Being someone who grew up in the church and who, then, worked in churches for about two decades, I know what church is like. Or, well, I know what church is supposed to be like. Church used to be a place of moral authority, which is what it's supposed to be like, sort of, but, these days, it's become more of a... slot machine. It's a change largely instituted by Boomers through their wholehearted embrace of the prosperity doctrine and the idea they've pushed that church should be FUN! WooHoo!
And I'm not saying necessarily that church shouldn't be fun, but it shouldn't be about being fun. Of course, the whole fun thing is really only about making money.
And I'm also not saying that those morals in the "moral authority" were correct, but, at least, the people who attended paid some semblance of respect to those morals and tried to live lives that matched.
Without going through the history of the decline of the church in the United States, it abandoned any pretense of moral authority with its embrace of Trump (#fakepresident). You can't tell people they shouldn't commit adultery while supporting a man who views adultery as a victory. You can't tell people to "love your neighbor" while supporting a man who abuses his neighbors of other skin tones. You can't tell people to "love God" when you support a man who only loves himself.
I could go on...
Church is no longer about "being good" or "bringing people to Christ" or helping the needy. In fact, "christianity" is no longer about following Jesus at all. "christianity" has become a political position, and church is nothing more than a weekly Right-wing pep rally.
Which, you know, was a very eye-opening thought. It explains why a fairly small minority of the population is able to stay so organized and retain so much power.
Lookit, "the moral majority" Right-wing fundamentalist fascist fuckheads makeup, at best, about 30% of the population, and, yet, they have been able to stay in control of the reins of power for far too long because they are able to stay focused on a small number of issues. It keeps them motivated, and it's why they turn out for all of the elections.
It's like this:
A "friend" of mine from Texas with whom I went to college told me he "literally would have voted for the Devil rather than vote for Clinton." He used abortion as the excuse for his stance (though it sounded more to me like it was about having a woman in charge because "christians" hate women in power). Another "friend" (also from Texas and also from college) quickly echoed the sentiment. Having their votes be about an issue also allowed them to be able to doublethink (look it up if you don't know), "Sure I voted for Trump, but I'm not a Trump supporter."
But let's not go down all of those rabbit trails, as appealing as they are. Or not appealing.
Tempting?
Anyway...
All of that to say that I think those of us on the Left could probably benefit from some kind of similar weekly pep rally that would help us to stay focused on particular issues and motivated about getting out to vote. We could call it Church of the Godless, which would not be substantially different from "christian" churches, but it would be more honest.
But, then, it is rigid fundamentalists who are the ones more prone to hypocrisy. It must hurt to have so many planks in one's eyes.
Showing posts with label prosperity doctrine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prosperity doctrine. Show all posts
Friday, May 18, 2018
Monday, October 5, 2015
Fallacies of the Church (part three) -- God Rewards the Good (or The Prosperity Doctrine)
As I said last time, "God is all you need" is one of the most harmful lies of "the church." That one can be joined by the idea that God rewards people who are good, go to church, and tithe, i.e., the righteous. This is called the Prosperity Doctrine (or, actually, any number of other things). Not to get into the history of it, but, in the history of Christianity, this a brand new idea going against centuries of Christian doctrine. You know, all that stuff that says you should give the coat off your back, care for widows and orphans, and things like that.
And, hey, I get it! It's great to believe that all you need to do is go to church and toss a little bit of money in the plate and you'll get all kinds of rewards and prosperity. Pastors count on it, in fact.
As could be expected, the Prosperity Doctrine saw its big rise to prominence in the 1980s and was the foundational message of many of the big televangelists. It has also been the foundation of virtually every mega-church out there, around the world, not just in the United States. And though it has mostly grown out of non-denominational churches, Prosperity Doctrine has permeated nearly every protestant denomination there is. Oh, and Christian music is full of it.
I'm going to share with you an example from a very popular Christian band, a band I like, that is just horrible. I hate this song, and I hate it so much that I lost major respect for this band that I have liked for years. So, yes, it's a horrible song, but you should listen to it anyway -- the words, not the music -- so you'll know what I'm talking about.
