Positive psychology and the problem of evil

An analysis of the attitude of positive psychology to the problem of deliberately committed evil was carried out, including an analysis of one of the key theses of positive psychology: “negative psychology” pays too much attention to the study of evil. It is shown that positive psychologists either really have or try to create in the reader an idea of ​​the world so friendly that its representatives do not have any significant evil intentions that should be taken into account in the practice of a positive attitude towards the world and positive thinking. Under these conditions, one of the most worthy goals is self-improvement and strengthening of one’s positive feelings: with the general adherence to this strategy, humanity will come to righteousness, omnipotence and omniscience. An analysis of these provisions shows that mass positive psychology is possible only in a prosperous and well-protected society, an important mass strategy of which is silence about situations of serious social distress, and in cases of encountering them, strategies for internal work with one’s psychological state are offered that do not involve practical activities to opposition to evil. In fact, this position may turn out to be immoral, despite positive psychology’s declarative calls for citizenship and altruism. Key words: positive psychology, evil, the problem of doing evil

Let’s try to mentally imagine an article called «Massacre in Kushchevskaya: a view from the point of view of personality psychology.» Or — «Terrorist act in (indication of the locality): approaches of social psychology.»

Let us now change the areas of psychology mentioned in these titles to another area and a different approach. «Massacre in Kushchevskaya: the view of a positive psychologist», «Genocide and positive thinking». It becomes clear that articles of the first group are possible, while those of the second are not. Why? After all, positive psychology builds a healthy attitude towards the world, but is ignoring reality part of a healthy attitude?

I. Bonivell, a researcher in the field of positive psychology and her supporter, writes that positive psychology “rejects the preoccupation of mere psychology with negative aspects” [Bonivell, 2009, p. eighteen]. Metaphorically speaking, positive psychology is interested in how to rise from +18 to +2, and not from -7 to -5 [Seligman, 3, p. nine]; I.Bonivell also uses the same image of positive and negative numbers [Bonivell, 2006, p. 9].

Let’s agree: bringing +2 to +7 is a great task. But why, at the same time, is it necessary to defiantly reject someone else’s concern with «negative aspects»? And how easy it is to bring +2 to +7, “rejecting concerns” and ignoring situations of transition from 0 to -50 (indicative, indirectly established by the bodies found, the number of girls killed by one of the Russian gangs for refusing to engage in prostitution), transition from 0 before -?????? (an unknown number of older people who sold their apartments and did not reach their new place of residence), to -937000 (the officially recognized number of victims of the genocide in Rwanda), etc.?

As S. Lem writes, “one who deals with human existence cannot exclude mass homicide from the order of this existence. Otherwise, he renounces his vocation” [Lem, 1990, p. 448]. K. Benson proves that the psychological and moral are inextricably linked, and that the most important feature of the human self is the ability to both purposeful and conscious work to expand and develop human worlds, and their purposeful immoral narrowing and destruction. Human psychology cannot be revealed outside of this ability [Benson, 2001].

But each area of ​​psychology has its own subject. And positive psychology is not concerned with all human existence and not with all human abilities, but with “positive aspects of human life, such as happiness, well-being and prosperity” [Bonivell, 2009, p. 12], personal qualities necessary to be a good person, tolerance, wisdom, talents (positive), positive social institutions, etc. This is great. We emphasize that the point is not at all that positive psychology does not deal with what it calls the “negative aspects” of human existence. The psychology of sports also does not specifically deal with them (although from time to time it is forced to deal with them) — both the psychology of preschool role-playing games and developmental education do not deal with them either, etc. etc.

But positive psychology is the only one that does not just study its subject (happiness, well-being, prosperity and prosperity), but directly expresses dissatisfaction with too much, in its opinion, attention to “pathology”, “disease” from “just psychology” and “ negative psychology, which studies the psychology of evil. It is in connection with the need to analyze this demonstrative position that my article was written.

Two types of attitude to the world

Starting at least with the research of Ruth B. in the first third of the 1990th century. in psychology, ideas about two types of people’s attitudes to the world are developing. These types are formulated extremely clearly in the «Teaching about the Three Worlds», created by a philosopher-character in one of S. Lem’s novels [XNUMX].

In a benevolent world:

it is easier to create than to destroy;

it is easier to make happy than to torment;

it is easier to save than to destroy;

It’s easier to revive than to kill.

In an unfavorable world:

it is easier to torment than to make happy;

it is easier to destroy than to save;

easier to kill than revive.

