"Positive thinking" as a modern-day capitalist religion

Some thoughts after watching Barbara Ehrenreich's interview on DemocracyNow! about her new book: "Bright Sided" http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/13/author_barbara_ehrenreich_on_bright_sided

Category:

Education

Tags:

• positive
• thinking
• joel
• osteen

[NamelessCommenter]

This "positive thinking" nonsense goes to one of the fundamental disconnects between Left and Right: the Right tends to be "idealist" (our material reality is generated by our ideas); the Left tends to be "materialist" (our ideas are generated by our material reality). It's not just Marxists who are tuned into reality on this; anarchists tend to be materialists as well (e.g., Bakunin, who asked "Who is right, the idealists or the materialists?" He concluded that the materialists obviously were).

[mr1001nights]

Well, material reality generates ideas, but material reality itself represents a congealment of countless ideas (with their corresponding vestigial material realities) throughout the millennia--with a complicated interplay of creative and deterministic elements. But the "you can change everything by changing your perception" delusion seems to go beyond the traditional rightist denial and misunderstanding of collective and historical influence.

[cayetanoluis]

"Noam Chosmky is free to move to a Socialist country, but he never will."

Why should he? He has a legal and moral right to stay where he is. Defenders of exploitation like you have a strange totalitarian mindset even while you claim to defend freedom: if someone criticises the system, they should "move to Cuba." Apparently, the only freedom people should have is to affirm freedom of speech by NOT exercising it! Ridiculous.

[ZYKLONBKILLSHITLER]

That Joel guy...opium of the masses lol.

[thethirdq]

Where do you come up with this stuff...so good!!!

[tom6612]

What a ham-handed lackey for the business community Osteen is. If you are gonna churn out propaganda it should be much more convincing than this. This is just embarrassing. It's hard to believe people would fall for this. Must be some pretty dim bulbs in his church.

[tom6612]

@jesuschrustpizza -- Jeeze man give your tired old routine a rest. How long you gonna keep beating that horse ?

[JosephDownie]

I'm sure you've heard of "The Secret" which is a good example of this, a new religion seemingly purpose build to accommodate capitalism and consumerism.

[Irtidad]

*sigh* what is your point?

[mempko]

Does that really matter?

[Irtidad]

I wasn't the one who (mis)quoted it in the first place.

[mempko]

Fuck the Kalama Sutta. Throw it out the window. You will learn more from watching it decay

[Irtidad]

The Kalama Sutta, which you egregiously misquoted as "don't believe the words I tell you," deals precisely with this issue of faith and its relation to the dhamma.

Also, I don't disagree with your statement about the concept of teachers in Buddhism; in fact I had already clarified earlier that a leader in Buddhism is not the same concept as the absolutist ruler as presented in Abrahamic religions. But I do think it's quite a stretch to so bluntly say "Buddhism is against leaders."

[mempko]

Sorry Irtidad, I didn't say anything about faith. A teach is also thought of more as a guide than a leader.