Realism

Author Barbara Ehrenreich has written a thought provoking book entitled Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America (2009). The book fundamentally confronts the notion of extreme positive thinking at the expense of rational realism. Ehrenreich addresses this at the individual level (i.e., subprime mortgages with escalating balloon payments) and the national level (i.e, the projected outcome of the Iraq war). She is a strong advocate for realism - in which she writes the following:

Realism - to the point of defensive pessimism - is a prerequisite not only for human survival but for all animal species. Watch almost any wild creature for a few moments and you will be impressed, above all, by its vigilance. The cormorant restlessly scan the water for unexpected splashes; the deer cocks its head to pick up stray sounds and raises a foot in preparation for flight. Many animals - from monkeys to birds - augment their individual watchfulness by living in groups so that many eyes can be on the lookout for intruders, many voices raised in an alarm call, should one approach. In its insistence that we concentrate on happy outcomes rather than on lurking hazards, positive thinking contradicts one of our most fundamental instincts, one that we share not only with other primates and mammals but with reptiles, insects, and fish.

A vigilant realism does not foreclose the pursuit of happiness; in fact, it makes it possible. How can we expect to improve our situation without addressing the actual circumstances we find ourselves in? Positive thinking seeks to convince us that such external factors are incidental compared with one's internal state or attitude or mood. It's true that subjective factors like determination are critical to survival and that individuals sometimes triumph over nightmarish levels of adversity. But mind does not automatically prevail over matter, and to ignore the role of difficult circumstances - or worse, attribute them to our own thoughts - is to slide toward a kind of depraved smugness.