In a neutral world equally easy (difficult) for both.

Similarly, in the works of psychologists [Druzhinin, 2000; Enikolopov, 2011; Poddyakov, 2007; Lee, 1995; Werner, 2004; Zabielski, 2007] consider and compare:

• attitude to the world as generally harmonious, with low conflict, where crimes and even serious conflicts
• deviation from the norm;
• attitude to the world as filled with contradictions and conflicts, hostility, which, if not dominant, cannot be ignored.

So, S.N. Enikolopov [2011] analyzes the concept of S. Epstein [Epstein, 1991], according to which people automatically construct an implicit “theory of reality”. It includes the following main blocks: the theory of one’s own «I», the theory of the surrounding world and the theory of relations between the «I» and the world. The personal theory of reality sets the attitude towards the world as benevolent or threatening; as meaningful, predictable, controllable, stable and fair, or vice versa; treating other people as benevolent, non-threatening, or potentially threatening.

Images of the world of positive psychology and its relation to good and evil: explicit formulations

Far from all works on positive psychology, the psychology of happiness and prosperity, one can find formulations in which the attitude to the problem of good and evil is clearly formulated, and not just dissatisfaction with «negative psychology» is expressed. We have selected those works in which the authors take a reflexive position in relation to this problem and strive to convey it to the reader.

From the point of view of the two types of attitude to the world presented, the views of psychologists who have taken this reflexive position can be divided into several groups, depending on how they evaluate:

— the current world

— the need and possibility of its change;

— the means of this change (if it is necessary at all).

1. Position “The world is just perfect, so there is no need to improve it, all your efforts are in vain” (N. Linde).

N. Linde writes: “As my guru said, “the gates of hell are locked from the inside.” And if they are locked from the inside, then how can God bring people out of there? They want to be there, and they keep all-round defense, just not to get to heaven. How can an angry person go to heaven? How can a depressed person get there? How can a person stricken with fears and anxieties do this? How can an ever-fighting man get there? There are no atomic warheads in heaven! But there are people who hold on to the warheads so much that they cannot get into heaven! The best way to get rid of war and warheads is to learn how to live in paradise and teach it to your enemies. If everyone lives in paradise, there will be no need for warheads and no enemies. And if the enemies are such fools that they don’t want to live in paradise, then it’s worse for them, although it’s a pity” [Linde, 2009].

N. Linde does not write about crime and criminals, but the position, logically reasoning, should be the same here. If they don’t want to live in paradise, then let them rape, rob, kill, and do everything else they see fit, although it’s a pity.

2. Position «The world is not perfect, but it naturally goes for the better.» Striving for happiness and improving ourselves, we work not just for the future well-being of mankind, but for its omnipotence, omniscience and righteousness.

This position is defended by M. Seligman. He writes that as humanity develops, the number and significance of win-win, and not antagonistic games is increasing more and more. (This echoes the arguments of A.P. Nazaretyan [2010] that physical violence is used less and less as civilization develops, and K. Benson that the idea of ​​the disgustingness of deliberately inflicted suffering is becoming, very slowly and gradually, more and more widespread [ Benson, 2001]).

Sympathetically retelling the position of B. Wright, M. Seligman writes: “Historical progress is not a fast train, but rather a stubborn donkey: sometimes it refuses to move, and sometimes it even turns back. But, despite such «stops» as the Holocaust, infectious terrorism and the genocide of the Tasmanian aborigines, we are still moving in the direction of win-win» [Seligman, 2006, p. 329]. “The process of complication pursues neither more nor less, but the acquisition of omniscience, omnipotence and righteousness. We will not live to see this, just as all modern humanity will not live. The best we can do is to promote progress. This will give our life meaning. Life becomes meaningful when we feel ourselves a part of something larger — and the larger this whole, the deeper meaning our life fills. The desire to comprehend God, endowed with omniscience, omnipotence and righteousness, makes our life part of a huge whole … A fulfilling life is to go to true happiness, invariably applying our individual virtues. But life, full of higher meaning, requires compliance with one more condition — the use of one’s best qualities in the name of human knowledge, power and righteousness. Such a life is truly filled with a higher meaning, and if in the end God appears in it, then it is sacred” [Ibid. pp. 335–336].

3. Position “The universe is not hostile or friendly to us, it is simply indifferent. The state of flow, positive emotions, like everything in the world, are not something good in an absolute sense — depending on what goals the energy is directed to, life becomes an inexhaustible storehouse of wealth or suffering; our task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without interfering with others doing the same.”

