually claim to be able to do - provide a product or a service, at a reasonable price and on a reasonable schedule, then everyone would be better off. Inevitably, the masters of these empires begin to believe their own press releases, infect others with their illusions of control, make promises and claims that they cannot keep, and these lies beget other lies, which only get bigger, as they are told down the line. In the end, enough investors bite the bait, drive the stock price up, sell near the top to bigger idiots, get rich, and never buy a product from the company, because the products are lousy or the customer service is anything but. These "loyal shareholders" are served, the upper echelon of management is served, but the employee and customer be damned.
Don't give up on happiness as a secret to success just yet folks. Being happy has nothing to do with ignoring problems, it has to do with how you attend to problems.
It's very simple really. But if your brain is used to experiencing unhappiness as problems arise and unhappiness as you address them, then that is a set pattern which in and of it's self is not how the problem is fixed. It is fixed by being aware of the problem and doing something about it. Really you can be unhappy or happy as you do this, but why not be happy? Often in a state of happiness or connection as I would dub it, we see the world clearer and so solutions are easier and can occur faster.
Love and light all.
Leea
This is a great article.
You describe what I term as teamplayermania.
Having grown up in a fundamentalist cult, I'm all too familiar with the happy gas approach.
Hopefully your article will alert others to this unethical way of controlling people.
Don't forget: the "pursuit of happiness" clause was a substitution for the "pursuit of property." Gives a little insight into the mindset of the founders. Material wealth is defined as happiness. Huh.
Corporations don't respect the law of contracts. They contract you to work in order to live. Yet they continually attempt to get you to live in order to work for them. It is simply buck passing, blame the victim, scamming, new age horse hockey, etc. The bottom line, from the CEO's point of view, is to get the employees to develop a loyalty complex so it is difficult for the employee to complain about problems. This is similar to the difficulty one has in the real world with talking to a parent. This is the deception. The CEO could care less but he wants you to feel you are "bad" if you are like him. The corporations are deliberately trying to make the employees co-dependents in an abusive relationship with the CEO. No wonder so many people are losing it. Sales organizations are the worst in this respect. Hollywood should recruit from sales staffs because they make the best actors.
There is, of course, a sliding scale of demand from employers on employee behavior; the more difficult it is to fill your position, the more "tolerant" they are of your honest criticism or melancholy.
The elites love a populace that ALWAYS blames themselves rather than the elite for the frayed social safety net. Just ask Oprah and that joker nutball Tulley wacko about visualizing success and attracting good or bad. When Travolta's son died, I wonder if Oprah called him up to ask him how he "attracted" that misfortune. After all, according to "THE SECRET", you make your own reality. Shit does not happen, you cause it. Travolta and Oprah are great friends so she had to shut her yap about that one. I heard she has been putting on weight big time lately. Perhaps "the one" has let her down and she's trying to get her good vibrations going again.
Some of my female friends have taken positive thinking courses (even retreats) and have come home and pasted posties all over their bathroom mirror, bedroom mirror, fridge, etc. "I am wonderful" "I am beautiful" "I am perfect just the way I am" "I am strong" "I am competent" etc. etc. ad nauseum.
I say, why don't you just go out and do something worthwhile to make yourself proud.
I would really appeciate it if I could have some opinions on this:
"Yoga Laughter". A group gets together and they force laughter. Some will eventually start laughing for real watching others laugh. The idea is that your body doesn't know the difference between phony laughter and genuine laughter and laughter is good for your health. (A guy who teaches it is one of those "don't worry, be happy" guys, and does not want to hear about any suffering in the world.)He has no problem charging a fee.
The idea of phony and forced laughter with a bunch of strangers does not appeal to me. It actually gives me the creeps. Laughter is supposed to be spontaneous.
Sioux Rose
SEE THROUGHS: I have a friend/client who joined one of those organizations that like Amway, charges by the "tier" or level as it graduates its devotees up the ranks. She has spent THOUSANDS to be part of this scam, and I say scam because as per the Biblical "Judge the tree by its fruits," by examining all the things that "went wrong" in her past, she is so focused on the negative that she put on at least 80 pounds. This woman had a kick-ass figure when I met her. She was an aerobics instructor. One of her clients told her to quit that program and just start losing weight to turn her life around.
The problem with therapy, either positive or negative in its focus/orientation is that it's all about self! And the more we go back to dig up the whys in our past, the likelier we'll be buried by the weight of "old mud." This is why the real spiritual adepts teach forgiveness and letting go. And Carlos Casteneda's teacher had a great recommendation for the blues, "Seek and see the MARVELS around you; and you will grow tired of dwelling upon yourself so much." Indeed. In fact to get into the doing part, when that doing is directed at making life better for someone else, can also do wonders for our mood. Then, too, there is nature always ready like the great, nurturing Mother that she is to lift our spirits if we go into her sanctuaries. That therapy is often free... I think too many are programmed by authoritarian creeds and think their sense of well-being must somehow be endorsed by an outside "expert." If I had 10 minutes alone with Dr. Phil I'd hang him upside from a tree and let HIM do some serious thinking outside HIS box.
