Why so Happy . . .
Thanks to Max for the lead here from his comment link to Why so Happy?
From the Washing Post:
When Barbara Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, the sharp-eyed social critic found herself nearly as discomfited by the “pink ribbon culture” surrounding the disease as by the illness itself. Relentlessly upbeat, cloyingly inspirational, the breast cancer world, as Ehrenreich describes it, is a place where anger, fear and depression — all perfectly reasonable responses to a potentially mortal diagnosis — are frowned upon and the cancer itself is lauded as a great opportunity for spiritual growth. In this cocoon of optimism, the prevailing opinion is that cancer is a gift, a chance to become closer to God, to find life’s true meaning. It’s not a tragedy; it’s a rite of passage with an enormous upside.
My comments: One in six men is the prostate cancer rate. Prostate cancer is the number two cancer in men. Lung cancer is number one. One in eight women, the breast cancer rate. Number one for women, number two is lung cancer. There is a 99% survival rate (meaning you are still alive after five years but there are no statistics on one’s quality of life) for prostate cancer and an 89% for breast cancer. In contrast, lung cancer has a 10% survival rate. So it is almost a given that one will survive either. Is the causation better screening, awareness, treatments, the statistical natural remission or as some would have you believe, positive thinking? Hmmm.
Also, there appears to be a notable disparity between here women and men in the power of positive thinking propaganda. Lance Armstrong is the only individual flouted for his cancer-surviving prowess as a male, with the accorded yellow-ribbon, from the color of the Tour’s winning jersey. But there are no popular movements, large scale awareness weeks, fundraising 10k walks, etc for prostate cancer (an analogous sexually identified cancer, even though men can get breast cancer because the have anatomical breasts even if they function somewhat differently). How much of this is because of the very visual focus society has on breasts, which are noticeable either for that lack of or prodigiousness of on women, and even more so if there is a lack of symmetry, often a factor in breast cancer.
Moreover, Armstrong did not simply try to feel good away or positive think away his cancer. He signed on for rigorous and aggressive treatments, and distracted himself from his reality by focusing on cycling like there was no tomorrow, because there it was a real possibility in the moment for him. Prior to that, he had a reputation as a talented but lackadaisical cyclist in Austin, TX where he was living. But cycling is not an individual sport. It is simply untrue that Lance - alone - won anything. Without a talented team to support one rider, no one wins the Tour. The sacrifice of personal glory by his teammates is significant and planned. These teams have corporate sponsors and Lance was clearly the advertising miracle if the team could win. And if not, well sponsoring a team is still a tax write-off. No loss.
Much of the focus for women with breast cancer has been on cosmetics, wigs, replacement breasts, etc. And more recently the whole mammogram fiasco which just serves to highlight how exploited breast cancer has become. (and because healthcare is a for-profit industry) Not to mention the industry of pink ribbon making and selling. I offer as an alternative to the pink ribbons a pink birdie finger.