That's the whole problem: It seems to make sense. You know, if God loves us, why wouldn't he want us to thrive? Why wouldn't he want us to have lives full of... well, everything that we want to have in them? Which is the context of the song, God made you to have full, rich lives, full of everything you should have to make you happy. All you need to do is praise God (and give your 10%!), and he's gonna give you ALL the STUFF!
Bullshit!
If you read the Bible, especially the New Testament, it's very easy to see that the call to Christianity is not the call to a life of ease and riches. The call to Christianity is a call to hardship. The road less traveled because it's a road that requires sacrifice. That's a hard message for people to take and was driving people away during the great rise of consumerism of the 80s. So how about a message that's all about how God wants to reward you instead?
As with most lies of "the church," all of this prosperity bullshit is based on one verse that is taken completely out of context: Malachi 3:10. It says blah blah blah bring the whole tithe to the storehouse, and I will pour so much blessing on you that you can't hold it all blah blah blah. Oh, yeah, and it says "test me on this." So, yeah, it's a challenge from God: Bring me your tithe and see if I don't just bless you beyond your ability to keep it all.
Again, it sounds great, which is why so many people buy into it, but there are so many things wrong with taking this as a personal message from God:
1. It's not a personal message from God! Not to individuals. It's a message from the prophet Malachi to the entire nation of Israel. It's a message delivered because, as was so often the case, Israel was screwing up. This is not a message intended to be used by people to get rich.
2. Tithing itself is something that has been taken out of context and shouldn't exist in the Christian church. Tithing was for the support of the professional priest system of the Israelites. The Christian church was not supposed to have professional priests, and, if you look at the first century Christian church, it did not. Professional priests got re-invented for Christianity during the formation of the Catholic church and tithing, then, was re-introduced. It was never supposed to be that way.
3. Look, I could go on, but those two are really enough; however, I'll add this:
Honestly, God just doesn't care about your personal "happiness." He's not sitting around up in Heaven somewhere thinking, "Hmm... I wonder what I can do to make Andrew happy today. Oh! I know! I'll send him a check for $10,000!" Your material life not just isn't at the top of God's to-do list, it's not on the list at all. He doesn't care.
He doesn't care if you have a big house. He doesn't care if you have a nice car. He doesn't car what kind iphone you carry. He doesn't care what kind of clothes you wear. Seriously, if God was concerned about you having these things, everyone would have these things. Why? Because no one is "good" in the eyes of God, so everyone would be rewarded the same way.
So, yes, the Prosperity Doctrine draws people in, but, ultimately, it drives almost all of those same people away. Just as soon as they realize that it doesn't work. God is not a slot machine. There is no payout. Not in cash. Not in things. Not in "happiness." There's a system in place for all of that stuff so that God doesn't have to bother with it, if that's a way to put it (which it's really not, but I don't have a better way). Just get over the idea right now that if you're good then God is going to "bless" you or make you rich or whatever.
And, if you're in a church that teaches this idea, even a watered down version of it, you should get out now. That church is concerned with the right things.
And, hey, I get it! It's great to believe that all you need to do is go to church and toss a little bit of money in the plate and you'll get all kinds of rewards and prosperity. Pastors count on it, in fact.
As could be expected, the Prosperity Doctrine saw its big rise to prominence in the 1980s and was the foundational message of many of the big televangelists. It has also been the foundation of virtually every mega-church out there, around the world, not just in the United States. And though it has mostly grown out of non-denominational churches, Prosperity Doctrine has permeated nearly every protestant denomination there is. Oh, and Christian music is full of it.
I'm going to share with you an example from a very popular Christian band, a band I like, that is just horrible. I hate this song, and I hate it so much that I lost major respect for this band that I have liked for years. So, yes, it's a horrible song, but you should listen to it anyway -- the words, not the music -- so you'll know what I'm talking about.
That's the whole problem: It seems to make sense. You know, if God loves us, why wouldn't he want us to thrive? Why wouldn't he want us to have lives full of... well, everything that we want to have in them? Which is the context of the song, God made you to have full, rich lives, full of everything you should have to make you happy. All you need to do is praise God (and give your 10%!), and he's gonna give you ALL the STUFF!
