Current fiasco: ‘positive thinking’ or optimistic thinking?

Today, the collective misery we experience as a society has nothing positive to show for the promotion of the so-called ‘positive thinking’, which encourages us to rise individually, and not collectively as people. Positive thinkers, who are dime a dozen, flourish in market-oriented, consumerist societies where ill-mannered rulers and their business cronies feed on millions of the poor who are cheated and suppressed by them.

Those positive thinkers tell us ad nauseum to be ‘positive’ – in the sense that we have to emulate those who have made it to the top in terms of wealth. However, today they have all been proved pathetically wrong. At present, even the community of entrepreneurs who have been comfortable all this time are grumbling about corruption and economic mismanagement, which has nearly ruined their future prospects.

Today they are badly affected. They are the ones whom those so-called positive thinkers had wanted us to treat as our role models. Today, it has been proved in no uncertain terms that individuals, however cheerfully ‘positive-thinking’ they may be, can do little, if the overall economy is in doldrums.

The so-called market economy has proved that it appeals to the worst of human instincts – greed, hypocrisy, jealousy, power hunger, snobbery, and selfishness. However, success, if it is to be understood as the wellbeing of a whole society- not merely of a few ‘smart’ individuals, cannot be achieved by competitive spirit. We are part of a system which controls every aspect of our life and it is not individually, but as a community we can succeed. Our present crisis has proved this beyond doubt. For that to happen, the system should be fair and just.

What we have is an economy which sucks even the last drop of blood from the poor to pave the way for a few people including politicians to ‘success’. Today it is coming to light that all those who are rolling in ‘respectable’ luxury have acted mostly as uncouth blood suckers who have been preoccupied with amassing ill-gotten wealth, no matter what harm they do to people.

By the way, all these are ardent followers of Buddhism or other major religions, which preach nothing but love, sympathy and kindness! However, what happens is that they throw religion and ‘morals’ to the millions of suffering people whom they merrily make use of to ensure the protection of their extravagant lives. Their religion has always been accompanied by TV cameras.

As far as the masses are concerned, religions have, for centuries, controlled the minds of the poor and helped those who have always wielded power to maintain ‘peace’, which means people remain tolerant of the blatant economic injustice that keeps them in a state of beggary.

It is clear that, as an alternative to ‘positive’ thinking, today, we can think of ‘optimistic’ thinking, meaning, we can be optimistic about bringing about a just society – a society in which people can live with happiness and dignity, without them being the exclusive preserve of the few corrupt superrich. For that to happen, people should be encouraged to rise together and not pursue individual agendas endorsed by those positive thinkers.

We are yet to hear a positive thinker urging us to be optimistic about creating a better society. They have been waxing eloquent about individual success, which is almost always associated with economic prosperity. However, time has come for them to think of ways of fostering collective wellbeing rather than inflating the ego of individuals and, wittingly or unwittingly, supporting an unjust economic system that flourishes on the misery of millions of harmless and peace-loving people.

The worst of religion is that it has been appropriated by the cunning few to dupe the people who are condemned to living from hand to mouth to console themselves by showing another life, which is painted to be paradisiacal. It dissuades them from addressing the existential problems resulting from stark social injustice. This is tragic.

It is time to understand that individual redemption – no matter whether it is offered in the shape of positive thinking, competition (healthy or otherwise), ‘free (how free?)-market, or religion -has been proved elusive.

Today, what we need in abundance is ‘optimism’- not positive thinking, books about which adorn “self-help” bookshelves. Of course, they create space for various gurus in commercial societies to sell dreams to the desperate gullible. And, of course, these gurus continue to smile all the way to the bank. However, today, more and more people are realising that the popular tune, “if we earn enough, we can be happy” can no longer be valid. Deprivation has penetrated into the remotest corners of the country where people had thought that economy and politics were farthest from their lives.

It may be good for the positive thinkers to change their tune and do something to appeal to people’s better instincts like fellow feeling, altruism, empathy, collective effort that are infinitely more conducive to true happiness and peace than to isolated or, so to speak, atomized happiness.

Susantha Hewa