Positive Spin: Can You Still Achieve the American Dream?

Rites

Introduction

The most perfect society is that whose purpose

is the universal and supreme happiness.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, On Natural Law, c.1690

In reflecting upon the incongruence between the philosophy implicated above, and our current political orientation, I began researching the philosophical underpinnings of my adopted country, the United States. I was intrigued especially by what I discovered was the core meaning of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and how this meaning has been misinterpreted. It is not as much that we have been sold a pack of lies as many of the resources below would indicate, but that we have never bothered to examine our true origin, and what our course should be. It is not effective to blame the ruling classes for actions that we have failed to take. Democracy is not a spectator sport; we are not watching a television serial. This stuff is real. We are at war. Poverty and depression are increasing at alarming rates. The middle class (you and me) are being eliminated.

Although ‘exposure’ material has been dribbling into the mainstream for several years, e.g. Boller’s (1996) Not So!: Popular Myths About America’s Past from Columbus to Clinton, Corn’s (1996). The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, and Loewen’s (1996) Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History book didn’t teach you, 2003 has been an banner year with Alterman’s (2003) What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News, Ehrman,'s (2003) Lost Scriptures: Books that did not make it into the New Testament, Franken’s (2003) Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, Howard’s (2003) White Lies, Ivins, M. & Dubose, L. (2003). Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America and Krugman’s (2003) The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century.

Much of the above material suggests that the country is filled with lies and bias, narcissism and greed; and that the ruling classes are feeding us false and misleading information. Although Positive Spin agrees with much of the above, it prefers reflection to rancor, suggestion to cynicism. The misinterpretation of the American Founding Fathers’ intention has led to a country filled with false expectations and unrealistic attitudes toward success and happiness. In our efforts to achieve the impossible American dream, we are exhausting ourselves, ignoring our children, and allowing the ruling classes free reign to do with us whatever they wish. It is as if Disney, the Media, Madison Avenue, the Political Machine and our Major Institutions have created for us a parallel universe, in which our needs can never be met, and wherein the ruling class becomes stronger and we, the passive and manipulated masses, become weaker and weaker. 1984 has arrived.

Vision without action is hallucination; so too, anger without expression is self-destructive. The worst thing that we can do is to use anger to divide ourselves as a nation; that would be exactly what would lead to our destruction.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved–I do not expect the house to fall–but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South." Abraham Lincoln, 1858

Positive Spin is a straightforward, hard-hitting account of where we are now, and what we need to do to join together and turn things around. We still have the power to make a positive and lasting difference in our own lives, in our communities, and in the world at large. This power derives firstly, from knowledge, an awareness of the truth of our current situation, and how futile is our present course. Secondly, our power derives from the concerted and deliberate actions we take each day, as we re-evaluate our thinking, our interactions with others, and the changes needed in our social and political systems.

In Positive Spin you will explore the root causes of our current unhappiness, and the research supporting the nature of genuine happiness. Part One examines the true intent of our founding fathers’ declaration for the freedom to pursue happiness, and takes a close look at what we hold as most valuable and important in our day to day lives.

Part Two exposes the reality of our situation, including the ills of society, the state of our mental and physical health, and the role that the pursuit of money has played in our relentless pursuit of pleasure. It also discusses how our current global conflict has derived from this same basic irrational foundation to our belief system.

Part Three offers evidence on what does make us happy, and why happiness–in the truest, deepest sense of the word–is worth creating in our lives. It examines the role that the African concept of Ubuntu can have in our western lives, how it can eventually lead to world peace, and how we can be part of that creation. Positive Spin is not about positive thinking. It is a re-evaluation of evidence, and about the hope and optimism that emanates from knowledge, truth, and right action.

San Diego, California

Chapter One

Life, Liberty, and the Purchase of Happiness

Think positively! Create abundance–right here,

right now! Hummer–Out of this World.

Drink Absolut! Buy Prada! Compare Your

Wedding to Trista & Ryan’s $4 Million

Dream Wedding!

Although happiness has long been an American obsession, self-help gurus and Madison Avenue advertising have been relentless in their prescription of an array of panaceas that promise ultimate pleasure and self-satisfaction. Our obsessive pursuit of happiness has increased dramatically over the past couple of decades (Easterbrook, 2003; Gallup & Newport, 1990).

Concomitant with the relentless race for ‘happiness’ over the past 200 years, North America’s fixation on sickness and disease has emphasized the diagnosis and treatment of pathology. This preoccupation with disease, and the negativity that it breeds, together with the search-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-places, has led to a Perfect Storm of discontent; a continent filled with angst-ridden people subject to sub-clinical depression (Seligman, 1989; Klerman & Weissman, 1989; Cross-National Collaborative Group, 1992).