Bullshit!
If you read the Bible, especially the New Testament, it's very easy to see that the call to Christianity is not the call to a life of ease and riches. The call to Christianity is a call to hardship. The road less traveled because it's a road that requires sacrifice. That's a hard message for people to take and was driving people away during the great rise of consumerism of the 80s. So how about a message that's all about how God wants to reward you instead?
As with most lies of "the church," all of this prosperity bullshit is based on one verse that is taken completely out of context: Malachi 3:10. It says blah blah blah bring the whole tithe to the storehouse, and I will pour so much blessing on you that you can't hold it all blah blah blah. Oh, yeah, and it says "test me on this." So, yeah, it's a challenge from God: Bring me your tithe and see if I don't just bless you beyond your ability to keep it all.
Again, it sounds great, which is why so many people buy into it, but there are so many things wrong with taking this as a personal message from God:
1. It's not a personal message from God! Not to individuals. It's a message from the prophet Malachi to the entire nation of Israel. It's a message delivered because, as was so often the case, Israel was screwing up. This is not a message intended to be used by people to get rich.
2. Tithing itself is something that has been taken out of context and shouldn't exist in the Christian church. Tithing was for the support of the professional priest system of the Israelites. The Christian church was not supposed to have professional priests, and, if you look at the first century Christian church, it did not. Professional priests got re-invented for Christianity during the formation of the Catholic church and tithing, then, was re-introduced. It was never supposed to be that way.
3. Look, I could go on, but those two are really enough; however, I'll add this:
Honestly, God just doesn't care about your personal "happiness." He's not sitting around up in Heaven somewhere thinking, "Hmm... I wonder what I can do to make Andrew happy today. Oh! I know! I'll send him a check for $10,000!" Your material life not just isn't at the top of God's to-do list, it's not on the list at all. He doesn't care.
He doesn't care if you have a big house. He doesn't care if you have a nice car. He doesn't car what kind iphone you carry. He doesn't care what kind of clothes you wear. Seriously, if God was concerned about you having these things, everyone would have these things. Why? Because no one is "good" in the eyes of God, so everyone would be rewarded the same way.
So, yes, the Prosperity Doctrine draws people in, but, ultimately, it drives almost all of those same people away. Just as soon as they realize that it doesn't work. God is not a slot machine. There is no payout. Not in cash. Not in things. Not in "happiness." There's a system in place for all of that stuff so that God doesn't have to bother with it, if that's a way to put it (which it's really not, but I don't have a better way). Just get over the idea right now that if you're good then God is going to "bless" you or make you rich or whatever.
And, if you're in a church that teaches this idea, even a watered down version of it, you should get out now. That church is concerned with the right things.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
The Religion of Writing: Part Six -- The Prosperity Doctrine (an IWSG post)
For thousands of years, we have had the belief that god, whatever god it happens to be, rewards the just and punishes the wicked. If something bad happens to you, you must have displeased god and are being punished. If something good happens to you, you are being rewarded, which shows that god favors you. Even more, if you are rich, through whatever means, god really, really likes you, so you must be one righteous dude and, therefore, you are justified in whatever behaviors you've been doing to get ahead even if they're wrong. God wouldn't be rewarding you unless you were doing what he wanted you to do, right?
There's something primal in that belief, no matter how ill-founded. It goes right along with that whole "beautiful angel"/"ugly demon" thing. We tend to forget that Lucifer, the head (and arguably worst) demon is also described as the most beautiful being in creation. [And we forget that whenever anyone in the Bible ever saw an Angel, the first response was always the wetting of the pants. Or loincloth. Or whatever. That was followed by the Angel saying, "Do not be afraid."] So it's very attractive to believe that rich people are somehow better than everyone else. If, that is, you are rich. European culture survived off of that belief for centuries. And, if you're not rich, you want to be rich so that you can finally be proven correct in your internal belief that you are, in fact, just as better than everyone else as the people that are already rich.