Thankyou very much for your feedback, S.Rose.
Yes, I feel the same way about Dr. Phil and many of these "experts" who charge an arm and a leg to teach people the secret to happiness/wealth, etc.
This article is not about "happiness consultants". It is about corporate bullying.
Unfortunately, personal development is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Sometimes these methods feel strange, uncomfortable and unfamiliar. That doesn't mean they can't lead to positive progress. But what the article is about is ignoring people's real concerns, feelings and needs.
We can change our results by changing our mental and emotional states. For more on this, see "Why Affirmatons Don't Work" http://www.squidoo.com/Affirmations-2
With apologies to constitutions, pursuing happiness is like chasing a rainbow. Happiness can only come indirectly and as a consequence of actions or thoughts. Direct pursuit is futile.
The description of corporate ideology sounds like half-baked TFS BS to me. (Touchy-feely)
"Happiness cannot be pursued because it is itself the byproduct of a life of virtue"
Aristotle
I don't agree with Aristotle. I find if happiness is defined as a state of bliss, it's simply not achievable in a world of pain and suffering by a human with a consciense regardles of how much virtue he possesses. However, if happiness is defined as being able to sleep at night and feeling satisfied with your behavior during the day, then happiness is achievable and I'm happy with myself even if the world pisses me off.
And people I know, always tell me that my biggest problem is that I'm "too negative." My last g/f ended our relationship partly over my "negativity."
She didn't like when I told her that she spent too much time in Happyland.
"Oh but you can achieve if you just put your mind to it."
I think that if any book should be burned, it should be "The Secret."
Why? Because I make them think? Because I tell them what's wrong with the world? Because I point out to them that they're working too hard and don't have enough to show for it.
"Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance."
That's me. lol. Some right-wing asshole from work once tried to refer me to his wife, a therapist because I "bitch too much about stuff" and am "too angry at the world." His wife's supposedly a "bleeding heart liberal" from a wealthy family.
Yet this same guy has spoken of wanting to "blow away ragheads" if and when he goes to Iraq (yep he's a service member), has a house full of guns, stalked an ex-g/f for two years, and is an avowed racist.
But he doesn't think there's anything wrong with him.
An independent thinker has no chance in the current American economy. Independents must participate in the new economy to survive.
The biggest mistake in history was to develop a culture of which the whole mode of being is to commodify everything real out of existence in the pursuit of "production" and profit. It has literally destroyed our home (the planet) and is now feeding on itself. The ideal in this "world view" is complete psychological knowledge intimately coupled with developing technology to fashion producing units free of unproductive tangents or intrusion of anything that hasn't been filtered through the corporate cultural and business screen. In other words, the ideal is a totally barren moral landscape (which translates, of course, into a barren physical landscape.) The commodifiers are working on it all the time. It's what dumbing down is all about and the wretched state of popular culture (which is anything but "popular".) The happiness industry is another form of dumbing down.
The sooner we reject every aspect of this ridiculous, insane, psychotic, and toxic culture the better. As we adjust to great dislocations of civilization which will soon be coming our way, as we talk with our neighbors, as we struggle to regain control of the elements of life and living (in consequence of which - proportional to our success - we will be considered "enemies" by the increasingly hysterical dead-enders), as we encounter unfiltered tragedy and painful struggle (action) that is no longer scripted or "spun"...we may feel something exciting welling up from the direction of the earth which is our home and where we evolved. It would be deep and true happiness and fellow feeling, a knowledge that we are human after all.
Sioux Rose
ARRY: I totally agree with you; however I see this infringemet upon all things natural, the co-optation of all Her assets as the assertion of MAN over NATURE. Further, I see this as a natural outgrowth of the patriarchal prejudices that instill the Bible with the LIE that God is a MALE. Human male attributes have been attributed to Divine Intelligence, and that has led to an unbalanced concept of what is Holy. The result demonize females, the Divine feminine, and nature as the direct expression of the FEMALE'S life-giving source (and abundant resources). Essentially, it is the end product of a spiritual form of misogyny, one I equate with the ideological unholy wedlock between Mammon ("The LOVE of money is the root of all evil") and Mars (gross militarism devouring entire nations' economies in pursuit of inevitable wars).
