Bright-sided

Books | Business & Economics / Personal Success

3.8

Barbara Ehrenreich

A sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realismAmericans are a "positive" people—cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity. In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to "prosper" you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of "positive psychology" and the "science of happiness." Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—contributed directly to the current economic crisis. With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America's penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out "negative" thoughts. On a national level, it's brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.

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More Details:

Author

Barbara Ehrenreich

Pages

235

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

2009-10-13

ISBN

0805087494 9780805087499

Ratings

Google: 3.5

Community ReviewsSee all

"Relentless optimism is bad for you, concludes veteran social observer Barbara Ehrenreich. Not just bad for individuals, but for employees, companies, the economy and theology. After surviving the horrors of breast cancer treatment, and the far more draining trauma of the, "cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me!" cheerleaders, Ehrenreich is fed up. Get real, she says. Poverty, illness,and injustice exist; they can't be wished away by positive thinking, the "laws of attraction" or mind over matter.<br/><br/>Ehrenreich delves into historical strains of organized wishful thinking: from 19th century huckster Phineas Quimby and his disciple Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science; 20th century gurus Norman Vincent Peale, and Reverend Ike, up to current practitioners like Joel Osteen and _The Secret_ "discoverer" Rhonda Byrnes. Ehrenreich examines the pernicious effect of unrealistic optimism on the foreclosure crisis, and the cruelty inherent in telling sick or unemployed people that their misfortunes are all the result of their own "bad thoughts".<br/><br/>I was powerfully reminded of the movie _Up in the Air_, when George Clooney convinces a newly downsized employee that getting fired is "the opportunity of a lifetime!" Riiiiight.As the daughter of a chronically ill and deluded Christian Scientist, I have my own bad memories of being told to do my (mental) work when sick, and believing my grandmother had died because I hadn't prayed hard enough. Although Ehrenreich lets her personal anti-conservative biases (which I share)influence the discussion, this is overall an enlightened, well-argued look at a disturbing strain of American thought."