The prosperity doctrine started getting popular in the United States in the '50s, but it really took off with the charismatic movement and televangelists in the 1980s. The basic idea is that God wants you to have health, wealth, and happiness. The only problem is that, well, you have to pay for it. Now, there's all kinds of theological background and stuff I could go into here, but that would be a whole series of posts all by itself. So let's just put it like this: Just like with the whole Pentecostal thing of having to speak in tongues to get to go to heaven, the prosperity doctrine cherry picks just a few passages upon which to base the entire philosophy. [The central passage that's used is an Old Testament passage that they pull completely out of context.] What it boils down to is that people who are wealthy are "good" and everyone else is not. Which, of course, pushes the "nots" to try harder and give more, making the wealthy richer and "gooder" and everyone else "notter."
I'm pretty sure most of you out there would not say that having lots of money (success) makes a person somehow better than those that don't have lots of money, but that's not how we act. And, more importantly, that's not how they act. Rich people tend to act as if they are inherently better than other people. More valuable. More deserving. The money they have doesn't make them better; they have money because they are better. The cream, as they say, has risen to the top.
And we believe that in publishing, too, even when it's glaringly obvious that the cream does indeed not rise to the top. Unless we are now claiming that Twilight and its ugly step-sister Fifty Shades of Grey are the cream. If that's the case, well... actually, I'm not sure. If that's the cream, then there's no real hope for humanity.
The truth is, in most cases, the best books go completely unnoticed. There can be many reasons for this, none of which are important (and would take too long to list); the main thing is realizing that the statement, "the cream will always rise to the top" is a falsehood. Or, maybe, it's not, but, then, books aren't cream. The point is that the "best" things most often do not enjoy the most success.
Most of the people in the world that are the most "successful" are not people we would say are the best people. Sure, there are a few good ones, but most of them got there by taking advantage of other people or stepping on other people or cheating or lying or maybe even just dumb luck. And, no matter what people say, cheaters do not always lose. The most successful hamburger in the world is not one that I think anyone other than, maybe, Briane Pagel would say is the best. And it got there by just being the same anywhere you buy it. Which is no small feat, but it's hard to not find a "better" burger (although some might argue that its sameness does make it the best). And the best books... Well, the best books get run over by the ones that appeal to the masses. Like those hamburgers. They succeed not by being good but by being the same. Simple language. Simple, straight forward story. Plain.
Which is not to say that exceptions don't come along. Things like Harry Potter and Middle Earth succeed despite their "goodness" by being something new and different. Novel. (heh pun intended) But Rowling has proved to us that "good" does not equal success with her experiment in publishing under a pseudonym. The cream does not always rise to the top.
All of that to say that a lack of sales does not mean that your book is not good. And massive sales does not mean that it is. Books sell well for one of two reasons: 1. The author has put a lot of work into writing books and become known through being a steady and dependable writer. 2. Luck. The book just happened to be at the right place at the right time. So to speak.
But, still, we like to worship success here in the United States, so I'm sure we will continue to use such statements as "the cream will always rise to the top" and, even worse, continue to believe those statements.
What I want to say about it is that you shouldn't rate your "creaminess" on whether you're on top or not.
Today's post has been brought to you in part by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG. The rest was all me.
There's something primal in that belief, no matter how ill-founded. It goes right along with that whole "beautiful angel"/"ugly demon" thing. We tend to forget that Lucifer, the head (and arguably worst) demon is also described as the most beautiful being in creation. [And we forget that whenever anyone in the Bible ever saw an Angel, the first response was always the wetting of the pants. Or loincloth. Or whatever. That was followed by the Angel saying, "Do not be afraid."] So it's very attractive to believe that rich people are somehow better than everyone else. If, that is, you are rich. European culture survived off of that belief for centuries. And, if you're not rich, you want to be rich so that you can finally be proven correct in your internal belief that you are, in fact, just as better than everyone else as the people that are already rich.