This is the position of one of the founders of positive psychology M. Chikszentmihalyi (Csikszentmihalyi M.). Other positive psychologists refer to him very selectively and cautiously — emphasizing some fragments of his approach (for example, considering the flow as a source of positive sensations) and carefully, even skillfully avoiding, as we will show below, other components of this approach — including explicit attention to negative aspects of human existence, which is completely uncharacteristic of most positive psychologists.

Namely, M. Csikszentmihalyi writes that in a state of flow, positive emotions and even happiness, the Marquis de Sade, and the simple Chinese euik of meat carcasses, and spectators of gladiator fights, and the soldiers of the Golden Horde, who became famous for their cruelty, and also today there are modern soldiers who destroy the enemy; criminals stealing cars; participants in mass acts of vandalism, etc. [Csikszentmihalyi, 2011, p. 116–119]. He believes that it is necessary to take into account the overall balance of order and chaos created by different people and social groups striving to achieve opposite goals. Society should contribute to the maximum possible achievement of the goals of all members, minimizing chaos. At the same time, as M. Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes, this does not guarantee the ethics of what is happening, since it can be achieved at the expense of other societies (Nazism).

Images of the world of positive psychology: undiscussed and implicit

To understand this or that approach, not only its explicit formulations are important, but also their operationalization in methodological approaches, selection of examples and situations for analysis, cuts when quoting, etc.

Reading the book “Keys to Well-Being: What Positive Psychology Can Do” by I. Bonivell, you will find a quote by M. Csikszentmihalyi that the experience of the flow is not an absolute good, its consequences must be discussed and evaluated based on more general criteria, and you will find a couple of confirming examples: gambling addiction of adolescents and workaholism of managers [Bonivell, 2009, p. eighteen]. Nothing more serious. After all, positive psychology, on the one hand, and the mention of de Sade with his specific experience of the flow, on the other, are incompatible things. «What Can Positive Psychology Do?» — asks I. Bonivell in the title of his book. The answer is that she can cut key points and examples («cases») of her founding father if they do not fit into a positive picture. This is part of the positive work — a special activity to create an optimistic image of the world.

At the same time, I. Bonivell quite rightly writes that “in serious traumatic situations (such as death, fire, flood or rape), optimists may seem unprepared, and then their beautiful pink world runs the risk of shattering (although optimists are better adapted than pessimists). to building it anew)” [Bonivell, 2009, p. 33]. But neither in this book, nor in other books on positive psychology, will you find any indication that coping in situations caused by someone else’s deliberate actions (murder, arson, betrayal) can and often should be special.

Positive psychology can give recommendations to a rape victim on how to cope with what happened and live happily on, but it does not give recommendations on what to do if your village is regularly raided by bandits, and beatings, robberies, violence continue constantly with the connivance of those who are called to you. protect. After all, the possible advice “Call the police immediately” is designed for social institutions that work in a positive way. These institutions are of interest to positive psychologists. Deviations in the work of these institutions (of which gang raids are evidence) are not only of no interest — even the very attention to these deviations on the part of representatives of “simply psychology” seems excessive and causes regret among positive psychologists (this regret is generally shared with the reader by M. Seligman).

At first glance, the solution to this paradox of ethical blindness is simple. I.Bonivell writes: «The Western world has long outgrown the reasons that underlay the exclusively medical model of psychology.» The time has come to «learn about the normal and successful life of normal and successful people, and not just about the lives of those who need help», «about the great art of living that people live in every corner of the planet.» Of course, the identification of the Western world with every corner of the planet is a sincere delusion, and this is partly the case. But only partly — as already mentioned, this would be too simple a solution. Positive psychology not only does not know, but also doesn’t want to know at least something that is connected with trouble, including social.

One example: once I happened to be an opponent paired with a positive psychologist on the defense of a dissertation devoted to people’s ideas about a professional. I said that the urgency of the problem of professionalism is largely connected with the acute urgency of the problem of unprofessionalism (just shortly before that there was a major catastrophe that testified to unprofessionalism at least on several levels) and it would be interesting to compare people’s ideas about professionalism and unprofessionalism. The positive psychologist who spoke after me said that the first opponent began to talk about unprofessionalism and people’s ideas about it, but this is not relevant. Now, after all, positive psychology is actively developing, which calls for seeing the good, and not deviation and pathology. I did not enter into a discussion on the defense, but my opinion only strengthened: from the fact that we refuse to see unprofessionalism and close our eyes, the very unprofessionalism will not become less.

