Rosa Brooks: 'Get happy the White House way'

Bummed out by the Middle East? Turn that frown upside down!

Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times

DID YOU KNOW that happy nuns live longer than unhappy nuns?

No? Don't feel bad. You probably didn't go to Harvard, where the most
popular class last semester was Psych 1504, "Positive Psychology." That's
"positive" as in "Don't be so negative." In Positive Psychology, students
read up on happy nuns and tackle assignments such as: "Write a brief
biographical sketch from the positive perspective.... Mention ... some
wonderful things that ... are happening to you." The aim of the course is to
teach students to be happier.

Critics say the new field of "positive psychology" is just a collection of
gimmicky self-help tricks. But proponents cite research suggesting that
optimistic people (like the happy nuns) are healthier, longer-lived and more
successful than their pessimistic counterparts. Apparently, even "positive
illusions" can help you increase your happiness, and optimism can be both
taught and learned. That's why Psych 1504 enrolled more than 850 students
last spring.

That's cool. When I was in college, in the late 1980s, education was kind of
a downer. The most popular courses were "Introductory Economics" and
"Theories of Justice." Can you believe we used to worry about that stuff?

I don't want to be stuck in the past, so I decided to give Positive
Psychology the old college try. After all, even President Bush has
successfully absorbed the lessons of positive psychology, insisting to
cynical reporters that he remains "optimistic that all problems will be
solved." And if Bush -- a C student in his Ivy League days -- can learn
positive psychology, I know I can too!

I got started Thursday morning. First, I read the newspaper, which set me
back a little because I was depressed to learn that we've been fighting in
Iraq for nearly as long as we fought Germany during World War II.

But once I started to think more positively, I realized that 3 years is
really not bad. The Iraq war has been going on for less time than the Thirty
Years War! And it's been much shorter than the Hundred Years War. This
realization made me feel a lot happier.

I also felt downcast initially about an article claiming that Israel's
offensive in Lebanon has increased Hezbollah's popularity in the Middle
East. One Egyptian newspaper described a surge in the number of babies named
after Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. In Alexandria alone, health
officials reported 128 newborn Nasrallahs.

Depressing? Not if you think about it from a positive perspective. As
Democracy Arsenal blogger Shadi Hamid points out, all those baby Nasrallahs
just confirm Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's prediction that the
conflict in Lebanon represents the "birth pangs of the new Middle East."

Once I got the hang of looking on the bright side, everything began to fall
into place. When my husband, Peter, reminded me that it will soon be the
fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which killed 2,740 Americans, he
expected me to pull a long face. But I just gave him a patient smile. "2,740
dead Americans may seem like a big number to you," I explained, "but almost
as many American soldiers -- 2,604 -- have now been killed in the Iraq war.
And a number like this isn't a sign of some sort of problem -- as White
House spokesman Tony Snow put it when U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached
the 2,500 mark, it's just 'a number'! It doesn't mean anything!"

I tried to explain. "Look, I bet you think there's some kind of problem with
the war in Iraq. You probably think we need to get out -- or maybe you think
that if we don't get out, we need more troops. Wrong! You just need to think
more positively. As Colin Powell once said, 'Perpetual optimism is a force
multiplier!' " Peter snickered.

"Go ahead, laugh," I told him generously. "Laughing makes people feel
better." That's why even many conservatives are snickering. As George Will
sneered in a Washington Post column this week, the Bush administration's
"farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager
to repel all but the delusional." But what's so wrong with delusional, just
as long as it makes you feel better?

Anyway, who uses words like "farrago" and "non sequitur"? Insecure people --
people who don't truly understand positive psychology -- use fancy words in
the mistaken belief that this will make people like them better.

Will is probably just jealous that he doesn't go to Harvard. If he did, he'd
understand that delusions and optimism are in, while realism and negativity
are out. As the Crimson, Harvard's venerable student newspaper, put it:
"Happy is the new sad."

Source: Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/
la-oe-brooks18aug18,0,6504554.column

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson