Positive thinking, always looking on the bright side- is it just some unethical delusion?

http://fora.tv/2009/10/24/Bright-Sided_Barbara_Ehrenreich#Did_Positive_Thinking_Crash_Our_Economy

http://fora.tv/2009/10/24/Bright-Sided_ ... chapter_08

A very interesting view.
I agree with the speaker, it is cruel to blame a victim's lack of positive thinking for his sickness or poverty.
The doctrine of positive thinking left the American consumer unwilling to acknowlege all the holes in the financial packages their bought prior to the crash last year. That seems plausible to.
Positive thinking had its origins in a useful idea, but it became manipulative and dishonest when it became compulsory for everyone in every situation.
Having said that I do find you get the best out of people by treating them as if they are OK even though you know they might not be.
How would it be if we confronted each other with the truth at every turn?

I would like to start by discussing what positive thinking is. It is not nilly-willy thinking everything will turn out okay. That's what, in my opinion, has us in such a mess. What could possibly be more stupid than politicians thinking that if they coerce lenders into loaning billions to people who have neither the ability nor the intention of repaying the loan and it would, magically, all work out. That isn't positive thinking. It's lunacy.

I see positive thinking as having two aspects. For example, a friend of mine was complaining bitterly about people in general because of a nasty person he'd dealt with the day before. My question was, "Why is the one nasty person the representative for people in general and not the fifty or so people who were nice?" I have another friend who would find a pile of dog poop in a rose garden and then ignore the roses and obsess with the dog poop. Why not step over it and go enjoy the roses? I was riding my motorcycle across a barren stretch of desert highway and it broke down. I stuck my thumb out whenever a vehicle came along and a flat-bed truck stopped, winched my 800 pound bike onto the flat-bed and hauled me into the next city, 80 miles away. Some of my friends were amazed that I seemed to find my good luck with the truck more important than my bad luck with my motorcycle. It really depends what you choose to do.

The second thought, it is rare that someone accomplishes something they don't believe they can do. To begin with, if they don't think they can do it, they frequently don't even try. I had an uncle who studied for 15 years to take the test to be a CPA and never took the test because he didn't believe he could pass it. If you do try to do something you don't believe you can do, you give up quickly. You also tend to screw it up because you know you can't do it anyway.

I don't see an ethical component to positive thinking.

Patrickt
I like the stories you use to illustrate your point and agree true positive thinking is a survivor's best friend.
Its not this however, but the bastardised version of positive thinking that's used to manipulate others for ulterior ends such as social engineering and making money that's sick.
In child care we must say bad behaviour make us "sad". If a kid hits someone over the head with a shovel, we say "I don't think Johnny likes you hitting him" or "It makes me sad when you hurt my friends". I hate uttering this PC speak because its nothing but lies. The truth is not told and kids naturally end up with a confused image of themselves and the world about them.

During a business administration course at a government college (Tafe) five years ago, the instructer in the customer communication class told us to never say the word sorry when dealing with an irate customer. Instead we should suggest ways restitution could be made. This was because sorry was a negative word and it might give the customer more opportunity to critisise us. It seems an example of so called positive thinking being misused for manipulative purposes.

Christine: I don't think the current fad for maintaining self-esteem above all has anything to do with positive thinking. Positive thinking isn't thinking that you're wonderful because you flunked every class in school and killed the cat. Now, once somebody explained that you've been behaving like a self-centered little twit, it might be positive thinking to believe you can do better.

Every thing has two aspects so its depend upon that.If someone is going to do wrong and has positive thinking that he will do it then positive thinking is cruel.