Oprah Winfrey (depending on which figures you believe) has anywhere between 25 and 45 million people tuning in every week to watch her uplifting combination of positive thinking and self-acceptance.
This “Oprah Movement” love Oprah and they hang on her every word – if Oprah says Australia is a nice place then somewhere between 25 and 45 million people are going to believe it.
That is why Julia is so keen to be on the show and give Oprah a warm Prime Ministerial hug.
However, while we should be grateful for Oprah’s endorsement it might pay to pause and consider what it is that we might be endorsing in return.
The Oprah Movement might best be summarized as the search for a shortcut to happiness except that Oprah and her followers are convinced she has already found it.
There is even a section on her website entitled “shortcut to HAPPINESS” which includes such helpful articles as “How to awaken joy in your life” and the “Are You Happy? Quiz”.
The upshot of most of this advice is that you are probably not happy and if you are not happy then it is your fault. The solution is to think your way out of your problems by thinking positively and embracing the Law of Attraction. And here is where things start to get a little disturbing…
I will probably be accused of being bitter, cynical, negative, and many other colourful things but the fact that Oprah and so many people take the construct of “positive thinking” as the ultimate solution as to how other people can improve their own circumstances is something that I find very troubling and a little bit scary.
You’ve probably heard of positive thinking and its supposed benefits. You’ve also probably heard of things like The Secret, which is a self-help book and DVD (and they have other products, too, including a daily planner and something called an “affirmation journal”).
If you have had heard of such things it is largely due to the efforts of Oprah Winfrey who has been an enthusiastic devotee of the concepts involved and been quick to popularise them among her following.
For those of you who have had the good fortune to not have come into contact with The Secret, the basic premise is something that sounds pretty innocuous at first, if you don’t examine it too closely or think about it too hard: there is something called “the Law of Attraction,” which posits that the individual can attract their own good or bad circumstances in life just by thinking about them.
What needs to be stressed here, of course, is the bit about the “bad circumstances”. On the plus side this is what you are buying into: I can attract good things by using my thoughts. If I think positively, I will attract good things.
However, the other side of such a dichotomy is quite abhorrent for anyone among us who might have health issues and other problems beyond individual control. Take someone with a genetic condition for example like Cystic Fibrosis.
According to the dubious logic employed in Oprah’s favourite book The Secret, such people have somehow attracted this. And, according to The Secret, they can think their way out of it. They can be cured!
Oh, wait. Cystic Fibrosis does not have a cure, and certified medical professionals generally do not recommend people thinking their way out of a chronic condition.
However, according to the “Law of Attraction,” if the sufferers don’t think their way out of their condition, or can’t, then they basically deserve whatever happens to them. They brought it on themselves after all. Let’s not even start on things like being hit by a drunk driver or a nationwide famine.
Therein lies the problem: This type of philosophy places an untoward emphasis on the individual: You control your reality. You control what happens to you. You control how much money you make. You deserve the best.
Solving problems or helping others is beneath you, because it is all about you. You’ve got the world at your feet and it’s yours for the taking. Why help others, when you can just attract everything you want with your thoughts?
It’s a great philosophy if you are a comfortable middle-class citizen of the Western First World but it guarantees a miserable existence for anyone not so fortunate.
By now, you are probably starting to see exactly why this way of thinking is so troubling, particularly if you have feminist leanings like a certain Prime Minister, have a disability or are remotely aware of social justice issues.
Oprah and the peddlers of positivism are selling pipe dreams, at the dangerous expense of reality. The Happiness Movement has become the Oprah Movement and moved into cult territory, with all the attendant commercial exploitation and bogus results.
But what’s the real harm? Surely, if nothing else, a bit of positive thinking can make you feel better can’t it? Isn’t Oprah simply lifting our spirits and letting a little sunshine into our lives? No.
Like any cult, the Oprah Movement tends to attract those people with low self-esteem – the very people who most crave the shortcut to happiness. As a recent study conducted at the University of Waterloo in Canada pointed out the problem with combining positive thinking and low self-esteem is that it actually makes people feel worse about themselves.
By trying to focus on how their lives could be so much better it tends to make them more depressed about their lives right now. Instead of making them feel more in control of their destiny it actually makes them feel like they have less control.
So when our Prime Minister gives Oprah that hug as she represents what we fondly refer to as ‘The Lucky Country” I hope she points out to Oprah and all her followers that we are indeed lucky. Our circumstances are not a function of positive thinking or self-affirmations so much as a result of hard work and incredible good luck.
I hope she reminds the Oprah Movement that those of us who have been so lucky have an obligation to help those less fortunate. We help them not by telling them to think more positively but by recognising that their circumstances may not be of their own making and that they might even be victims of bad luck. We help them by recognising that positive thinking can’t help them but we can.
Then rather than think positively about helping them we actually do it. If Oprah wants to make that the new mantra of the Oprah Movement then I am happy to have the Prime Minister endorse her. Imagine the power of 25 to 45 million people willing to physically make the world a better place rather than just think about it.
Now there is a positive thought.
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