Free Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich Page A

Braley, identified as an author and attorney, attributes the excess of bad news to the inadequate spread of positive thinking among the world’s population:

    The great majority of the population of this world does not live life from the space of a positive attitude. In fact, I believe the majority of the population of this world lives from a place of pain, and that peoplewho live from pain only know how to spread more negativity and pain. For me, this explains many of the atrocities of our world and the reason why we are bombarded with negativity all the time. 13

    At the NSA convention, I found myself talking to a tall man whose shaved head, unsmiling face, and stiff bearing suggested a military background. I asked him whether, as a coach, he felt people needed a lot of pumping up because they were chronically depressed. No, was his answer, sometimes they’re just lazy. But he went on to admit that he, too, got depressed when he read about the war in Iraq, so he now scrupulously avoids the news. “What about the need to be informed in order to be a responsible citizen?” I asked. He gave me a long look and then suggested, sagely enough, that this is what I should work on motivating people to do.

    For those who need more than the ninety-second daily updates permitted by Gitomer, there are at least two Web sites offering nothing but “positive news.” One of them, Good News Blog, explains that “with ample media attention going out to the cruel, the horrible, the perverted, the twisted, it is easy to become convinced that human beings are going down the drain. ‘ Good News ’ was going to show site visitors that bad news is news simply because it is rare and unique.” Among this site’s recent top news stories were “Adoptee Reunited with Mother via Webcam Reality Show,” “Students Help Nurse Rescued Horses Back to Good Health,” and “Parrot Saves Girl’s Life with Warning.” At [http://happynews.com] happynews.com, there was a surprising abundance of international stories, although not a word about Darfur, Congo, Gaza, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Instead, in a sampling of a day’s offerings, I found “Seven-Month-Old from Nepal Receives Life-Saving Surgery,” “100th Anniversary of the US-Canada Boundary Waters Treaty,” “Many AmericansMaking Selfless Resolutions,” and “Childhood Sweethearts Attempt Romantic Adventure.”

    This retreat from the real drama and tragedy of human events is suggestive of a deep helplessness at the core of positive thinking. Why not follow the news? Because, as my informant at the NSA meeting told me, “You can’t do anything about it.” Braley similarly dismisses reports of disasters: “That’s negative news that can cause you emotional sadness, but that you can’t do anything about.” The possibilities of contributing to relief funds, joining an antiwar movement, or lobbying for more humane government policies are not even considered. But at the very least there seems to be an acknowledgment here that no amount of attitude adjustment can make good news out of headlines beginning with “Civilian casualties mount . . .” or “Famine spreads . . .”

    Of course, if the powers of mind were truly “infinite,” one would not have to eliminate negative people from one’s life either; one could, for example, simply choose to interpret their behavior in a positive way—maybe he’s criticizing me for my own good, maybe she’s being sullen because she likes me so much and I haven’t been attentive, and so on. The advice that you must change your environment—for example, by eliminating negative people and news—is an admission that there may in fact be a “real world” out there that is utterly unaffected by our wishes. In the face of this terrifying possibility, the only “positive” response is to withdraw into one’s own carefully constructed world of constant approval and affirmation, nice news, and smiling people.

    The Law of Attraction

    If