In those very rare cases when positive psychologists write not in general about life’s troubles that stand in the way of happiness, but about a collision with active evil, the examples of coping they describe are distinguished by one peculiar feature. In these examples, people do not fight evil, but take care of themselves — they find distracting activities for themselves. M. Csikszentmihalyi picked up the following examples. An American pilot in Vietnamese captivity endlessly plays mental games of golf, and thanks to this, after his release, he brilliantly plays a real game; Hungarian political prisoners in prison organized a competition for the best poetic translation; Eva Tsezel, who was imprisoned in Lubyanka, mentally collected wall lamps from improvised materials; A. Solzhenitsyn, in contrast to those who tried to escape by throwing themselves on barbed wire, periodically fell into a state of mental flight, “carried away” away; etc. [Csikszentmihalyi, 2011, p. 116-150].

After these descriptions, M. Csikszentmihalyi gives a very interesting paragraph: “Richard Logan analyzed the records of many people who experienced intolerable situations, including the works of Viktor Frankl and Bruno Bettelheim, who reflected on the sources of people’s inner strength in extremely difficult circumstances. It turned out that all the «survivors» were united by one common feature: «unegocentric individualism», i.e. the presence of an important goal that is above personal interests. Such people do not leave efforts, even being in almost hopeless circumstances. Intrinsic motivation makes them resilient in the face of external dangers. Having enough free mental energy to objectively analyze the situation, they are more likely to discover new opportunities for action” [Csikszentmihalyi, 2011, p. 150].

So — an objective analysis and discovery of opportunities for action. But where, where are these actions themselves, for the sake of which mental flight and fantasies were necessary? There is a cliff here — there are no examples and descriptions of such actions! Let us polemically sharpen the judgment: the Soviet pilot M.P. Devyataev, who spent more than six months in Nazi captivity, managed to assemble a group of other prisoners and capture a German aircraft, figure out the structure of this system unknown to him in minutes (he also mentally lost in advance — but not the parties in golf, and actions in an airplane), who managed to escape from the air chase and fly to the Soviet side, is less interesting for M. Chiksentmihalyi than another pilot — who mentally played golf all the time he was in captivity, was released by someone and then continues to play already on freedom. Maybe M. Chiksentmihalyi does not know specifically about M.P. Devyataev — but, what is really surprising, he does not seem to know about other cases of the same kind, in which there was not only a mental «fly away».

Similarly, M. Seligman precedes his book with a wonderful epigraph (Marvin Levin’s poem «Transcendence»), which contains the following lines:

And we can change ourselves

And, hands outstretched through the bars,

To rescue each other from captivity.

But even M.Seligman has no examples of mutual assistance and real resistance — it is about rescuing each other from the spiritual captivity of former stereotypes.

In general, it seems that these authors know about resilience and flexibility, but they don’t know about resistance, or so little that there is nothing and no need to write about positive psychologists.

N. Linde writes: “Those who want to “unravel” this world are trying to sort everything out, control everything, plan everything. They want to turn the world into a perfectly working mechanism that corresponds to their ideas about the right life. This desire was of great importance for the life of all mankind. The communists wanted to «unravel» the world in their own way, and the fascists — in their own way. Everyone knows what came of this, but they proceeded from the humanistic desire of the people of the 18th century to subordinate everything to reason, to renounce God and the unconscious!” [Linde, 2009].

The attitude of N. Linde not to the fascists, but to the anti-fascists remains unknown. They, too, were supposed to leave the world alone and not try to unravel anything?

Partly similar to N. Linde’s reasoning about attempts to rebuild the world is the judgment of an accidentally surviving concentration camp prisoner — the character of S. Lem. “The consequences of humanistic systems were, in fact, zero, and the consequences of those others, like Nietzsche’s, were nightmarish, and even the commandment to love one’s neighbor, as well as the program for building an earthly paradise, managed to be converted into rather mass graves.” But the conclusion of this character is fundamentally different: “Of course, making it impossible to cause evil is also an evil for many people, those who are very unhappy without the unhappiness of others. But let them be unhappy” [Lem, 1990, p. 243-247].

