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'Smile or Die'. This was very interesting. I have watched the video clips, and read more about Barbara Ehrenreich, and looked at her work and writings.
 
For the most part I completely disagree with her. I found 'Smile or Die' offensive. There are situations when forcing a smile is the only option or hurt can be unintentionally inflicted.
Despite the quote [below, Guardian] about needing more 'smiles,' I can only imagine that Barbara Ehrenreich has had very few real and genuine smiles in her life as she appears to be fundamentally unhappy and not at peace with herself at all. She should also be careful about making statements and presenting them as fact simply because she has a PhD in Cell Biology - gained in 1968 - when science has moved on. (E.g. Psychoneuroimmunology.) Early screening and detection does help reduce breast cancer mortality. I am a living example of that and I am still under 50. Thank God for mammograms and good radiologists.
 
I think she has been very very good at being a writer and social commentator and found that this was the way to make money, as opposed to doing something positive with her PhD in Cell Biology. She gives this reason for not continuing in science .......
 
"Looking back, I don’t think I was especially well-suited for a life of lab research: I’m too impatient and, well, sloppy. I got my PhD in cell biology, then gravitated into activism"
 
Maybe positive thinking did fool America..... but I imagine that was to do with many people producing 'self-help' books, not all of which were a bad thing either. However, a more balanced view would be 'everything in moderation'..... and simply thinking positively is not enough - you have to act positively as well.  Ehrenreich has done precisely what she criticises others for, (including some large corporations as well as individuals) and used her own breast cancer to get attention!!
 
I know what Marie means, and hope that we continue to smile in the way Marie does - being positive and bringing about change by acting upon the positive and the proven, not merely criticising the actions of others by 'gravitating into activism' and hoping someone else 'takes action' before its too late.
 
Smile. It takes less muscles than frowning anyway!!
Love
Karen
 
 "We must, she says, shake off our capacity for self-absorption and take action against the threats that face us, whether climate change, conflict, feeding the hungry, funding scientific inquiry or education that fosters critical thinking. She is anxious to emphasise that she does "not write in a spirit of sourness or personal disappointment, nor do I have any romantic attachment to suffering as a source of insight or virtue. On the contrary, I would like to see more smiles, more laughter, more hugs, more happiness… and the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking"." -
 
There are some more quotes below from her web site. Can anyone explain  more fully what is meant by a "ladies’ auxiliary to the cancer-industrial complex."?
 
 
"Look, the issue here isn’t health-care costs. If the current levels of screening mammography demonstrably saved lives, I would say go for it, and damn the expense. But the numbers are increasingly insistent: Routine mammographic screening of women under 50 does not reduce breast cancer mortality in that group, nor do older women necessarily need an annual mammogram. In fact, the whole dogma about “early detection” is shaky, as Susan Love reminds us:  the idea has been to catch cancers early, when they’re still small, but some tiny cancers are viciously aggressive, and some large ones aren’t going anywhere.
 
What we really need is a new women’s health movement, one that’s sharp and skeptical enough to ask all the hard questions: What are the environmental (or possibly life-style) causes of the breast cancer epidemic? Why are existing treatments like chemotherapy so toxic and heavy-handed? And, if the old narrative of cancer’s progression from “early” to “late” stages no longer holds, what is the course of this disease (or diseases)? What we don’t need, no matter how pretty and pink, is a ladies’ auxiliary to the cancer-industrial complex."
 
 
Karen Thompson

-----Original Message-----
From: Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:44
Subject: Re: "Smile or Die" : A book by Barbara Ehrenreich

There is a better youtube clip on the "Smile or Die" thesis. 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJGMFu74a70 
 
Quoting tim sims <[log in to unmask]>: 
 
> Dear all, 
> If you google ' rsa animate smile or die' you get her beautifully > summarised message in 10 minutes! 
> best wishes 
> Tim Sims 
> Sent from my iPad 
> 
> On 20 Jul 2011, at 15:09, Christine O'hanlon <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
> 
>>> 
>> 
>> Thanks Alan for the reference -I must read it! Christine O'H 
>> 
>> Marie, 
>>> 
>>> There is a new book by Barbara Ehrenreich that is entitled 'Smile or 
>>> Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World'. You may 
>>> wish to read it as an example how forcing smiles is actually 
>>> counterproductive. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Product Description 
>>> 
>>> This brilliant new book from the author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait 
>>> and Switch explores the tyranny of positive thinking, and offers a 
>>> history of how it came to be the dominant mode in the USA. Ehrenreich 
>>> conceived of the book when she became ill with breast cancer, and 
>>> found herself surrounded by pink ribbons and platitudes. She balked at 
>>> the way her anger about having the disease was seen as unhealthy and 
>>> dangerous by health professionals and other sufferers. In her droll 
>>> and incisive analysis of the cult of cheerfulness, Ehrenreich ranges 
>>> across contemporary religion, business and the economy, arguing, for 
>>> example, that undue optimism and a fear of giving bad news sowed the 
>>> seeds for the current banking crisis. She argues passionately that the 
>>> insistence on being cheerful actually leads to a lonely focus inwards, 
>>> a blaming of oneself for any misfortunes, and thus to political 
>>> apathy. Rigorous, insightful and bracing as always, and also 
>>> incredibly funny, "Smile or Die" uncovers the dark side of the 'have a 
>>> nice day' nation. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> About the Author 
>>> 
>>> BARBARA EHRENREICH is the author of fourteen books, including the 
>>> bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in 
>>> Virginia, USA. 
>>> 
> 
>