I read a great post this morning suggesting the Clay Shirky has it wrong. We don’t really have a cognitive surplus, or we cannot make use of the cognitive surplus, because people prefer desultory entertainment to purposive action.
Positivism vs constructivism
The author writes in a scholarly genre: dealing with facts and evidence in a positivist way. I almost responded likewise.
What if the author, Steve, looked at the world through other eyes?
What if the mytho-poetic tradition, a la Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey, are correct and we like to hear a narrative?
- Does that explain why we prefer to watch stories about someone? Rather than a read explanations of some thing?
What if we like to write stories in a narrative (even though it was beaten out of us at college)?
- Would we feel more cheerful, me and Steve included, if we were allowed to tell stories about
- action,
- purpose,
- calling,
- doubt,
- triumph?
- All the human attributes banned from psychological reports?
Positive psychology and the narrative
Positive organizational scholarship, for example appreciative inquiry, are quite clear that a positive approach includes social constructionism – in other words, our voice and the voice of others. The positive principle is expressed not only as something positive and not negative, but as something purposeful, compelling, engaging, enduring, exciting, soothing, validating.
Positive psychologists (as opposed to positive scholars) tend to retreat back to questionnaires to measure their strengths and virtues. Just as happiness strictly refers to a life well-lived (not a mood, person or moment in time), I suspect someone better read than I can explain why a strength or virtue belongs in a narrative, probably as a ‘calling.’
In short, the Hero’s Journey, or narrative structure is still to be adopted by positive psychologists with vigor.
The essence of positive psychology is a point-of-view
Would I be going too far on this Saturday morning to suggest that the essence of a positive approach is a point-of-view? We all want to hear who does what, and why. What was their deep moral case for spending time the way we do.
And is it so wrong to relax by following the moral case of others?
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