Criticizing the provisions of positive psychology, R. Lazarus writes: “Cruelty, murder, slavery, genocide, prejudice, discrimination, and, perhaps worst of all, indifference to human suffering, are in abundance today, and there were in previous centuries. Reading about the many manifestations of social evil, we should be grateful to the many people for their heroic virtues, mobilized in response to this evil” [Lazarus, 2003a, p. 107].

Meanwhile, positive psychologists also write (usually briefly, in the introduction and conclusion) about citizenship and altruism, but you will not find in these texts examples of such citizenship and such altruism that would lead to any significant losses for the citizen and altruist.

In many texts on positive psychology there are references to the need to understand the other and the development of social intelligence. But you will not find there examples of the work of social intelligence related to the understanding of other people’s evil intentions and actions. The most tense situation is mutual misunderstanding, but not a bad intention.

Does this mean that positive psychologists themselves, in the event of a threat, are not ready to show anything more than just patient resilience? That they cannot actively (and not only by an internal flight into a positive experience) react to other people’s actions, which they assess as dangerous, hostile? On the contrary, they can and are ready. R. Lazarus [Lazarus, 2003a] published an article criticizing positive psychology in the journal Psychological Inquiry, and leading positive psychologists published their commentary articles in the same issue. These comments were made in such a way that R. Lazarus in his summary article, in addition to a meaningful analysis of the opponents’ answers, makes the following remark. After reading the comments of M. Seligman and J. Pawelski [Seligman, Pawelski, 2003], M. Csikszentmihalyi [Csikszentmihalyi, 2003] and some other authors, he felt as if he had disturbed a nest of hornets, which began to sting a hostile invader in response [Lazarus, 2003b , p. 174, 177]. He repeated the remark about the hornets twice in different places in the article — this indicates that this comparison was not chosen by chance.

Of course, criticism from R. Lazarus was really harsh: he characterized positive psychology as not so much a scientific as an ideological movement, a kind of populist religion that does not shine with intellectual depth and promotes a distorted, oversimplified view of the world, and also analyzed in detail, in detail which he considers to be the fundamental methodological and methodological errors of this approach. To better understand what positive psychology was by the beginning of 2003 (later, some of the criticism was taken into account), it is worth reading not only the texts of its founding fathers, but also the article by R. Lazarus, the controversy on it and his response to the remarks of opponents — “ A manifesto for positive psychology and psychology in general” [Lazarus, 2003b].

But even if his critique of positive psychology were truly disgusting in content and form, something else is important for us here. Namely, it turned out that positive psychologists (propagandists of wisdom, positive talents, and other virtues) use such strategies for interacting with an opponent that he feels himself in a nest of stinging hornets. Moreover, B. Held, independently of R. Lazarus, also writes that the founders of positive psychology are trying to position it as a separate, different approach among the social sciences and protect this territory, pathologising the representatives of «negative» psychology, which, as such, before the introduced there was no distinction between them. But this desire to pathologize what you have defined as different from your field does not seem entirely healthy in itself [Held, 2004]. The “tyranny of positivity” that reigns in American culture finds its naturally concentrated expression in positive psychology and is further strengthened by the messages of the latter [Ibid.].

On the whole, the texts of positive psychology, which are directed outward (and not to critics), leave a feeling of the “discourse of glamor”, if we use the words of V. Pelevin, which were not addressed to positive psychology, but to the key component of modern culture, which, according to V. Pelevin, complements the other — «the glamor of discourse». Working in these terms, I will express the polemical consideration that positive psychology is a philosophical and psychological discourse of glamor, its philosophical and psychological justification and an “exquisite case”. Within the framework of this discourse, the idea is substantiated that by striving to experience positive sensations, increasing the comfort of your existence, you contribute to a good, lofty goal — omniscience, omnipotence and righteousness of the future of mankind. Having said this at the beginning and at the end of the book, the author can devote 99% of the rest of the content to how the reader can improve the quality of his positive feelings — improve both due to the positive feelings themselves, and due to the proud consciousness that attention to the negative is irrelevant — this irrelevance is constantly emphasized by leading scientists.

In this regard, VN Druzhinin’s statement about the forerunner of positive psychology, the psychology of self-actualization, seems quite logical. “Self-actualizing personalities are endowed, according to Maslow, with a mass of “positive” traits. They perceive the world around them more calmly, less emotional and more objective, impartial, not subject to hopes and fears, stereotypes, not afraid of problems and contradictions. A self-actualizing person accepts himself as he is. He has no feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety. He feels the joy of life. [He freed himself «from such a chimera as conscience.» Well, this self-actualizing person is a scoundrel!]” [Druzhinin, 2000, p. 67].

