I rewrote this because my incoherent long covidy self thought it made sense and posted without edits. If you are one of the four people who read the original, I apologize. I guess a perk of having about 10 subscribers is that not many people saw it #brightsided #longcovid #climatechange #nocturnal #summernocturne

https://open.substack.com/pub/madpiratemayday/p/nocturne?r=25ny58&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

The FB threads by business school people look like cliche exchanges. They don't seem to care if what they say is true, they're just gladhanding each other. Eventually I'll have to re-read a Barbara Ehrenreich interview about #BrightSided. A few years ago, when there was still an aura of brilliant benevolence around Tesla's Elon Musk, there were blurbs about his seeing AI, and being so concerned that he refused to unveil it? Was that an excuse because it didn't really work?

> ... [Her] great contribution to economic justice.. exposing the cult of #PositiveThinking.. We concluded from #NickelAndDimed that people were not making it in America.. we.. [saw] through.. #BrightSided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America that the economy was.. unimpeded.. putting a smiley face on #inequality... The alternative.. blame one’s #employer.. the #USEconomy.. [being] dangerous to.. #CorporateAmerica.
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/13/how-barbara-ehrenreich-exposed-the-positive-thinking-industry/
#BarbaraEhrenreich #SonaliKolhatkar

Some guy on FB commented that he used to like Noam Chomsky but found that now, on the Ukraine war, Chomsky is "intellectually dishonest" and didn't provide enough "factual support". The comment's wordy style made #JacquesEllul and #Education as #PrePropaganda come to mind. Especially in #BrightSided corporate culture that reads as if it is all about exchanging fashionable cliches...
https://auticulture.com/jacques-elluls-propaganda/
#Propaganda #FormationOfAttitudes

> The Happy Planet Index, to give just one example, locates us at 150th among the world's nations.
> How can we be so surpassingly "positive" in self-image and stereotype without being the world's happiest and best-off people? The answer, I think, is that positivity is not so much our condition or our mood as it is part of our ideology
- https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113758696
#optimism #brightsided #humbug #USA #BarbaraEhrenreich

> talked about my disgust at this positive thinking culture that had taken over, and I’ve gotten wonderful responses. Basically, “Ah, thank God someone said it!”
- https://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/13/author_barbara_ehrenreich_on_bright_sided
#BarbaraEhrenreich #brightsided #optimism

> ... optimism is pleasant so long as it is credible, but when it is not, it is intensely irritating. Especially irritating is the optimism about our own troubles which is displayed by those who do not have to share them.
- https://russell-j.com/OPTIMISM.HTM
#optimism #brightsided #bertrandrussel