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

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

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 3,636 ratings · 805 reviews

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 nin...more

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published October 13th 2009 by Metropolitan Books (first published 2008)

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Oct 31, 2009 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: normal people

Recommended to Katie by: The Daily Show

Shelves: history, religion, sociology, psychology

Boy is it nice to see someone exposing Positive fucking Psychology, The Secret, the "prosperity gospel," and all the rest of the American happytalk crap. I get so sick of it. I get so fucking sick of it. God, I got so sick of it at the Health NonProfit Call Center I worked at--all the smileys and balloons and cheery emails with little animated cartoons ("Join me on the coverage train!") and the required-attendance pep rallies and the color-coded performance scales with little medals and the cute...more Boy is it nice to see someone exposing Positive fucking Psychology, The Secret, the "prosperity gospel," and all the rest of the American happytalk crap. I get so sick of it. I get so fucking sick of it. God, I got so sick of it at the Health NonProfit Call Center I worked at--all the smileys and balloons and cheery emails with little animated cartoons ("Join me on the coverage train!") and the required-attendance pep rallies and the color-coded performance scales with little medals and the cutesy slogans, and the kindergarten level decorations, and the endless teddygoddamnbears, and the bunting, and the smiles, smiles, smiles. All of it designed to make you work harder and harder and quit bitching about it. One guy I knew got in trouble for telling a caller, someone terminal, that "Cancer sucks." The issue wasn't slang so much as negativity. You can't say cancer sucks? Cancer does suck! Currently, my old department is being eliminated and everyone laid off. They are trying to be positive and they are all going nuts.

Ehrenreich starts out with her experience with breast cancer. Okay, so this is not the best time in my life to read this book, 'cause on Monday I am having a diagnostic mammogram. (Thanks again, Health NonProfit! I'm blaming you for this too.) I agree with Ehrenreich--please let me die any other way than clutching a teddy bear, surrounded by pink femininity. If this innocent little...thingy...turns out to be...I don't want to see any goddamn pink for the rest of my life. But it's worse than pink; she writes about women who are kicked out of breast cancer support groups when their cancer relapses; who are castigated in chatrooms for not being upbeat. About books where cancer is celebrated as life-affirming, life-giving, the best thing that could happen to you. Even those about to die, wasted, bald, in pain, too young, seem to be expected to be happy and grateful. And the worst seems to be that if you do die, it is your own fault. This is the attitude not just of patients but of nurses and doctors too. This is the scariest part of the mammogram Monday. Oh God, please, please, anything but that...Ehrenreich, who has a doctorate in cell biology, points out that even if positive thinking could strengthen the immune system, it would not help defeat most cancers, since most cancers have nothing to do with the immune system.

Actually, that's just the introduction, the teaser, if you will. She gives a history of positive thinking in America, as a reaction to Calvinism--but not the oppostive of it, more an extension of it, one that still requires constant self-examination, discipline, and strictness. She exposes positive thinking as "a godawful lonely" way of living, since it calls for extreme self-involvement and requires the practitioner to cut herself off from "negative" people, even if they are family or friends. She looks at "positive" Christianity, questioning (as I and others do) whether it really has anything to do with authentic Christianity, and at positive psychology--that's where Seligman comes in. Evidently Seligman has lost faith in it a bit himself. She agrees with me about the abuse of positive thinking as a tool for making corporate employees compliant and passive in a time of downsizing; it's easier than using dogs and guns, after all. She also blames positive thinking in part for the economic meltdown. The Fed believed in a permanently healthy market; the market believed in permanently high housing prices; the way to get out of the mess is for everybody to keep buying on credit.

One weekend in college, a bunch of us went on a day hike in the Adirondacks. We missed a turn and came to the end of the trail. Someone said, "Hey, we have a compass and we know the lodge is west of here--right over that ridge. Let's cut across country!" Most of the group said, "Sure, that's a good idea!" A few said, "Well, maybe we should go back and look for the turnoff." We took a vote; it came out 20-0 with one abstention. Twenty intelligent people, all of whom had some orienteering experience, all of whom knew better, voted to leave the path at six o'clock on a September evening because, hey, we got a compass, we'll be fine, heck. And after five hours of wandering in the pitch dark, we did find our way home and we were fine.

I'd give this book 5 stars if Ehrenreich didn't make the people she doesn't like sound ugly or dumb. Does that mean I'm being too nice? Or that I don't like cheap shots? Okay, Joel Osteen's short and wears a mullet and dumb suits. Martin Seligman is rude and controlling. (I've always thought Seligman was a jerk, but do you have to rub my--or his--nose in it?)

I like how two of the Google ads that showed up when I selected this book were for books called "Manifest Anything" and "Attract Abundance." Ehrenreich would probably spit coffee out her nose.(less)

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Aug 24, 2010 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

I always feel slightly guilty about my reaction to Barbara Ehrenreich's writing. I do admire her - she is ideologically committed, writes with passion, is on what I consider the "correct" side of the various social issues that concern her. And yet ... somehow I always end up with these niggling reservations that prevent me from endorsing her books wholeheartedly.