K. Benson shows the ethnocentrism of the concept of a self-actualizing personality and the hidden immoral consequences of its use in cultures other than Western. His conclusion: «This is an acultural, anti-historical psychology in complete self-confidence flying under the camouflage of historical references» [Benson, 2001, p. 227].

B.S. Bratus also believes that humanistic psychology, despite its name, is non-moral — it is “the psychology of the self as an end in itself of a person” [Bratus, 1997, p. 12]. Referring to V. Frankl, he emphasizes that “self-actualization aimed at oneself means a miss in the main thing”, since “the central, meaning-forming characteristic of a person is his way of relating to another person” [Bratus, 1997, p. eight].

But this relation to the other does not exist in positive psychology either. When M. Csikszentmihalyi writes, separated by commas, “non-egocentric individualism, i.e. the presence of an important goal that is above personal interests, ”he mixes very different things. «Unself-centered individualism» means that a person is able to «get joy from everyday life without preventing others from doing the same.» But the presence of an important goal that stands above personal interests suggests something else. This important goal may be positive or negative, but in any case it is not the goal of an unself-centered individualist.

An example that will probably be understood by a positive psychologist who rejects preoccupation with negativity and illness: even in a fairly everyday, non-extreme situation of illness of one’s own child, the goal of being happy with a loving parent recedes into the background, the tenth plan. Social and other intelligences have to be mobilized for something else, and not for what measures to take in order to experience maximum happiness.

Conclusion

Positive psychologists either really have, or try to create in the reader an idea of ​​a world that is so friendly that its representatives do not have negative manifestations that are in any way worthy of attention. You don’t have to do anything except take care of yourself, self-improvement and a feeling of happiness.

This mass positive psychology in its variant, developed primarily for the Western reader, respectively, is possible only in a prosperous and well-protected society. Positive thinking, unaware of the negative aspects of life, works especially well when, metaphorically speaking, you have a mother with a machine gun behind you.

At the same time, positive psychology keeps quiet and turns away in situations of serious social distress (after all, they are not its subject), and when it does occasionally speak out, it offers a mental flight.

People who practice that special positive “flying away” thinking that rejects concern with the problem of evil, while in concentration camps and prisons, approach European or Indian ideals of holiness, asceticism and non-resistance to evil by violence, which ideals are not at all the ideal of modern Western society. Accordingly, these exceptional examples, cited by positive psychologists as evidence of the universality of their approach, remain exceptional. Real asceticism and mass glossy psychological journals, willingly publishing texts by positive psychologists about improving positive feelings, are things that are incompatible.

Is positive psychology aware of these problems? Yes, in the conclusion of his book, I. Bonewell lists a number of problems, of which the following may be related to the problem of good and evil:

• “the danger of turning positive psychology into an ideological movement” (“intellectual narrowness”, “obsession with self-imposed positivity, leading to a lack of depth, lack of realism and simplification” [Bonivell, 2009, p. 164]);
• “bias and one-sidedness”, leading to the fact that “negative psychology”, which studies negative phenomena, is generally ignored by positive psychologists;
• dependence on corporate funding, which can call into question the objectivity and independence of the conclusions of positive psychology.

If these problems are not addressed, positive psychology may become a victim of its own ideology [Ibid. S. 166].

I. Bonivell also cites harsh criticism of the opponents of positive psychology — R. Lazarus, H. Tennen and G. Affleck [Tennen, Affleck, 2003] and agrees with them regarding the need for synthesis, integration of positive and negative psychology and their knowledge about a person. “In this case, positive psychology will probably cease to exist as an independent movement, but this is the result that I most hope for,” — so, somewhat paradoxically for a positive psychologist, I. Bonivell concludes his book. One can wish that the hope of I.Bonivell come true. True, on the basis of reading the texts of other positive psychologists, one does not get the impression that this desire of hers has a significant number of potential supporters. Most positive psychologists either do not see the problem of evil sincerely, or they see it, but suggest turning away and thinking about pleasant things. The reader of books on positive psychology is left to believe that this is the right strategy.

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About the author

Poddyakov Alexander Nikolaevich. Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Department of Psychology, Higher School of Economics (National Research University), st. Myasnitskaya, 20, 101000 Moscow, Russia.

Email: [email protected]

Web page: www.hse.ru