Scientific Pollyannaism : From Inquisition to Positive Psychology

This book argues that the story of the orphan girl Pollyanna (namely, her strategy of playing the â#x80;glad gamesâ#x80;#x9D; to manage loss, abuse, and social prejudice) serves as a framework for critiquing historical forms of Western scientific Pollyannaism. The author examines Pollyannaism as it relates to the sciences, demonstrating how the approach has been used throughout modern Western history to enforce happiness and to criticize negative human emotional states. These efforts, carried out by scientists and popularized as scientific, focus on negating the role of the environment and on promoting varied forms of emotional control. Ultimately, the book emphasizes strategies used to compel individuals into becoming Pollyannas about science itself Contents 6 Chapter 1 An Introduction to the (Supposedly) Good Life 9 References 20 Chapter 2 Demonized Emotions and Tortured Bodies in the Age of Scientific Progress 24 Rationalizing the Demonization and Murder of Witches 25 Killing the Healers 27 Ridding the World of Women with “Passions” 28 References 30 Chapter 3 The Survival of the Happiest Who (Get to) Control the Resources and Procreation 33 Alternatives to Scientific Pollyannaism Found on the Galapagos 34 The Survival of the Happiest 36 Darwin’s Happy Housewives 43 References 47 Chapter 4 Eugenic Scientific Utopias Filled with Socially Engineered Happy Productive People 49 The Utopian Visions of Eugenic Racial Betterment 51 Happy Eugenic Brains and Resilient Germo-Plasms 54 Measuring Goodness and Happiness 56 The “Stupendous” Costs of Caring for the Unfit 58 The Scientific Efforts to Rid the World of the “Evolutionary Unfit” 59 Happy “Mothers of the Race” 60 Building the Wall Against the Unhappy Hordes of Unfit Immigrants 71 The Advanced Western Sciences of Eugenic Human Betterment 74 Tales of Finding Genetic Origins of Beauty and the Beast 84 On Testing Intelligence and Finding (Un)Happiness 89 Utopian Promises of Eugenic Scientific Pollyannaism 90 References 91 Chapter 5 From the Science of Human Betterment to the Science of Behavioral Control 96 The Eugenic Roots of American Behaviorism 96 Watson’s Darwinism and the Sciences of Emotional Control 99 Scientific Pollyannaism and the Experiments on Infants and Young Children 103 The Myths and the Horrors of “Little Albert” Experiments 105 The Parenting Utopias and the “Dangers of Too Much Mother Love” 107 Scientific Sadistic Pollyannaism: The Survivor Stories 111 References 114 Chapter 6 Scientific Pollyannaism of Authentic Happiness, Learned Optimism, Flow and the Empirically Correct Positivity Ratios 116 Positive Psychology as the Reprise of Scientific Pollyannaism 117 The Exotic Resort Solutions to Re-creating Scientific Pollyannaism 118 Torture and the Contemporary Scientific Pollyannaism 119 Building a New Religion from the Sciences of Happiness 123 “Top-Notch Research” of Positive Psychology 126 Scientific Pollyannaism Efforts to Discredit All Other Forms of Psychology 128 Funding of New Scientific Pollyannaism 130 The Magic of “It’s All in Your Head” Versus the Sciences of Real Human Experiences 132 Happy Hateful States 134 Winning the “Glad Games” by Ethnocentric Nationalism and Late Stage Capitalism 137 Raising Pollyannas: The Sciences of Making Children Orphan Their Feelings 141 Mythic Evolutionary Origins of Pollyannaism 142 Happiness Is (Once Again) Mostly in Your Genes 145 The “Hard” Sciences Behind Contemporary Scientific Pollyannaism 147 References 150 Chapter 7 On Being Pollyanna About Sciences 158 The Discovery of Scientism 158 Scientific or Scientistic Pollyannaism from The Hammer of Witches to “Race Realism” 161 The Pioneering Funding of Scientific Racist Pollyannaism 166 Scientific Eugenic Utopias in Contemporary Psychology 168 How Pollyannas Become Enlightened Through Sciences 169 Hopeful Sciences of White Supremacy and White Nationalism 176 On Racist “Shameful Sciences” and the Empirical “Pretext” for Patriarchal “Happiness” 178 References 181 Chapter 8 Critics and Critiques of Scientific Pollyannaism 185 The Over-Emotional “Shrew” Who Socrates Could Not “Break” 185 Chesterton on Scientific Eugenics as “Our Happy Holiday in the Land of Nonsense” 186 “The Actual Unhappiness of the American Housewife” and the “Feminist Killjoy” 188 The Political Use of Human Emotions: The Case of Neo-Liberalism 192 “Psytizens” and the “Happiness Industry” 194 References 196 Chapter 9 Re-telling the Story of Orphaned Girl Named Pollyanna 198 References 206 References 210 Index 235 This book argues that the story of the orphan girl Pollyanna (namely, her strategy of playing the â#x80;glad gamesâ#x80;#x9D; to manage loss, abuse, and social prejudice) serves as a framework for critiquing historical forms of Western scientific Pollyannaism. The author examines Pollyannaism as it relates to the sciences, demonstrating how the approach has been used throughout modern Western history to enforce happiness and to criticize negative human emotional states. These efforts, carried out by scientists and popularized as scientific, focus on negating the role of the environment and on promoting varied forms of emotional control. Ultimately, the book emphasizes strategies used to compel individuals into becoming Pollyannas about science itself