You have to be of a certain vintage to know about Norman Vincent Peale. His heyday really began in the 50s and extended into the 70s as his book, ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ soared from positive sales. I’m sure you can still find it today. It was the type of book that grandmothers found ‘meaningful’, meaning, a vague sense of feel good. Fast forward today, to the age of the inter-webs and most notably, Facebook, and we see that the digital age has enabled any-man to be anything they want to be including self made Normal Vincent Peales’ and thus, they are many.
Normal Vincent Peale was also challenged back in the day for what we now regard as shallowness. His work was based in Protestant sensibility but he came with credentials and was able to establish himself in a new market (positive thinking) that didn’t need much rigorous backbone. His true peers were not so kind to his philosophy.
Todays cottage industry of positive thinking, compliments of Facebook, have far less to stand on then did Normal Vincent Peale. He was a respected minister in the Reformed Church and came with education. Today, the positive thinkers on social media often lack education and in fact, they tend to be the type that can’t spell either and yet they have followers and groupies. Normal Vincent Peale had his millions and the new generation usually has their dozens. Such is the dynamic of the digital age, fragmented.
No skin off anyone’s nose, right? Well, yes and no. Lets just say it comes with risks but of course everything does. We live in a complex dangerous world being theoretically and instantly connected to approximately seven billion other human beings so a little caution is in order. Carrying a credit card around in 1970 meant one thing and an entirely different thing today. Why then would we be so cavalier with our soul – and by soul, I simply mean our inner person? There’s no specific warning or danger here, just a hunch. Reserve your inner person and your truest respect for someone that you can literally watch in real time, over time, and off of a computer screen.
