Abstract
This book is about how institutions propagate optimism and hope. It does not itself advance optimistic visions of the future, nor does it set out to challenge contemporary pessimism.1 Much less does it seek to join the ranks of those advocating ‘positive thinking’, where pessimism is often seen as moral failure or weakness of character.2 On the other hand, it does not launch an assault, as many others have done, on the ‘ideology’ of optimism, charging those who profess it with a failure to acknowledge either the scale of human suffering or the injustices that continue to produce or exacerbate it.3 These are a well-rehearsed positions, to which little can be usefully added.
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Notes
See, for example, Charles Leadbeater (2002), Up the Down Escalator: Why the Global Pessimists are Wrong, London: Penguin Books Ltd;
Matt Ridley (2010), The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, London: Fourth Estate;
and Raymond Tallis (1997), Enemies of Hope: A Critique of Contemporary Pessimism, London: Macmillan Press Ltd.
For a useful history of ‘positive thinking’ in the United States, see Donald Meyer (1966), The Positive Thinkers: A Study of the American Quest for Health, Wealth and Personal Power from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc.
For more recent examples, see Terry L. Paulson (2010), The Optimism Advantage: 50 Simple Truths to Transform Your Attitudes and Actions into Results, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc;
and Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman (2003), ‘Positive Organizational Studies: Lessons from Positive Psychology’, in Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline, ed. by Kim S. Cameron, Jane E. Dutton and Robert E. Quinn, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., pp. 14–127.
Barbara Ehrenreich (2009), Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America, New York: Metropolitan Books,
Harold Holt and Company and Lauren Berlant (2011), Cruel Optimism, London: Duke University Press.
Lionel Tiger (1995), Optimism: The Biology of Hope, New York: Kodansha International, p. 33.
Optimism and Pessimism: Implications for Theory, Research and Practice (2001), ed. by Edward C. Chang, Washington: American Psychological Association
and The Science of Optimism and Hope: Research Essays in Honor of Martin E. P. Seligman (2000), ed. by Jane E. Gillham, Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press offer a good introduction to this body of research. See also further references in Chapter 1.
See Lawrence Grossberg (2000), ‘The Sins of Cultural Studies’, in The Future of Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Joris Vlasselaers, ed. by Joris Vlasselaers, Jan Baetens and José Lambert, Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 23–33, (p. 33).
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© 2015 Oliver Bennett
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Bennett, O. (2015). Introduction. In: Cultures of Optimism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484819_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484819_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-50357-5
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