The prosperity doctrine started getting popular in the United States in the '50s, but it really took off with the charismatic movement and televangelists in the 1980s. The basic idea is that God wants you to have health, wealth, and happiness. The only problem is that, well, you have to pay for it. Now, there's all kinds of theological background and stuff I could go into here, but that would be a whole series of posts all by itself. So let's just put it like this: Just like with the whole Pentecostal thing of having to speak in tongues to get to go to heaven, the prosperity doctrine cherry picks just a few passages upon which to base the entire philosophy. [The central passage that's used is an Old Testament passage that they pull completely out of context.] What it boils down to is that people who are wealthy are "good" and everyone else is not. Which, of course, pushes the "nots" to try harder and give more, making the wealthy richer and "gooder" and everyone else "notter."
I'm pretty sure most of you out there would not say that having lots of money (success) makes a person somehow better than those that don't have lots of money, but that's not how we act. And, more importantly, that's not how they act. Rich people tend to act as if they are inherently better than other people. More valuable. More deserving. The money they have doesn't make them better; they have money because they are better. The cream, as they say, has risen to the top.
And we believe that in publishing, too, even when it's glaringly obvious that the cream does indeed not rise to the top. Unless we are now claiming that Twilight and its ugly step-sister Fifty Shades of Grey are the cream. If that's the case, well... actually, I'm not sure. If that's the cream, then there's no real hope for humanity.
The truth is, in most cases, the best books go completely unnoticed. There can be many reasons for this, none of which are important (and would take too long to list); the main thing is realizing that the statement, "the cream will always rise to the top" is a falsehood. Or, maybe, it's not, but, then, books aren't cream. The point is that the "best" things most often do not enjoy the most success.
Most of the people in the world that are the most "successful" are not people we would say are the best people. Sure, there are a few good ones, but most of them got there by taking advantage of other people or stepping on other people or cheating or lying or maybe even just dumb luck. And, no matter what people say, cheaters do not always lose. The most successful hamburger in the world is not one that I think anyone other than, maybe, Briane Pagel would say is the best. And it got there by just being the same anywhere you buy it. Which is no small feat, but it's hard to not find a "better" burger (although some might argue that its sameness does make it the best). And the best books... Well, the best books get run over by the ones that appeal to the masses. Like those hamburgers. They succeed not by being good but by being the same. Simple language. Simple, straight forward story. Plain.
Which is not to say that exceptions don't come along. Things like Harry Potter and Middle Earth succeed despite their "goodness" by being something new and different. Novel. (heh pun intended) But Rowling has proved to us that "good" does not equal success with her experiment in publishing under a pseudonym. The cream does not always rise to the top.
All of that to say that a lack of sales does not mean that your book is not good. And massive sales does not mean that it is. Books sell well for one of two reasons: 1. The author has put a lot of work into writing books and become known through being a steady and dependable writer. 2. Luck. The book just happened to be at the right place at the right time. So to speak.
But, still, we like to worship success here in the United States, so I'm sure we will continue to use such statements as "the cream will always rise to the top" and, even worse, continue to believe those statements.
What I want to say about it is that you shouldn't rate your "creaminess" on whether you're on top or not.
Today's post has been brought to you in part by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG. The rest was all me.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Bright-sided (or How Positive Thinking Will Let You Down)
A few years ago (okay, more than a few), Barbara Ehrenreich wrote an excellent book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, about the near impossibility of making it as a single person trying to live off of a low wage position (like Wal-Mart). She did this by actually spending a year herself, a prize-winning novelist, trying to live solely off of what she could make from "entry level" positions. It's a fascinating book and one I would highly recommend. Intellectually knowing some of the things she talks about in the book before reading it still did not prepare me for her recount of the reality of the situation. Even having gone through some of the experiences she did (I worked at Toys 'R' us in two different states), her book still opened my eyes to the reality she talks about.
I mention Nickel and Dimed, here, because I think it goes well with her latest book: Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. But I'll get to that in a moment.