That human beings do not see themselves as a PART of nature is also a major factor in how it can be possible for so much carnage to be directed at so many ecosystems, the very ones human life requires to sustain its position in the "food chain." If there is time to change enough minds and hearts, if consciousness can be moved to embrace "both sides of the force, as above, as well as below," then humanity has a chance of righting its course to one that is ultimately more life-affirming. Otherwise, to talk of defense while arming the world so it can conduct increasing fits of toxic bombardment is a guaranteed recipe for species (including our own) extinction. And this is why I teach the power of the circle, heaven's model of democracy. It has no sides and provides a basis for recognizing how the parts (planned in their diversity) can serve the whole. Indeed they (the sacred 12) are intended to.
Sioux Rose -- The articles sure go from the front page quickly these days.
I agree with your post, certainly about the patriarchal religions and how the unbalance has been perpetuated by institutions ever since. I would just add that I think it is a practical mistake to equate "patriarchy" with the "male" principle per se. I would call patriarchy a perverted male principle. Just for illustration, let's go along with Thales and call water the first principle. Neither hydrogen nor oxygen (male, female) alone constitute water. The male principle is manifested in the compound water (as I said, for purposes of illustration.) It isn't manifested in any other state. I think it is a mistake to say or intimate, as many do (I'm not speaking of you), that the natural male state is one of progressive fascism. The unnatural state is. Every one of us evolved on the earth which is certainly the only source of life, embodying the female principle as the source of life and we are all offspring of it. The intricate dance of the natural principles is fundamental to evolution on every level.
I think you will agree with all this.
Good luck with your work and thanks for being one of the folks who are trying to do something in depth.
Sioux Rose
ARRY: Thank you for the elaboration. I see life as THAT dance between supreme Yin and Yang, a romance that is eternal. The misuse of either principle causes imbalance and out of it, enormous suffering: our current earth status. I appreciate your stating that I am "one of the folks who is trying to do something." This is an issue I wrestle with quite often. I suppose we all do, ask ourselves "Am I doing enough?" For me, there is the responsibility to keep fit to go the distance, remain informed about a variety of topics (that ultimately inform the "As above, so below" equation), and retain a positive attitude in the face of enormous injustice, waste, and human arrogance-fueled-stupidity (mostly on the part of misled leaders). The Bahai faith sees the teacher as a high calling. That is the path that resonates with me; however, in studying the circle as a basis for twelve archetypal expressions developed for our world, I realize some are intended to be critics, others action-prone activists, with lots of other necessary variations on the human theme (that was never intended to be crippled by authoritarian creeds that claim, sometimes on point of prosecution, that "one size fits all") thrown in to ideally "grow" the whole. Thank you for your response.
Very nice, perceptive essay.
One thing: "to push merchandise and services onto customers that they didn't want" is not usually called "upselling."
It is usually called selling.
This is a cogently descriptive and brilliant essay on the dysfunctionality of corporate America - highly supportive and recognizable to those of us who have been treated worse than research rats.
However, the picture presented of positive psychology is way off target. In any discipline, there are those who use it for less-than-therapeutic, downright greedy purposes, but this is not what positive psychology teaches, any more than psychologists are taught to assist with torture.
Difficult and troubling feelings and experiences are not to be ignored or "spun" - they are real and inform our healing, which sometimes must come on a societal level, such as the immense problems that modern corporate culture spawns. It's just that, unlike old-time traditional psychology, negative emotions and vulnerabilities aren't the only grist in the mill, and there is focus on building strengths, which is quite therapeutic. Building yourself up with honesty and authenticity can put you in a stronger position to be able to "do" something about larger issues, both for yourself and others, and society as a whole.
I am a therapist with 30 years' experience.
soulscompanion,
Excellent post. Like you, I thought that the author stretched the "positive psychology" definition too far, but felt that I did not have the background to respond with much eloquence. Your response is brilliant.
This may be Mr. Hedges's best article to date. Even as a young teenager, I KNEW without question that some of my own unhappiness was caused by the radical shift from 1970s idealism to 1980s materialism. Greed (whether one's own or that of corporate shareholders) is not enough of a reason to get up in the morning.
Thank you, "farmgirl in the city," for your comments about psychotropic medications. Some people really do need them; also, remember that the most anti-psychotropic organization in the country is the so-called "Church of Scientology."
The American poet, e.e.cummings, (1894-1962) wrote this quite a few decades ago:
"everybody happy?
we! we! we!
and to hell with the chappy
who doesn't agree"
The water tower over the penitentiary has a smiley face painted on it. I suppose it's a gloat.
To me, corporations are basically privately owned communist collectives. Except you are supposed to conform and believe the ideology not because its beneficial to you and everyone else, but because it is beneficial to the owners and stockholders. The only benefit you get in conforming is getting to keep your job.
"The belief that by thinking about things, by visualizing them, by wanting them, we can make them happen is magical thinking."
