Sunday morning homework
Please take five minutes to read this excellent piece by Barbara Ehrenreich for Time on the dangerous irresponsibility of absurd positive thinking, and why being realistic isn’t being “negative” but sober.
Link below.
Key groups who absolutely must read it: the Nationalist Party (scared of being called negative, when really they are just plain realistically sober); switchers in my extended social group who think they’re avant-garde because they don’t read the international press (always years behind the times – The Secret was published in 2006 and this article was written in 2009); everyone who has to deal on a regular basis with individuals bleating relentlessly about positive thinking and how others are so negative.
An excerpt:
Fortunately, the alternative to optimism is not pessimism, which can be equally delusional. What we need here is some realism, or the simple admission that, to paraphrase a bumper sticker, “stuff happens,” including sometimes very, very bad stuff. We don’t have to dwell incessantly on the worst-case scenarios — the metastasis, the market crash or global pandemic — but we do need to acknowledge that they could happen and prepare in the best way we can. Some will call this negative thinking, but the technical term is sobriety.
Besides, the constant effort of maintaining optimism in the face of considerable counterevidence is just too damn much work. Optimism training, affirmations and related forms of self-hypnosis are a burden that we can finally, in good conscience, set down. They won’t make you richer or healthier, and, as we should have learned by now, they can easily put you in harm’s way. The threats that we face, individually and collectively, won’t be solved by wishful thinking but by a clear-eyed commitment to taking action in the world.
7 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1929155,00.html
It’ reached horrid heights here in the UK and in other places around the world, where “happy” is the new “rich”, and like the snobs and arrogant ponces of the past, the “happy” will not mix with the “unhappy”.
The result is that when a friend has a problem they become a threat to everyone’s success and happiness, and are ignored or given the patronizing advice of “You’re being negative and choosing to be unhappy”.
This also has lead to a record amount of people popping Prozac on a daily basis, which also leads to mental issues later in life, I believe.
Excellent article. I cannot help but believe that Joseph Muscat was coached by Edward De Bono and the training worked in achieving the result of winning the election but is failing miserably at leading the country as he is obliged to do now that he has been given the mandate to govern.
Nobody can say that we have not been warned.
I recall every mass meeting I attended in which both Dr. Lawrence Gonzi and Dr. Simon Busuttil spoke very clearly about Labour’s hidden agenda and the lack of details in the roadmap Muscat kept ranting about.
Who does not remember phrases like “taht gvern Nazzjonalista il-Maltin dejjem kienu kburin li huma Maltin imma nhux hekk taht gvern Laburista….” or even “Joseph Muscat bli qed jghid li jrid jaghmel ha jdahhalna GASS DOWN GHAL GOL-HAJT”.
OH how right they were and how glad I am I believed them and voted for them again.
I am happier to be disappointed at losing an election than of being part of this corrupt government’s victory.
“We don’t have to dwell incessantly on the worst-case scenarios — the metastasis, the market crash or global pandemic — but we do need to acknowledge that they could happen and prepare in the best way we can.”
Alternatively, we can research the facts and work it out for ourselves: ever rising debt-to-GDP ratios can only lead to currency and market collapse, and those in charge of the issuance of currency have known this and have been preparing for it for a very long time (not towards our benefit, I’m afraid). Hence the controlled crash landing we find ourselves in.
You see, the system is fundmentally (and purposely) flawed because it is a system where new money is debt – not generated wealth – and any generated wealth comes with an ever-rising debt tag.
So there you have it. New money is required to service old debt, but new money is always new debt, so in order to avert disaster growth rates need to continuously surpass debt rates… which is no easy feat even without austerity restricting growth.
When one works out that the new money issued by central banks goes to international banks at very cheap rates (mainly LTROs in the ECB’s case), and in turn to nations at (exorbitant) bond rates, you realise the enormity of the pyramid scheme we’re in.
Meanwhile, all newly issued currency passes through banks, of course, so with fractional reserve banking we get even more market bubbles to fend off (and pay for every time they burst).
I’m scratching the surface here. You first need to know how the financial system works, the difference between fiat and real (sound) money, the way central banks operate, sepatrately, in time and location, but in unison and with one global aim.
Finally, you need to realise WHO actually controls the world’s (autonomous and secretive) central banks. That’s the key to realisation, for those who control the issuance of currency are empowered to control anyone using that currency.
Why don’t you explain it point by point Kev, for those who may not see it in with the same bird’s eye view? Not everyone has your same background or perhaps a clue where you’re coming from.
Explanation is key to understanding? Have some patience please.
The electorate is made up of people who are never going to look such facts up for themselves, also because they mightn’t know where to start with macroeconomics and international finance.
I believe that outside of all the myriad technical elaborations, intentional polarity switching of basic concept values, and the roping in of the media to the game, remains deceitful and misleading.
I wouldn’t know where to start, Tabatha, because every issue requires further explanation and on it goes. That is why what I write sounds cryptic (it’s not, really)
If you are interested in monetary and financial matters http://www.zerohedge.com is very good – much better than the FT, which is too deceitful to explain anything in detail (in other words, one would need to know how to read the FT without getting derailed by deceit)
If you check zerohedge regularly you’ll come across articles which explain various aspects of the collapse. In time you will understand how money is created, who the protagonists are and why it is all an elaborate global Ponzi scheme.
Thank you for replying. Yes. I follow zerohedge and others (Gurdgiev etc.) from Twitter daily, in addition to literature in tangible print.
Indeed, I make a point of establishing a veracity scale from gossip/wishful thinking to hard fact against which I log input and then work at filling my many gaps.
Time for research can be a luxury some mightn’t have? If communication using basic concepts is so grossly misunderstood and received unclearly by the majority of the population. In this direction, i guess I was nudging: concerned as to what wider impact the more complex financial terms would have generally, without some explanation attached. I noted one reader asking for an explanation of economic terminology the other day: I believe it was re capex.