I have been fed up with the whole positive thinking thing for years and years. A large part of the reason my wife and I no longer attend church is because of the prosperity doctrine (the religious take on positive thinking) and its prevalence in the modern church. It actually makes me sick. Entering the writing world, now, I'm experiencing the positive thinking movement from a whole new angle, and it's not making me any happier than previous brushes with it in other venues. From that perspective, I think this may be an important book for writers to read. Despite claims from popular psychology that if you just stay positive, you will get what you want, most research actually shows that having a realistic view point is healthier and more likely to get you where you want to go.
Let me just say, though, that, if you are someone that believes in positive psychology, you will hate this book.
She starts with her own eye-opening experience with positive thinking. As a cancer patient. There is a notion in the cancer community, especially the breast cancer community, that the way to beat cancer to is "stay positive." If you stay positive, the cancer can not win. And, if it does, it was because the patient allowed in enough negative thoughts that the cancer was able to win. From there, she details the original rise of positive thinking back in the 1800s and how it has evolved to what it is today.
Now, I relate Bright-sided to Nickel and Dimed because of the recent (by recent, I mean the last 30 years) rise of positive thinking in the business world. Back in the 80s, when companies realized they could make money from down-sizing their employees, they needed something, anything, to keep the left over work force not just working for them but happy to be there working for them despite the fact that they no longer had any job security. The answer? Positive thinking. Large companies began bringing in positive thinking coaches to affirm the remaining employees that they were there because they were "worthy." The way to get ahead was to be a bigger fish and to work harder. The people that had been down-sized were down-sized because they just weren't good enough (of course, the actual truth of that is that most often the choices of who would stay and go were completely arbitrary, completely unrelated to performance).
All of this positive thinking in the work place resulted in the people at the top completely buying into it themselves. Good things, and only good things, come to those who stay positive. Some of the business scenarios she talks about are truly, truly frightening. And all of this positive thinking lead directly to the economic collapse we are all currently wallowing in. The direct tie-in to Nickel and Dimed? In the 60s, the average difference in pay between the lowest paid employee and the highest paid employee in a company was a mere ratio of 1:24. Yes, I say mere, although, to me, that seems a bit staggering. That difference today? Greater than 1:300. I can't even comprehend that. But the people at the top not only don't see anything wrong with this, they think they deserve it. By the virtue of their positive thinking.
There's a section on the rise in the prosperity doctrine in the church, too. The idea that God is nothing more than a vending machine. You put in your positive thoughts and God gives you stuff you want. I could rant about this for a while. How none of this is Biblical. How it's all just more life coach non-sense to raise money. But, you know, you can read the book. Or watch it on TV. There are any number of prosperity preachers you can tune into.
The last section deals with the rise of popular psychology. Also a money making scheme. I have always, since I was a kid, held science as something close to sacred. Scientists were objective. They looked at the data. They didn't make emotional decisions about the data or try to skew the data to prove their point. They didn't hold those kinds of beliefs. Because science isn't about what we believe, it's about what is. Right? I wish I could still believe that. However, we continue to get news about how this scientist or that research team falsified data to support various claims. This goes back decades. As it turns out, positive psychology has no data to support any of its claims. Some data may suggest correlations, but there is no research that actually shows that any of what positive psychology says is true is, actually, true. Because I don't have the book in front of me (it's out on loan), I'll paraphrase what one positive psychologist said to Ehrenreich: "The research/science hasn't caught up to the claims (of positive psychology)." In true positive thinking form, though, they fully believe that some day their research will bear fruit and prove their claims.
Writing is a tough field, especially today when the publishing industry is slowly imploding and seems unwilling to do anything about it. I imagine the guys at the top are caught in the same positive thinking bubbles that the guys responsible for the economic implosion, especially the housing industry, were caught in. I think it's important that we, as the writers, not get caught in that same bubble. In a field where only 1 in 1000 make it (in the traditional sense), we need to be realistic, not cling to positivity. No, I'm not saying to give up. I am saying that the way to make it as a writer is determination and perseverance. Thinking happy thoughts will not get you published. Keeping at it will.
I mention Nickel and Dimed, here, because I think it goes well with her latest book: Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. But I'll get to that in a moment.