-- I liked this article and generally appreciate most of Hedge's writings... but I think this sentence can be true to a certain point, and not just "magical thinking." Believing that you can make something happen in your life does require "thinking about things, by visualizing them." But, of course, it requires more than just positive thinking techniques... it requires something much harder - embracing, and not ignoring, the real emotions inside of yourself.
To foster and follow your dreams - your bliss - requires imagination (thinking about things), determination, visualization, planning, practice, struggle, courage, desire, accepting temporary defeat, and passion. All of these things requires you to focus your energy by visualizing through an active imagination.
To use this technique to help enhance the profits of a corporation, and by being submissive to authority and a cause that is not of your own IS SAD! But, to use it to follow your bliss and live a life you have dreamed of is a BEAUTIFUL thing!
The aspect that many of these "positive thinkers only" miss when seeking happiness, is that it requires you to face your own demons (the dark emotions or shadows that live inside all of us). It requires that you try to embrace these shadows, to understand why they are there, and how they hold you down in your life. Once you begin to embrace, instead of running from, these dark emotions they will no longer control your entire being when they arise from inside of you. It's a continual struggle - at least it is for me. I have found that the more I embrace and understand my shadows, the more that a light --love-- is able to enter into my life. Simply thinking you are happy while ignoring and pushing away the dark emotions that live deep inside of you will only result in a future "blow up" or a lifelong depression. This type of positive thinking, while ignoring your real emotions, always reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George's dad kept saying, "Serenity Now!" to deal with his anger. Kramer and George followed suit and eventually all of their bottled up anger resulted in a "blow up". Very funny episode.
On another note... this essay reminded me why I chose to embrace the anarchist philosophy. It is one of the only things I have found that pinpoints and critiques one of the things that causes so much anger and resentment in the world - hierarchical authority structures!
I'm not so sure that embracing our demons is a good idea. Most if not all of the serial killers that we know of embraced their demons. Jeffrey Dahlmer, David Berkowitz, Kenneth Bianchi, and Ted Bundy all embraced their demons fully, completely and without hesitation. The CEOs that we call sociopaths have embraced their demons, it could even be said they revel in them.
Looking at their example, I'll fight my demons. They are a bit hungry for my taste.
Semantics.
Yeah, maybe I should have used the word 'recognize' or 'accept' or 'be aware' that they exist instead of embrace.
What magical thinking means is that by thinking something it becomes concrete aka reification.
Yes, before we can do anything we must think it. But in the end it's the DOING that counts.
And it's the DOING that the corps don't want to do, that costs money.
Belief is so much cheaper.
Yeah, I got that... but thanks for your clarification.
good post markpaddles
thanks, nedlud
As one who has been reading books on overcoming unhappiness and regaining self-confidence in life, I have become even more immune to these fake silly forms of faux "entertainment". I will not give up joining others in putting my feet down and making it clear that you have nothing to lose by giving up on greed and materialism. Happiness comes from discovering your inner self and making the best of that. In addition, like Jerry Springer, despite his filthy programs, would have this to say, "Take care of yourself and each other". Not all corporations are filled with bosses who try to toy with people's feelings and push their buttons. In this case, the boss was paving the way for more unhappy and possibly disgruntled employees by condescending others for their differences and trying to prop up the fake happiness game which has been proven to fail as always.
"You aren't happy because you are being social, you are happy because you work for the company."
Tell that to the Chinese slave workers who are worked to death every year and forced into producing shoddy products all in the name of "free" trade !
P.S.: My old remote friend, JWVerez, helped make his company successful and attracted companies such as mine by helping to build up team working and thinking and better social behavior and attitudes from employees. Even half of the managers couldn't resist. Robot thinking doesn't always work. I also saw his wife's posts yesterday and emailed her as I was in tears and concerned about her well-being after reading her posts. She once told me a while back that she eventually filled in his position as management was getting desperate. She says the company likes her for her dynamic thinking, tolerance towards others, and enlightenment and that the employees are finding some of her social skills exceeding that of even her husband's. No wonder that partner company of mine has been coming back to life since late last month.
Jennifer, the trick to making employees not so unhappy is reasoning with them the best you can and allowing them to get their doubts about the company resolved as best as possible. I have had years of experience I think coming from learning to negotiate with my husband and trying to calm him down and help him get over his anger and mental depression. I have come across two new employees, one returning from Iraq and one from a company that went bankrupt. In both cases, they were angry with everything but wanted to work and contribute to the company because they strongly believed and still do that they had what it took to get over their past and I was even willing to help them out since I had felt that in these rough economic times the chances that those two would get a job elsewhere would be smaller than say 8 years ago.
Yes, my company has come back to life but I had a lot more work than I had anticipated getting employees to stop fighting over petty disputes and respect and tolerate each other. My managers had pressured me to be strict in a manner similar to the corporate employer in this article but I refused and even threatened to expose their corrupt practices if they tried to stop me. After a couple of weeks, the company started to return to normal.
