Barbara Ehrenreich

Exposes the downside of America's penchant for positive thinking, which the author believes leads to self-blame and a preoccupation with stamping out "negative" thoughts on a personal level, and, on a national level, has brought on economic disaster.

How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

Bright-sided

Gavin

Sharp! Blames the tendency in its many forms – the New Age mystic sort, the New Age pseudoscience sort, the self-help, motivational, pink ribbon, megachurch, and respectable positive psychology forms – for suffering and tastelessness (...including the whole 2008 financial crisis...). 

Sardonic muscle:
   
I felt at that moment, and for the first time in this friendly crowd, absolutely alone. If science is something you can accept or reject on the basis of personal taste, then what kind of reality did she and I share?… To base a belief or worldview on science is to is to reach out to the nonbelievers and the uninitiated, to say that they too can come to the same conclusions if they make the same systematic observations and inferences. The alternative is to base one’s worldview on revelation or mystical insight, and these things cannot be reliably shared with others. So there’s something deeply sociable about science; it rests entirely on observations that can be shared with and repeated by others… It is a glorious universe the positive thinkers have come up with, a vast, shimmering aurora borealis… It’s just a god-awful lonely place.


Was disturbed by her personal impressions of the legit psychologists (e.g. Seligman’s profiteering and evasiveness, the blitheness of it to WEIRDness and other biases).

Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-sided is a sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism Americans 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.

How Positive Thinking is Undermined America

Abigail F

Brief review: interesting concept but not overly engaging. Felt overly repetitive as she pretentiously poked at main stream positivity. Seemed to make a lot of straw man arguments. Did make me more critical of positivity things I’ve seen, but did not change my mind on positive thinking in general.

I.m. ruzz

this book is worth it's hardcover price purely on the weight of a scathing full out attack on "positive" thinking in lieu of "critical" thinking which comes as closing argument for the book. 

A powerful, erudite and biting argument following several chapters on the evolution of the "happiness movement" and the costs against our quality of life as it's reached its peak coming from virtually all sides. 

she uncovers several lines of thought which explored help give some context to how we are able to live in a world that is crumbling by our own hand yet we seem paralyzed to do anything about it. 

206 pages well spent.

Lindy

Mher Alaverdyan

Gustav Vallin

How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Underminded America

Giovanni Garcia-Fenech 

Samantha Armstrong

Barbara Ehrenreich's New York Times bestselling Bright-sided is a sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism Americans 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 is the key to getting success and prosperity. Or so we are told. In this utterly original debunking, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the false promises of positive thinking and shows its reach into every corner of American life, from Evangelical megachurches to the medical establishment, and, worst of all, to the business community, where the refusal to consider negative outcomes--like mortgage defaults--contributed directly to the current economic disaster. With the myth-busting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of positive thinking: personal self-blame and national denial. 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.

Bright-sided How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

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