I have been fed up with the whole positive thinking thing for years and years. A large part of the reason my wife and I no longer attend church is because of the prosperity doctrine (the religious take on positive thinking) and its prevalence in the modern church. It actually makes me sick. Entering the writing world, now, I'm experiencing the positive thinking movement from a whole new angle, and it's not making me any happier than previous brushes with it in other venues. From that perspective, I think this may be an important book for writers to read. Despite claims from popular psychology that if you just stay positive, you will get what you want, most research actually shows that having a realistic view point is healthier and more likely to get you where you want to go.
Let me just say, though, that, if you are someone that believes in positive psychology, you will hate this book.
She starts with her own eye-opening experience with positive thinking. As a cancer patient. There is a notion in the cancer community, especially the breast cancer community, that the way to beat cancer to is "stay positive." If you stay positive, the cancer can not win. And, if it does, it was because the patient allowed in enough negative thoughts that the cancer was able to win. From there, she details the original rise of positive thinking back in the 1800s and how it has evolved to what it is today.
Now, I relate Bright-sided to Nickel and Dimed because of the recent (by recent, I mean the last 30 years) rise of positive thinking in the business world. Back in the 80s, when companies realized they could make money from down-sizing their employees, they needed something, anything, to keep the left over work force not just working for them but happy to be there working for them despite the fact that they no longer had any job security. The answer? Positive thinking. Large companies began bringing in positive thinking coaches to affirm the remaining employees that they were there because they were "worthy." The way to get ahead was to be a bigger fish and to work harder. The people that had been down-sized were down-sized because they just weren't good enough (of course, the actual truth of that is that most often the choices of who would stay and go were completely arbitrary, completely unrelated to performance).
All of this positive thinking in the work place resulted in the people at the top completely buying into it themselves. Good things, and only good things, come to those who stay positive. Some of the business scenarios she talks about are truly, truly frightening. And all of this positive thinking lead directly to the economic collapse we are all currently wallowing in. The direct tie-in to Nickel and Dimed? In the 60s, the average difference in pay between the lowest paid employee and the highest paid employee in a company was a mere ratio of 1:24. Yes, I say mere, although, to me, that seems a bit staggering. That difference today? Greater than 1:300. I can't even comprehend that. But the people at the top not only don't see anything wrong with this, they think they deserve it. By the virtue of their positive thinking.
There's a section on the rise in the prosperity doctrine in the church, too. The idea that God is nothing more than a vending machine. You put in your positive thoughts and God gives you stuff you want. I could rant about this for a while. How none of this is Biblical. How it's all just more life coach non-sense to raise money. But, you know, you can read the book. Or watch it on TV. There are any number of prosperity preachers you can tune into.
The last section deals with the rise of popular psychology. Also a money making scheme. I have always, since I was a kid, held science as something close to sacred. Scientists were objective. They looked at the data. They didn't make emotional decisions about the data or try to skew the data to prove their point. They didn't hold those kinds of beliefs. Because science isn't about what we believe, it's about what is. Right? I wish I could still believe that. However, we continue to get news about how this scientist or that research team falsified data to support various claims. This goes back decades. As it turns out, positive psychology has no data to support any of its claims. Some data may suggest correlations, but there is no research that actually shows that any of what positive psychology says is true is, actually, true. Because I don't have the book in front of me (it's out on loan), I'll paraphrase what one positive psychologist said to Ehrenreich: "The research/science hasn't caught up to the claims (of positive psychology)." In true positive thinking form, though, they fully believe that some day their research will bear fruit and prove their claims.
Writing is a tough field, especially today when the publishing industry is slowly imploding and seems unwilling to do anything about it. I imagine the guys at the top are caught in the same positive thinking bubbles that the guys responsible for the economic implosion, especially the housing industry, were caught in. I think it's important that we, as the writers, not get caught in that same bubble. In a field where only 1 in 1000 make it (in the traditional sense), we need to be realistic, not cling to positivity. No, I'm not saying to give up. I am saying that the way to make it as a writer is determination and perseverance. Thinking happy thoughts will not get you published. Keeping at it will.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)