You can't just order people around even if you want your company to shine unlike what the current revisionist economic theory books try to tell you. Similar to helping soldiers with PTSD, the first thing you do is let them express their emotions out in a private face-to-face meeting. Do not react with a hurting reply or else you risk their giving you a trigger response and it can be verbal, physical, or both so it's best not to take chances reacting. Instead, try to get them to acknowledge what it is that they do not like about the company and try to prove that your company isn't that bad on whatever aspect it is they don't like. Of course, you have to make sure your company really means it or else lying about it only raises the risk of inviting more unexpected trouble. The same thing goes when managing teamwork. It's a matter of working out the differences and trying out reasonable alternatives where need be. Never completely put down someone's idea unless it's really bad which is generally rare in my company.
The above explains why I've never lasted more than a year working for Big Corp. Apparently, it takes that long for them to figure out what would make me most happy is to destroy Big Corp.
At the last place, employees were 'partners' in the corporation. "Good morning, partner!" "What's for lunch, partner?" Enough to make ya show up with a shotgun... And one of their tricks was to post signs around the store: "Congratulations Jose, our July Sweepstakes winner!" Except - there never was any sweepstakes! And, w/over 400,000 'partners,' there was no way to track down winner Jose out of the 9,000 Jose 'partners.'
They did offer great health insurance, though, I have to say...
ditto.
Although I did work for a corporation where I won one of those sweepstakes, it was a nifty t-shirt with the company logo printed on it. cheap buggers wouldn't even buy a 100% cotton shirt, thing was 50/50. I won't tell you what I use it for, best left to your imagination... But the worst thing you can think of isn't as nasty as what I use it for.
great real life story, frank 1569.
Different brands of these corporate religions have been floating around for years. The last one I had personal experience with was "Who Moved My Cheese", which was designed to make workers accept changes like management sending their jobs overseas. Before that there were a few iterations on quality. Most of these are just management's way of getting more work for less money. God help your career if you don't jump on the bandwagon and cheer.
seems you and frank 1569 (commenting directly above) have some things in common. rah rah sis boom bah! hip hip hooray and all that. play the game the way it's meant to be 'played'. and you won't lose your job.
This is a great article about one of the items in the Social Psychologists Anesthesia Toolkit. This is the field of psychology today, bought and paid for. Add contributions from the pharma industry and you have a population that approximates the "calm submissive" state that Cesar Millan likes for his dogs.
Will all these methods remain effective when people are unemployed for months and all their resources run out?
Joe
Who is "Mendez"?
Don't forget SNL's Stuart Smalley, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me"
He and Sarah Silly would make a great couple, I betcha!
Poet
In a Walmart during a shift change, a group of Team-Workers were in a room listening to someone, a unison "Walmart!" went out loudly as they left the room. Is this the happiness they are charging for! Happiness is not taught, it is found. This sort of pep-rallying, which has it's place in sports and the military is really not needed when are selling services and products. I bet a headline of "What makes you happy?" on Common Dreams would be very interesting. We work to live, not live to work right? I was foolish to think they (teachers of happiness) were true in their intentions. Now I will have to go crochet and then visit my garden.
I use the Bob Wiley technique. I sit with eyes closed rubbing my temples while repeating, "I fell good, I feel great, I feel wonderful, I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful."
As long as I don't open my eyes I'm fine.
This kind of shit is everywhere. At the public agency I am about to retire from they hired a group of scammers called Bovo-Tighe who gave a multi-day workshop supposedly meant to address the terrible management problems in the agency. I'm sure Bovo-Tighe (who appear to be nothing more than a bunch of thimble-rigs who've read a couple of books on basic psychology and management) was paid handsomely and at the end what happened was this: every Monday someone comes around with a piece of paper for all the non-management employees with such brilliant and illuminating thoughts as, "I Am Wonderful" and crap like that. This is the USA!
Sorry Mordechai - no time to read this. I have to find some more flair. I have been doing only the minimum.
Joe
You gotta have more than 12 pieces. If not, YOU'RE FIRED!
From The KIng and I
by Rogers andHammerstein:
Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I'm afraid.
While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows
I'm afraid.
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well!
I whistle a happy tune
And ev'ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I'm not afraid.
Make believe you're brave
And the trick will take you far.
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are
There now-don't we all feel better?
Poet
"I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad..."
Julie Andrews from the Sound of Music.
Julie Andrews had her own Nazis to contend with.
If only her shrill singing had stopped World War Two, there'd be 80 million less people killed by machines.
Obama must have taken that course. So it will be the voters' fault when he fails to end the wars and really reform US health care - his followers won't have believed in him enough. This is the oldest con trick in the book, whether it is branded as "faith can work miracles" (and if a miracle didn't happen, you lacked faith) or "the American Dream" (and if it didn't come true, you didn't try hard enough). All the current generation supplies is refurbished jargon to go with the 21st century technology and drugs.
