Read Online Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Barbara Ehrenreich
Tags: Social Science, Psychology, Sociology, Non-Fiction, Anthropology, Cultural, Pop Culture, american culture, Happiness
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responses, and focus your mind. One could think of other possible means of self-improvement—through education, for example, to acquire new “hard” skills, or by working for social changes that would benefit all. But in the world of positive thinking, the challenges are all interior and easily overcome through an effort of the will. This is no doubt what freshly minted speakers will tell the audiences they manage to find: I too was once lost and overcome by self-doubt, but then I found the key to success, and look at me now! Some listeners will learn by example that there is a career to be made proselytizing for positive thinking and will end up doing so themselves, becoming new missionaries for the cult of cheerfulness.
The Menace of Negative People
The promise of positivity is that it will improve your life in concrete, material ways. In one simple, practical sense, this is probably true. If you are “nice,” people will be more inclined to like you than if you are chronically grumpy, critical, and out of sorts. Much of the behavioral advice offered by the gurus, on their Web sites and in their books, is innocuous. “Smile,” advises one success-oriented positive-thinking site. “Greet coworkers.” The rewards for exuding a positive manner are all the greater in a culture that expects no less. Where cheerfulness is the norm, crankiness can seem perverse. Who would want to date or hire a “negative” person? What could be wrong with him or her? The trick, if you want to get ahead, is to simulate a positive outlook, no matter how you might actually be feeling.
The first great text on how to act in a positive way was Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People , originally published in 1936 and still in print. Carnegie—who was born Carnagey but changed his name apparently to match that of the industrialist Andrew Carnegie—did not assume that his readers felt happy, only that they could manipulate others by putting on a successful act: “You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing.” You could “force” yourself to act in a positive manner, or you could be trained: “Many companies train their telephone operators to greet all callers in a tone of voice that radiates interest and enthusiasm.” The operator doesn’t have to feel this enthusiasm; she only has to “radiate” it. The peak achievement, in How to Win Friends, is to learn how to fake sincerity: “A show of interest, as with every other principle of human relationships, must be sincere.” 4 How do you put on a“show” of sincerity? This is not explained, but it is hard to imagine succeeding at it without developing some degree of skill as an actor. In a famous study in the 1980s, sociologist Arlie Hochschild found that flight attendants became stressed and emotionally depleted by the requirement that they be cheerful to passengers at all times. 5 “They lost touch with their own emotions,” Hochschild told me in an interview.
As the twentieth century wore on, the relevance of Carnegie’s advice only increased. More and more middle-class people were not farmers or small business owners but employees of large corporations, where the objects of their labor were likely to be not physical objects, like railroad tracks or deposits of ore, but other people. The salesman worked on his customers; the manager worked on his subordinates and coworkers. Writing in 1956, sociologist William H. Whyte viewed this development with grave misgivings, as a step toward the kind of spirit-crushing collectivization that prevailed in the Soviet Union: “Organizational life being what it is, out of sheer necessity, [a man] must spend most of his working hours in one group or another.” There were “the people at the conference table, the workshop, the seminar, the skull session, the after-hours discussion group, the project team.”
The Menace of Negative People
The promise of positivity is that it will improve your life in concrete, material ways. In one simple, practical sense, this is probably true. If you are “nice,” people will be more inclined to like you than if you are chronically grumpy, critical, and out of sorts. Much of the behavioral advice offered by the gurus, on their Web sites and in their books, is innocuous. “Smile,” advises one success-oriented positive-thinking site. “Greet coworkers.” The rewards for exuding a positive manner are all the greater in a culture that expects no less. Where cheerfulness is the norm, crankiness can seem perverse. Who would want to date or hire a “negative” person? What could be wrong with him or her? The trick, if you want to get ahead, is to simulate a positive outlook, no matter how you might actually be feeling.
The first great text on how to act in a positive way was Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People , originally published in 1936 and still in print. Carnegie—who was born Carnagey but changed his name apparently to match that of the industrialist Andrew Carnegie—did not assume that his readers felt happy, only that they could manipulate others by putting on a successful act: “You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing.” You could “force” yourself to act in a positive manner, or you could be trained: “Many companies train their telephone operators to greet all callers in a tone of voice that radiates interest and enthusiasm.” The operator doesn’t have to feel this enthusiasm; she only has to “radiate” it. The peak achievement, in How to Win Friends, is to learn how to fake sincerity: “A show of interest, as with every other principle of human relationships, must be sincere.” 4 How do you put on a“show” of sincerity? This is not explained, but it is hard to imagine succeeding at it without developing some degree of skill as an actor. In a famous study in the 1980s, sociologist Arlie Hochschild found that flight attendants became stressed and emotionally depleted by the requirement that they be cheerful to passengers at all times. 5 “They lost touch with their own emotions,” Hochschild told me in an interview.
As the twentieth century wore on, the relevance of Carnegie’s advice only increased. More and more middle-class people were not farmers or small business owners but employees of large corporations, where the objects of their labor were likely to be not physical objects, like railroad tracks or deposits of ore, but other people. The salesman worked on his customers; the manager worked on his subordinates and coworkers. Writing in 1956, sociologist William H. Whyte viewed this development with grave misgivings, as a step toward the kind of spirit-crushing collectivization that prevailed in the Soviet Union: “Organizational life being what it is, out of sheer necessity, [a man] must spend most of his working hours in one group or another.” There were “the people at the conference table, the workshop, the seminar, the skull session, the after-hours discussion group, the project team.”
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