 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | 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. |
Average Customer Rating:   Positive Thinking Gets A Minus Happiness. Who wouldn't want that? Philosophers and spiritual leaders have examined happiness and prescribed habits of thought and behavior to achieve it - from Aristotle, who identified it with the practice of virtue, to the Buddha, who advocated the elimination of suffering by eliminating desire. In the middle of the 19th century there arose a movement in this country, in reaction to the suppressive Calvinist doctrine that hard work and a joyless life make for a saved soul. The movement originated with Phineas Quimby, who sought to heal people from their doldrums through the application of New Thought, using the powers of the mind to relieve the depression and despondency that seemed to spread among the American middle-class. This initial movement that taught that man could rise above his circumstances through the use of the mind evolved into what was labeled positive thinking in the middle of the 20th century.
So what could be so bad about positive thinking, which seems, on the face of it, inherently good? Accordingly to Barbara Ehrenreich, many things, both in what positive thinking tends to neglect and in the way it can be insidiously applied. As for the first, Ehrenreich claims, and I think accurately, that positive thinking tends to relegate reality to the background and, as such, distorts reality and the real possibilities for identifying the causes of problems and coming up with rational and practicable solutions. On a mundane level, if you have a throat infection, positive thinking is unlikely to make it go away. It may make you feel psychologically good on some level, but amoxicillin will probably make you feel both physically and mentally better faster than positive thinking will. In more serious circumstances, like cancer for example, positive thinking may give nothing but a false sense of hope, or even make you feel responsible for your own condition. As someone who had breast cancer, Ehrenreich provides an intimate account of how the positive thinking mindset made her feel alone and unable to share appropriately her feelings of anger and dismay. And this is one of her major insights about positive thinking: that it leads to the same suppression and self-monitoring of feelings and thought that it meant to overcome as a deviant from Calvinist moralism. This leads also to the second affront against positive thinking, where its insidious application leads to the alienation of those who dare to think negative thoughts if positive thinking is the expected and sometimes required mindset, as with corporations who hire motivational speakers to boost morale (and sales).
Overall I think that Ehrenreich rightly targets positive thinking nonsense, like the law of attraction, and distorted applications, like Joel Osteen's prosperity gospel (I am sorry, but Jesus did not die so that I could get a better parking spot, or a promotion at work). I am not sure whether her criticism of positive psychology is fully justified. I think that positive psychology is a sincere effort to focus the mental health profession on the positive side of mental health, to identify factors that could help people feel better in general. I think this is analogous to the effort in medicine to focus on preventive medicine and healthier habits, and not just on disease. If in fact randomized test show that the positive psychology movement is barking up the wrong tree, then it can't be faulted for following what appeared as a promising path. Perhaps, then, we all need to return to Aristotle and others to seek our happiness.
Like a breath of fresh air A call for authenticity and critical thinking. To me the most important point in this book is that we risk isolating people if we refuse to be around those who aren't positive enough.
Barbara Ehrenreich wrote of breast cancer support groups in which people can't express their honest, if pessimistic, feelings without risk of being ostracized. She noted that women may be reverting to a state of complete trust and dependence, and are given gifts of pink teddy bears and crayons.
I think we should have the guys from Freakonomics look into the link between the positive thinking movement and the nation's recent economic problems. It's certainly possible The Cruelty of "Positivity" Barbara Ehrenreich, in her superbly-written book "Bright-Sided" exposes what is one of the most callous, cold-hearted, and cruel pop-psychologies to come along: positive thinking. Its cruelty lies in the fact that on the surface it sounds nice, but underneath it is a philosophy that I feel has fostered the now-rampant attitude of uncaring and selfishness we see in today's society. "Positive thinking" is nothing more than a "blame the victim" philosophy. Homeless? It's your fault, because you weren't 'positive' enough" - it has nothing to do with unfair distribution of wealth. "Unemployed? It's your fault - you weren't 'positive' enough, so you didn't attract that job that is waiting for you." This is a philosophy that lets corporations and politicians off the hook when it comes to providing for America's citizens. And to see a large part of the scientific community, the politicians, the clergy, the corporations, and the brainwashed people who espouse and support this philosophy does not bode well for America becoming a more caring, happy nation. The philosophy of positive thinking fosters greed, callousness, and inhumanity and Barbara Ehrenreich deserves high praise for bringing this evil to light. This book should be read by everyone. A cogent critique of wishful thinking Barbara Ehrenreich is one of those people who just can't resist poking at the soft underbelly of American mythology. And there is so much to poke at in Bright-Sided--from the money-making motivational industry to the secular theology of multi-million dollar mega-church corporations. However, Ehrenreich's goal is not to skewer positive thinking, as some readers may think, but to expose the degree to which it has replaced common sense.
Although I enjoyed this book tremendously, Ehrenreich occasionally gets tangled up in her own myths. In her discussion of the 19th century illness, neuraesthenia (The Dark Roots of American Optimism), Ehrenreich makes the claim that when "male prejudice" barred women from higher education, "invalidism became a kind of alternative career." Here Ehrenreich falls into the very style of thinking that she deplores in the rest of her book. If positive thinking cannot make you well, then clearly negative thinking cannot make you ill. (Ehrenreich could claim that neuraesthenia was an imaginary illness, but then she would be ignoring the very real health problems caused by lung-crushing corsets, poor public sanitation and the common medical practice of dosing women with mercury.) Later, Ehrenreich makes a similar error when discussing lower back pain. You can't have it both ways. Either your thoughts control the real world or they don't.
Equally implausible was Ehrenreich's assertion that positive thinking has destroyed America's economy. While it's reassuring to believe that the CEOs of our major corporations are actually thinking, the reality is that unmitigated greed combined with an official economic policy of "don't ask, don't tell" (what Senator Byrd called the "plundering" of America) is what has led us to ruin. When Nero fiddled while Rome burned, he was not thinking positively. He was not thinking at all.
On the positive side (ahem), when Ehrenreich sinks her teeth into some cold, hard facts, she really shines. Her lambasting of the motivational industry, and how it connects to the errors of corporate decisions was enlightening. (And right in line with industry's "positive" response to failure, Toyota has recently put out ads proclaiming that it is "moving forward.") The chapter exposing the economic underpinnings of mega-church materialism and of the insidious spread of "secular theology" was truly inspirational.
On the whole, this was a pithy, cogent and well researched critique. Americans have, indeed, turned a blind eye to reality. As Ehrenreich says, "the point is to acquire the skills not of positive thinking but of critical thinking." Bright-Sided is a much needed step in that direction.
A Very Valuable Book ... sezs a Motivational Speaker Kudos to Barbara Ehrenreich for writing this expose on the silly nonsense that passes for positive thinking in our culture. If you've been forced to sit through a motivational speaker at work, then you'll enjoy reading Barbara's explanation of the root causes and genesis of the cult of positive thinking in our culture.
As for motivational speakers, it's not just the audience who can feel frustrated. I recently stepped away from a speaking business (where I was earning 5 figures for a single speech). In the past five years or so, I worked with many, many teams who wanted me to deliver a sloppy, shoddy message to their people based on this nonsensical positive thinking. I got into the speaking business thinking that audiences wanted to hear new ideas and thoughts. Many organizers only want sheer entertainment value.
I couldn't say the lies, so I have drastically cut back on the number of speeches I give each year.
Barbara Ehrenreich's book helped me to better understand the cultural shifts that have been going on.
Highly recommended. |  |
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