To me the disturbing aspect is that the corporatist fiends have turned the individual's natural tendency to work for the good of the group and to achieve social harmony into a means to profit the few behind the curtain. The corporation is a plastic community with managers who, through deception and fraud, attempt to fool others into believing it is the real thing.
Humans developed through evolution a propensity to develop behavior patterns that benefit their social group because the positive effects flowed back to the individual in a sort of loop, as the individual thrived when the group thrived as all the individuals in the small group were working to some extent for group benefit. But in the corporation, the benefits flow unevenly and do not flow back that well to the employees, as the structure is designed to siphon off the benefits to the advantage of the shareholders and the high management. Also, unlike in traditional healthy human groups that humans evolved in, the individual can be cut off from the group for any reason or for no reason, receiving no future benefits for all the contributions the individual made in the time in the group. The corporation is a plastic replica of a healthy traditional human group, with facilitators, using "positive psychology," that work to confuse and bamboozle the employees into believing that it is a traditional group with roughly equal benefits for all and long-term security, thus motivating the employees to give their all.
Great post.
funny cygnus... good laugh...such happy times
i sit here trying to decide if i am happy bucking every single trend that is or isn't promoted in our society. it's hard to say, i think i am and something pushes me on...but i think we know, it's not the easy way to get along in this life...
Positive psychology is shit. I have a lot of friends who have very real things to be terribly depressed about---we all do. Being 'happy' (mind dead on prescribed anti depression drugs or blaming yourself for things and using alchohol and weed to ease the pain) is not any solution to the anger and depression we feel. We have good reasons to be pissed and upset. Lots of it is due to our loss of democracy and sence of community. The hell with this "take care of yourself" crap. We need to fight back TOGETHER. If you are not fighting back for our democracy you are part of the problem.
True dat!!
I worked part time at one of the major Office Supply chains while finishing my senior year in college. Originally I worked at what was probably one of many regional suppliers which operated on long term relationships with local commercial and business customers, but the chain made an offer that probably couldn't be refused.
The culture shift was night and day. With our previous ownership, cost controls were, in retrospect, fairly benign. Overtime was frowned upon, so when any of us were in danger of going over 40 hrs (dealing with some unforeseen issue which required going beyond 8 hours on any particular day earlier in the week), the shift supervisor would inform us earlier in the day that our day would end at (for purposes of illustration) 2:30 instead of 4, called one of several part-timers who staffed the store evenings to come in a little earlier than originally scheduled, end of story.
After the merger, it wasn't long before an overtime situation popped up for one of my new co-workers who worked in shipping and recieving. "Oh, I'm at 40 hours," she announced and went toward the time clock. Then just as I was wondering why the shift supervisor hadn't come to make sure there was some continuity between what she was working on and who would be following up to complete those tasks, she bounced back into her chair and continued working for at least another 3 hours -- that I know of.
I saw this happen frequently over the next several weeks, and was fully anticipating the frowns I got when I would hit 40 hrs, punch out and go home. I quit before my inevitible poor evaluation came due. This was of course back in ancient history when the unemployment rate in my area of the country was less than 5% and I could easily slip into another retail job to finish paying for my last few classes.
I guess I was not not "happy enough" for that company's culture.
Another important article from one of the most insightful and trenchant authors going right now.
People want to be happy but if they are fraudulently happy, and/or if they ignore the real unhappiness of others, they might as well be blind and deaf.
I'm having a lousy day and I feel like crap. You gotta problem with that?
Still, everyone, DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY!
Stalin is Stalin and Mao is Mao. I wouldn't mention them in the same breath, or in the same breath as something as apple-pie-american as Positive Psychology. To do so adds nothing to the article, and gives it the sense of a polemic. Many of the ideas in P.P. originated in the 50's and 60's and had a certain sense in a time of increasing prosperity for all, before the policy of the upwards transfer of wealth begun by Nixon with his transfer of the U.S. gold stock held at Fort Knox to the big banks...and the comIng of the era of Co-Intel-Pro, Reagan, the Trans-National Corporation and the CEO....i
Great comments everyone!
Isn't CD a wonderful place to communicate with other progressives?
I'm so proud of all of you!
Would any of you like to tell your most positive story since starting here?
C'mon. I know you can do it!
I've had a positive experience on CD finding out that many others weren't buying the 30 year disenfranchisement of the American people (and attendent disengagement) and replacement with 'whistle while you work' pop psychologies. My heart aches because this still wealthy country has been fleeced by successive generations of 'Masters of the Universe' and left close to naked. Although I'm THIS close to buying and posting my 'Don't blame me, I voted for change' bumper sticker, I'm still hopeful that more and more Americans will 'get it'. Although it may take another round of debt and bubble formation, replacement of real jobs with 'ownership society positive psychology' jobs, and subsequent deflation with Wall Street taking whats left of your clothing, before people come hard to the point that the existing system is designed to reward insiders and punish outsiders; that this particular 'free market' has nothing remotely free about it, except the freedom to be preyed upon.