Washington Post:
“What does not destroy you, to paraphrase Nietzsche,” writes Ehrenreich, “makes you a spunkier, more evolved sort of person.” Why, three centuries after the Enlightenment, is American culture so bewitched by magical thinking, elevating feelings and intuition and hope over preparation, information and science? Why do so many of us seem so willing to discount reality in favor of vague wishes, dreams and secrets? And has this gospel of good times delivered us not into a life of ease but instead into a worldwide economic meltdown? Ehrenreich’s examination of the history of positive thinking is a tour de force of well-tempered snark, culminating in a persuasive indictment of the bright-siders as the culprits in our current financial mess. She begins with a look at where positive thinking originated, from its founding parents in the New Thought Movement (inventors of the law of attraction, recently made famous in books such as “The Secret”) through mid-20th-century practitioners like Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie, to current disciples ranging from Oprah Winfrey to the preachers of the prosperity gospel. We’re not talking here about garden-variety hopefulness or genuine happiness, but rather the philosophy that individuals create — rather than encounter — their own circumstances. Crafted as a correction to Calvinism’s soul-crushing pessimism, positive thinking, in Ehrenreich’s view, has become a kind of national religion, an abettor to capitalism’s crueler realities and an overcorrection every bit as anxiety-producing as the Puritans’ Calvinism ever was. Bouncing from cancer lab to motivational business meeting to megachurch, Ehrenreich tests the theses embedded in American positive thinking and finds them wanting. Studies proclaiming a link between a positive attitude and cancer survival, she finds, are full of problems and discounted by most researchers. Furthermore, she points out, the popular insistence that cheerfulness can help beat the Big C, while it can be “a great convenience for health workers and even friends of the afflicted, who might prefer fake cheer to complaining,” leaves patients in the uncomfortable position of having to hide or deny their very real anger and sadness, even to themselves, for fear of being complicit in their own illness. As for the tests and formulas devised by practitioners of positive psychology, an academic field that receives major funding from ultra-conservative groups (such as the Templeton Foundation, which also bankrolled the Proposition 8 campaign to overturn California’s same-sex marriage law), Ehrenreich points out that the “real conservatism of [the field] lies in its attachment to the status quo, with all its inequalities and abuses of power.” Unlike scholarship that aims to understand or ameliorate social problems, positive psychology focuses only on the individual’s attitude toward those problems, meaning it’s a short skip to the point of view that happiness or unhappiness is entirely a function of how a person feels about her circumstances. But what if your circumstances are awful? How on Earth is one to parse the Satisfaction with Life Scale developed by positive psychologists? Can you say “In most ways my life is close to my ideal” if you’ve just been laid off, or if you face medical bankruptcy because you’re uninsured? What if you’re a slave or a refugee? If all that stands between you and the good life is a positive attitude, as positive psychology posits, then the only person you have to blame if your life isn’t good is yourself. The author deploys her sharpest tone to eviscerate the business community’s embrace of positive thinking. Offered as a sap to those facing layoffs, used as a spur to better performance by those workers who remain (often while enduring cuts in pay and benefits) and relied on as an excuse to ignore unpleasant inevitabilities like bubbles bursting, American positivism reaches its giddiest and most dangerous heights in the corner office. Although our current economic mess has complex and varied causes, Ehrenreich’s aim here feels all too true. “Recall that American corporate culture had long since abandoned the dreary rationality of professional management for the emotional thrills of mysticism, charisma, and sudden intuitions,” Ehrenreich writes. “Pumped up by paid motivators and divinely inspired CEOs, American business entered the midyears of the decade at a manic peak of delusional expectations, extending to the higher levels of leadership.” Gripped by “runaway positive thinking,” the markets rose and rose until reality receded into the far distance. Little wonder that it hit so hard when we all fell.
My comments: The myth of the American Dream. The motto of this cult is just a re-worded spin on Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” which failed for its obvious vacuity as well.
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
Edited timestamp to move it to top. It’s too good to be below “Fun queue spam”… not to mention it really needed that balloon.
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:21 pm
I’m no expert on cancer, and have never had it myself… although the Sheepish among us will recall the I lost Dianna to a very aggressive uterine/ovarian cancer. Not a bit pleasant.
Yeah, it really is despicable that there’s always someone who’s happy to make money on the fear and suffering of others. It’s one of the worst aspects of capitalism in my view.
We know that some people are more genetically predisposed than others to certain types of cancers. UV/nuclear radiation, some chemicals can do it, and the odd cosmic ray can also hit the wrong DNA base-pair et voilá; you’re screwed…
Cancer is so scary because it’s so insidious. Often, by the time you start experiencing symptoms, it’s too late.
Different cancers have different survival rates largely due to what particular organ is being ‘crowded out’ or destroyed. For what should be obvious reasons, breast cancer is so dangerous partly because it can metastasize to the lungs. Hmmm… odd, does anyone ever get heart cancer? I’ve never heard of it.
