Acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking. View a video of her lecture at the RSA that inspired this animation. Download a transcript of this video (pdf)
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Ism Schism
"Embedded in all this is the idea that you change the physical world with your thoughts."
It is actually the way you feel that makes a change, and it is reality being changed, not necessarily the physical world. If you don't think there is a difference between these two, how about trying some LSD or maybe mescaline and see how does that feel for real? Or you think this "suggestion" is too "radical"? A few things this lady does points alright though.
First, we do have to try and figure out what is actually happening in this world and see what we can do about those parts that are threatening or hurtful, although I am afraid that, since most (if not all) social problems are man made, there are people who know the causes, not too mention the solutions. So going around looking for solutions that are already within someone's reach today (what's the news on the Millennium Development Goals?) seems to me as delusional as sitting and waiting for a great hand to come down from the sky with a box written "Answers to all problems" on it.
And second, there is not one fixed truth of reality. But are we closing in on something? Is that a scientific forecast? Is reality due to reveal itself in its wholeness at a specific moment in time? And what if that something proves to be, I dunno, the fact that, done properly, people can change the physical world with their mind? I mean, isn't it somehow delusional to think human civilization is getting closer to the outer shell and it's about to brake it? What if we are not even fertilized yet?
I don't see how and idea like Realism differs from any other be it communism, capitalism, liberalism, existentialism, materialism, or whatever isms people try to impose (or suggest, as this lady) on human thoughts and feelings. But maybe I'm blind. Anyway, you can smile or die, or die anyway. But you can always choose the way you feel while you live.
Love the lecture, love the animation! Brilliant. Who did the animation?
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.
This reminds me of a tragic loss of the English language. That is the lack of distinction between scepticism and pessimism.
Scepticism can mean to question ideas and institutions, which (especially as a scientist) is a very positive quality! Scepticism really is a virtue (unlike some other crappy virtues, such as "faith" which I have no respect for!) that should be explicitly taught in schools. Yet the word has such negative connotations by it's relation in the collective mind to pessimism.