I'd be happy to respond to your post. But fear that CD would ban me for using nearly 900 swear/offensive words without repeating myself once. I'm ex-navy, don't doubt for a second that I couldn't do that.
I don't doubt it a bit...I wonder though if CD is a bit more tolerant now. People understand a-n-g-e-r a bit better than just a few short years, or even months ago. There is a change happening, I don't give credit to Obama but I do give credit to somebody, quite a few somebodies...
thanks CD people!
nedlud
Spot on!
When you control what people think, without them even realizing it, it then becomes possible to transform and control a society without using force.
This is a propaganda tool that continues to be used by the corporate ruling elite and their minions to turn people into sheeple.
"But there are university departments and reams of pseudoscientific scholarship to give an academic patina to the fantasy of happiness and success through positive thinking."
You could get a PhD in Nasal Dynamics (nose picking) if someone were to give a university a sufficiently large grant.
In the US, academia is just another whore for corporate greed.
q
Excellent article, though I'd add that I see many of these characteristics in my children's school. Conformity and fake buoyancy. They're churning out drones.
Schools use these psychological tools all the time to get kids to comply. Individuality--the varied behaviors, beliefs, and emotions--of children makes teaching very difficult, so teachers and others use coercive tools to get all the kids together. If Johnny doesn't sit on his carpet square, he's coerced until he goes on the meds that help make compliance easier. (If your child's teacher suggests meds for your kid, first ask to see their qualifications as a psychiatrist, and then report them to the police for dealing drugs on school grounds.)
Hedges fails to mention Big Pharmaceutical's role in providing the mood stabilizers--the alcohol analogues--that act as zombie cucumbers on those desparate or stupid enough to take them. Peter Breggin's books assessing the dosing of America with brain drugs are essential reading.
Comply, Medicate, Smile! Just sing to yourself: "If you're happy and you know it, do all three."
A gram is better than a damn.
"Brave New World", by Aldous Huxley. Read it.
"Hedges fails to mention Big Pharmaceutical's role in providing the mood stabilizers--the alcohol analogues--that act as zombie cucumbers on those desparate or stupid enough to take them. Peter Breggin's books assessing the dosing of America with brain drugs are essential reading."
I'd like to advocate for a little more sensitivity and compassion for Common Dreams readers who need to take psychotropic medications in order to function.
I am fortunate that I do not have a brain disorder (some of you may disagree). However, for a number of people, taking psychotropic medication is the difference between living a stable life and feeling suicidal. My husband's aunt has bipolar disorder, and when she is off her medication, it is an absolute nightmare, and she verbally abuses my husband, his mother and his father.
It's not pretty.
My sister-in-law has AD/HD. She is not a would not be able to hold a steady job without Ritalin. Ritalin does not turn her into a "zombie cucumber," and she isn't "stupid" for taking a drug that helps to live a more fulfilling life. It simply regulates her brain chemistry. She is an artist, and her art hasn't suffered because she's taking Ritalin.
And for the idea of denying medication to kids -- how would you like to have a brain disorder and be prevented from getting help?
That seems pretty cruel to me.
Asserting that people who take "brain drugs" to help manage their moods are "desperate" shows a lack of knowledge. Do psychotropic meds cause side effects? Yes. Are some of them harmful? Yes. But more often than not, people who have problems with psychotropic meds are the victims of an incompetent doctor who doesn't know how to prescribe meds or who overprescribes (or underprescribes).
I'm not a pill pusher or a medication toady. I eat organic food, keep a journal, practice yoga, and only take medication when I absolutely have to. But the notion that psychotropic meds are not helpful for some people is absolutely bunk, and it has no scientific merit. There are people like Peter Breggin (who, in my opinion, preys on the fears that people have about medication) and a huge host of New Age/junk science types who make beaucoup bucks from selling crystals (talk about happiness consultants -- telling other people that a bloody rock will help them!) and other types of snake oil. Those are the charlatans and quacks -- not the psychiatrists and doctors who are helping people like my aunt live with bipolar disorder.
[I'd like to advocate for a little more sensitivity and compassion for Common Dreams readers who need to take psychotropic medications in order to function.]
The way I read the article and comments didn't slam those who need meds to get thru the day or their lives. It condemned the use of those drugs for healthy people, but ones who got depressed because their employers argued if they're sad, it's because they're not working hard enough. Or because they're not taking proper satisfaction in making massa richer than he already is, while earning just enough to keep a roof over his/her head.
