m_the0ry
05-18-2007, 09:05 PM
There is an undeniable trend in western culture applying a constant pressure: the pressure to be anything but a cynic. Critics are silenced, the depressed are suppressed, and nay-sayers have their person defamed. Differentiating between assertive confidence, optimism and anti-cynicism is a matter of semantics at the best. How healthy is this obsession with anti-cynicism? What is the effect of this obsession when it manifests itself in a whole culture?
The fact is the benefits are outweighed by the consequences.
To give some reference to this claim we must look outside of American culture to somewhere else: Japan. Here a culture which does not celebrate optimism and confidence nearly as much as humility and practical criticism is demonstrating that such a culture paradigm bears many fruits of success. The same can be said of China or Sweden.
American obsession with confidence and optimism has deteriorated both the culture and the state. Andrew Card, resigned chief-of-staff for the Bush administration, said in an interview when asked about the state of the capital
[ QUOTE ]
"There are so many Type-A personalities working at the white house... they're all overly confident."
[/ QUOTE ]
A recent entry into the blogosphere (http://www.slate.com/id/2166211/nav/tap1/) that I stumbled upon highlights the disastrous effects of excessively-positive thinking. Assumptions, oversights, and miscalculations. All of them stemming from The Western Delusion; being positive is not only imperative, deny being wrong at all costs and denounce negativity at every turn.
Why does this persist? Does it stem from a corporate-centric economy that healthily rewards the assertive and confident? Or is it simply an ego complex extended existing on a societal scale?
The fact is the benefits are outweighed by the consequences.
To give some reference to this claim we must look outside of American culture to somewhere else: Japan. Here a culture which does not celebrate optimism and confidence nearly as much as humility and practical criticism is demonstrating that such a culture paradigm bears many fruits of success. The same can be said of China or Sweden.
American obsession with confidence and optimism has deteriorated both the culture and the state. Andrew Card, resigned chief-of-staff for the Bush administration, said in an interview when asked about the state of the capital
[ QUOTE ]
"There are so many Type-A personalities working at the white house... they're all overly confident."
[/ QUOTE ]
A recent entry into the blogosphere (http://www.slate.com/id/2166211/nav/tap1/) that I stumbled upon highlights the disastrous effects of excessively-positive thinking. Assumptions, oversights, and miscalculations. All of them stemming from The Western Delusion; being positive is not only imperative, deny being wrong at all costs and denounce negativity at every turn.
Why does this persist? Does it stem from a corporate-centric economy that healthily rewards the assertive and confident? Or is it simply an ego complex extended existing on a societal scale?