Consequently, and understandably, the biggest goals we have in the Western world involve individual choices, rights, and fulfillment. We are occupied with what we can, and cannot, accomplish and what we can, and cannot, acquire. In our capitalist society, our acquisition of material goods and services, and our fascination with the money that allows us to buy them, represent a socially-sanctioned method of satisfying our appetite for sensory pleasure and fleeting moments of happiness.

The result is ever-increasing greed and materialism that can never be satisfied. We are turning ourselves into commodities. We want to be ‘marketable', keep our ‘options open', and ‘cash in’ on what happens to us, especially misfortune. Professional speakers who have suffered and overcome calamities can command higher performance fees. We pursue volunteer work because it looks good on our graduate school resumes. No wonder people are alienated, and no wonder depression is on the rise among young adults (Miller, 2002).

Clearly, the concept of ‘pursuing happiness’ has been misinterpreted. We are on a collision course with disaster. Unfortunately, although the evidence is all around us, few people are seeing the signs that point to the incredible obstacles we are facing. More importantly, unless we know we have a problem, there is no reason for us to search for a solution or alternate action.

The Problem with Positive Thinking

In The Positive Thinkers, Meyer (1988) traced the history of positive thinking through Phineas Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy, Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, and Ronald Reagan. The popular psychology of positive thinking flourished among people able to imagine that the only thing wrong with their lives was within their own minds. If they could learn how to manage their thinking, the world would be positive in its response. This world was always North America, of course, and did not include the unfortunates who were born outside our boundaries. God’s abundance was somehow meant only for us.

Thus, self-help books promise us success if only we will think positively (Starker, 1989). If our lives are in shambles, we are illiterate, live below the poverty line, and our teenage pregnant daughter is on drugs, there is obviously something wrong with our thinking. We are in ‘poverty consciousness’ and are not ‘manifesting our abundance.'

Collectively, we have missed the mark. Yes, we are fortunate to live in privilege, in one of the greatest countries in the world; a country with opportunity–a country with freedom. We have all benefitted from capitalism. My concern is that, as we manifest our abundance by acquiring more and more worldly goods, and carry on our endless pursuit of happiness, our nation is becoming poorer (Pear, 2003). This endless pursuit of happiness and self-knowledge has, paradoxically, made us less happy. The pursuit of wealth has not increased our sense of joy and we know scant more today about how to create a happy and successful life than we did decades ago.

Fuzzy Americanisms such as optimism, capitalism, materialism, and individualism have substituted for, and obfuscated, a real understanding of the factors that could increase our real happiness. By our very pursuit of the ‘good life,’ we may be helping to create the unhappiness and unrest around the globe. Time to grow up.

Fortunately, we have a choice. Left alone on the pinnacle of economic and political leadership, North America (both Bay Street and Wall Street) can keep increasing its material wealth while ignoring the human needs of its people and those of the rest of the planet. The February 2003 Survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, has shown that Americans are under the impression that as much as 20 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. In truth, the figure is less than one percent, and Canada’s record is currently no better. Inevitably, this will lead to increasing selfishness, to alienation between the more and the less fortunate, and eventually to chaos and despair. Already, global dissatisfaction and envy have become alarmingly evident in the current attitude toward American foreign policy.

We are long overdue for a drastic course correction. We need to stop in our tracks and reconsider our direction. The task of preventing medical and social ills in this new century, will be to create a science of human strength whose mission is to understand and learn how to foster hope in young people. This is impossible if we stay our current course. To turn things around, we must first reexamine our direction, our pursuits, and our definitions of happiness.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are

created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with

certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,

Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Declaration of Independence

The previous sentence is one of the most popular and frequently quoted statements in the United States’ Declaration of Independence. But what did our forefathers have in mind with regard to our right to ‘pursue happiness?’ Did they mean that every American is free to seek happiness without considering the effects of their actions on themselves or others? When you consider that the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence were in the process of uniting independent states in the spirit of all for one and one for all, the answer no, seems obvious. However, many people are living as if the pursuit of individual happiness justifies any and all ill-effects of their choices and actions.

To review the founders’ intentions, explained in more depth in the next chapter, consider the widespread philosophies and ideas of five men prior to 1776. David Hume (1711–76), a Scottish philosopher and historian, was a founder of the skeptical, or agnostic, school of philosophy. He felt that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ was the basis of both individual motivation and social well being. The English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), one of the pioneers in modern thinking, said, That we call good which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain (p. 2), whereas evil is the reverse; it is what causes or increases pain and diminishes pleasure.

The generation of utilitarian philosophers that followed, such as David Hartley (1705–57), Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), construed a good society as that which allows the greatest happiness for the greatest number (Bentham, 1789/1970, pp. 64-65). This focus on pleasure or happiness as the touchstone of private and public life was not a concept originated in the 1700's, but rather had already been in the writings of the Greek philosophers. Aristotle noted that although humankind values many things, such as health, fame, and possessions, because we think that they will make us happy, we value happiness for itself. Happiness is the only intrinsic goal that people seek for its