The ferment and viability in any society is directly proportionate to the number of people actively living their ideas. This is not positive thinking - it is positive action: the spirit of experiment.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A society in which there are high levels of voluntary activity will simply be a better, happier place than one where there are not.
Many persons swear by positive thinking, and quite a few have been helped by it. Nevertheless, it is not a very effective tool and can be downright harmful in some cases.
I am a believer in Adam Smith, who says that if you look at something that really contributes value to society, and you can deliver it at a reasonable price, then society will recognise that at some point because rational behaviour will come into play.
Let's not dismiss or attack individual ideas as being inadequate before we have had a chance to assess their positive effect as part of a whole solution.
This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society.
We live in a world economically, socially, and culturally dependent on science not only functioning well, but being wisely applied.
I am not a big fan of positive thinking. The term suggests that there is something negative that you have to counteract by being positive. That is an artificial duality.
The ideas of science germinate in a matrix of established knowledge gained by experiment; they are not lonesome thoughts, born in a rarified realm where no researcher has ever gone before.
Positive thinking is so firmly enshrined in our culture that knocking it is a little like attacking motherhood or apple pie.
It reflects a prevailing myth that production technology is no more amenable to human judgment or social interests than the laws of thermodynamics, atomic structure or biological inheritance.