Partly it’s our environment, the chemicals in our foods and even in pharmaceuticals whose long-term side-effects are largely unknown… What might be the effects of eating aspertame (’Nutra-Sweet’) for 40 years? Nobody knows…
And partly, it’s because we live too long! Our chromosomes have a limited ‘copy-protection’ scheme built in. The ‘telomeres’ that cap and protect the ends of our chromosomes deteriorate in each copy-operation, so as we age, the odds of making bad copies increases. This never was much of an issue when most people didn’t make it to 40, but today when 80+ is common?
Lastly, is having a built-in (admittedly statistical) ’sell-by’ date really a bad thing? We’re now pushing 7 billion humans on this planet, and resources are already being badly strained. Is it really fair for us to live to 90 or 100 and not give the youngsters a fair chance?
Just sayin’…
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
IT IS BALLOON!!
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:31 pm
This may be a little OT, but you reminded me of something. Listening to Forum on NPR this morning they had a radiologist talking about safe radiation levels. She noted that as you get older radiation has less chance of causing cancer. By the time you’re eightiesh you can get juiced all you want. I guess it has something to do with not much growing going on anymore.
That led me to a pretty cool idea. Maybe I can still sign up for that Mars mission? The biggest obstacle is the high radiation doses on the way, so why not send old geezers? If I target thirty years from now I’ve got plenty of time for that PhD in Astrobiology. Just got to keep moderately fit.
Mars 2039 or bust!
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
Naw, sorry. Joe Lieberman sez the Mars Program is axed, forever. Too high a chance of working. Business doesn’t like any available exits for their captives… uhhh, customers.
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:38 pm
Between this comment and the graphic that inspired it I am quite literally laughing out loud. I am truly sorry, Cat-eyes, for wrecking your very serious post.
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
BTW: on the ’sell-by’ date thing, nature clearly uses aging and death for population control, but how does it select for characters than usually don’t show up until well after reproduction age?
Hmmm… any takers on that question?
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
It could be that it’s nature’s plan to get us out of the way as soon as we’ve reared our children. If we’re persistent enough to endure the litany of routine ailments (that would have caused death in prior eras) she pulls out the ace card and says- you’re outta here!
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:46 pm
I can buy that. Thanks!
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
On Mars: long-term exposure to radiation (mostly of Solar origin) is a definite problem. Sterility or (worse) severe defects to offspring probably means that prospective astronauts need to fully understand that if they go to Mars, their child-bearing years are over.
Alas however, as byronius points out, it’s likely a moot point for the near future. Hell, it’s gonna be like pulling teeth just to get our asses back to the Moon! 8-+
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
Solution for sperm. Specially shielded sperm capsules, just fill before launch.
Other countries might go to Mars. Perfect way to control greedy usa; abandon ship.
So practice babelfish english to sneak on board - but it sounds like all of you already have that under control.
One of my programs (forget which) actually offered Klingon as a language option.
PS - post came from experiences in part - sometimes the survival is bullshit, and more like medical concentration camp living. And of course, if you can bankrupt the desperate and misled offspring who cares.
Comment on December 16, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
I admire Ehrenreich’s intelligence and guts for facing plain facts in the face of all of those pink ribbons* and fake ’spiritual growth’ centers that are making very cynical and greedy people a LOT of money. A positive attitude is one thing… fluffy false hope and lukewarm ‘Campbell’s Chicken Soup for the Soul’ style platitudes are quite another.
“Just give me a little bit of truth” - John Lennon
* interesting article here: Pink Ribbons at Wikipedia
I even learned a new word!: ’slacktivism’
Comment on December 17, 2009 @ 11:29 pm
the words after ’slacktivism’ above are superflous and I forgot to delete them.
Sorry. See? we need to be able to edit our own comments!
Comment on December 17, 2009 @ 11:32 pm
done.
Comment on December 18, 2009 @ 11:56 am
Spectacular!
Comment on December 18, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
ummm… I don’t see a change.
Comment on December 18, 2009 @ 1:10 pm
Nope… no change. Logged out and then back in…I can still edit others’ remarks to my posts by I can’t edit any of these… oh well
BTW: please just delete my whining…
Comment on December 18, 2009 @ 1:15 pm