Positive psychology and the enhancement of happiness: A reply to Binkley (2018)

Abstract

The following is a reply to Sam Binkley's (2018) critical commentary, "The Work of Happiness: A Response to De La Fabián and Stecher (2017)". In our paper, "Positive Psychology's Promise of Happiness: A New Form of Human Capital in Contemporary Neoliberal Governmentality" (De La Fabián & Stecher, 2017), we showed that the kind of transformative work on oneself fostered by positive psychology should be understood as a transcendence of the Calvinist work formula of deferred pleasure. Binkley argues that this is a reductionist hypothesis, which risks turning into a deterministic conception of the processes of subjectivation. We argue that while we share this concern, we do not believe that the Calvinist formula is the right one to call upon to avoid this problem. Our main hypothesis is that positive psychology has created a new game of truth, in which the normative frame of justification that used to give sense to any kind of selftransformative task has been radically changed.

The Neoliberal Story of the Self and Counseling

“…At the same time, in the neoliberal system, the individual has to be overwhelmed in the happiness ocean by dealing with negative emotions like anxiety. In this context, happiness functions as a currency to facilitate internalizing neoliberal disciplines (De La Fabián & Stecher, 2018). This happiness industry, which has existed since the end of the twentieth century, is depicted by the analogy of the tyranny of positivity (Held, 2002).…”