The article is talking about the end result of a 'kinder, gentler' nineteen eighty four (the book by Orwell) Rather than a future where a giant boot is stomping on the face of everyone, it's a future where humans are convinced that they need to think happy thoughts while self-flagilating with a cat of ninetails.
on edit; it's not a giant book, it's supposed to be a giant boot...
I think "farmgirl in the city" was remarking about the comments section where there is a lack of sensitivity. People post about killer drugs and mood pills without any consideration that some of us need certain drugs since the alternative is death.
For myself the thrust of this article reminded me of "soma". the drug of choice in "Brave New World" and also the path to happiness taken by Buddist monks.
Sioux Rose
BEEKEEPER: You brought up the point I intended to make. If "happiness" becomes the new norm, even when it's divorced from the state of actual reality (personal and/or collective) can't you see big pharma moving into this next profitable "frontier?" If the insurance firms manage to use the power of the purse to push through legislation that FORCES persons to buy medical insurance, why couldn't they go the next step to insist that anyone not "registering" happy, must take a specific drug?
The Chinese make a big deal about luck. When I visited Singapore and had perhaps 40 Asian clients, this premise was a given. From the astrological standpoint, Jupiter, the largest planet IS associated with luck and opportunity. It's considered the planetary agency of financial gain (as well as weight gain, and it can also influence fertility patterns in women of a certain age); and in my view it accords with the whole "power of positive thinking" phenomenon.
I can't recall the author's name, but the book title, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" comes to mind. I've been in spiritual circles for more than 30 years and inevitably someone "practicing" all the positive thinking strategies falls short or hits a wall. I've spoken about the need for a better cultural balance between Venus and Mars; and a comparable case can be made for recognizing the wisdom implicit to a philosophical symmetry between Jupiter (positive thinking, you can have it all) and Saturn (pragmatic thinking, an understanding of consequences, a measure of what the individual has earned).
At dinner last week at my favorite place, the owner's wife decided to sit down with me and she proceeded to tell me of the problems she was having with a 20 year old daughter. I hear this all the time, and I have experienced it with my own. I call it evidence of "the entitlement" generation. They really believe that EVERYTHING should be handed to them. As a freelance author with a fluctuating income, I was in no position to buy my daughters cars when they each turned 16. A great many parents did so, and that caused resentment. It's as if too many people have lost the capacity to appreciate what they have on the basis of having EARNED it. And this is what I told the restaurant owner. Things that are worked for are generally far more appreciated than anything merely handed to anyone. Life sometimes throws us lucky breaks, and at other times we feel we are being given more than our fair share of crises. In my view, understanding the periodicity of cycles that regulate gain and loss, fullness and emptiness, happiness and sorrow would prove far more valuable than painting a Prosaz smile on the faces of students, citizens, and corporate employees. This is a slippery slope, one quite befitting the final phase of the Piscean Age, 2200 years of delusion-based programming now at its acme. It's the grand finale before "the next cosmic act," and in fact, the celestial equivalent of a changing of the guard IS now in progress. With Aquarius, the sign that upholds the universal verities, (a/k/a timeless truths) about to rise, consciousness must break the chains imposed by centuries of falsehoods.
"happiness" becomes the new norm, even when it's divorced from the state of actual reality"
You got the essence of the problem right there. Let's be happy because life is good, we can work, love each other instead of killing each other, we are not terrified of what will happen to our grandchildren. Otherwise it is more like anesthesia than happiness.
Joe
Jeevee
We respect you very much, but can you consider writing smaller articles? Many of us have neither the time nor the expertise (e.g. speedreading) to read much of your posts. This writer goes by two cardinal principles: (1) The first and the last paragraphs usually summarize long writings and (2) The shorter the response, usually , the more attention it gets.
All the best to you.
Jeevee my dear. Sometimes, enlightenment takes more explanations than a small paragraph. It's just like trying to help heal soldiers with PTSD. You don't just give a quick and snappy response and expect them to get better. You let them let out their emotions and then you eventually engage them in a healthy discussion the best you can. Eventually, most will heal.
Just like the American dream the Corporate dream is also a fraud. America is a fraud.
Hoa binh
Well of course. What do you think would happen to the major corporations if they admitted the truth that they want to be seen by their employees as 'big brother' was seen in nineteen eighty four. I've worked for some of those companies, they cause depression.
Tell that to Rob Smart. :)
Excellent article, Chris. I hope you have time sometimes to read your comments (the rest of us in our support and backlash) occasionally. That would be the only problem I would have with you, if you were too busy to read from your commentors...
(I've never been to Truthdig, perhaps they have zillions of commentors there. Your thoughts, Chris, are always welcome here! Though they don't necessarily make me uhhh--'happy'.)
your friend,
nedlud