In the case of "Nickel and Dimed", probably her best-known work, the niggling reservation was the artificiality of the whole endeavor...more I always feel slightly guilty about my reaction to Barbara Ehrenreich's writing. I do admire her - she is ideologically committed, writes with passion, is on what I consider the "correct" side of the various social issues that concern her. And yet ... somehow I always end up with these niggling reservations that prevent me from endorsing her books wholeheartedly.

In the case of "Nickel and Dimed", probably her best-known work, the niggling reservation was the artificiality of the whole endeavor - the knowledge that the whole exercise of adopting the role of one of the "working poor" was undermined by the existing safety net Ehrenreich had available in her actual life. Though it didn't invalidate her message, it seemed (to me) enough of a distraction to weaken the effectiveness of her presentation.

Her recent book, "Bright-sided", has much to recommend it: Ehrenreich's willingness to question received wisdom and dig deeper for answers, her characteristically clear thinking, expressed in clear and forceful prose. Her central target in "Bright-sided" is a U.S. trait that is both a strength and a weakness - the uniquely American faith in the power of positive thinking.

In the opening chapter, which I found the most powerful in the book, Ehrenreich describes her experience as a breast cancer patient. There is an extensive, well-organized network to which someone just diagnosed with (breast) cancer can turn for support. One of the most prevalent messages promulgated within this "support" network is that maintaining a positive attitude towards one's disease is imperative. Ehrenreich argues persuasively that, in many cases, this rigidly enforced dogma of positive thinking (to the extent of asking patients to view their disease as a "gift"), is in no way supportive, and actually ends up making people feel guilty about a bad situation beyond their control. Nonetheless, the belief that maintaining a positive attitude can actually affect the course of one's disease remains prevalent, accepted unquestioningly by the majority of cancer patients, despite an almost complete lack of objective scientific evidence to support it.

In subsequent chapters, Ehrenreich shows how variations of the same belief, which is essentially little more than magical thinking, have taken hold in different aspects of American life, and different sectors of U.S. society. The popularity of books like "The Secret", the practice of advising people who have been laid off to "take control" of their situation through positive visualization, the explosive growth of the "motivational seminar" business, the rise of evangelical churches peddling the message that "God wants you to be rich" -- all are manifestations of the same fundamental belief, not just in the importance of a positive attitude, but in its ability to bring about change.

Ehrenreich believes (and I agree with her) that it's essentially a steaming heap of crap. The prevalent faith in positive thinking not only exaggerates its potential benefits, its effects can be actively detrimental. For instance, the amazing lack of outrage within the lower classes at the obscene excesses of the super-rich is due in no small measure to the belief that, with hard work and luck, anyone can achieve a similar measure of financial success*. This leads to a focus on the individual's own status, but works against genuine social change, of the kind that might make a real difference. And, of course, the recent financial meltdown had its origins in the exaggerated confidence that blinded investors to the (real and substantial) risks of subprime mortgages, or versions thereof, repackaged in the guise of assorted shady financial instruments. Throughout the book, Ehrenreich makes her case articulately and persuasively.

Why only three stars? Because I think the book is about twice as long as it needs to be. The point that Ehrenreich wishes to make is not particularly difficult, nor is it sufficiently important to warrant 225 pages of exposition. Much of the material in the middle chapters feels redundant - crowding in one more anecdote about yet another ridiculous motivational speaker, long after the point has been made. The phrase "methinks the lady doth protest too much" flitted unbidden across my mind, leaving me feeling slightly guilty, as Ehrenreich's books usually seem to do.

Though it's a little bloated, "Bright-sided" is nonetheless well worth your consideration.

* : In the words of a 1996 Brookings Institute study: Strong belief in opportunity and upward mobility is the explanation for Americans' high tolerance for inequality. The majority of Americans surveyed believe they will be above mean income in the future (even though this is mathematically impossible).
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May 04, 2011 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: current-affairs

Read the reviews by Trevor (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) and Lena (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) They are better, but I couldn’t resist a few comments.

I didn’t expect to like this book. I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about Nickle and Dimed, but this title was chosen for our reading club, so I gave it a whirl.

Ehrenreich uses her personal experience with breast cancer as a jumping off point.which led to her loathing for the pink-ribbon-cancer-is-a-blessing-and-will-make-you...more

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Mar 14, 2010 Jafar rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I remember reading this line in Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist: "When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true." I didn’t think about it too much. The book was full of such ridiculous but touchy-feely-warm-and-fluffy pronouncements. But then I kept seeing this quote everywhere. And Coelho is not the only one going around saying such vacuous platitudes. The reason why so many people find such patently-false absurdities charming or even inspiring...more I remember reading this line in Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist: "When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true." I didn’t think about it too much. The book was full of such ridiculous but touchy-feely-warm-and-fluffy pronouncements. But then I kept seeing this quote everywhere. And Coelho is not the only one going around saying such vacuous platitudes. The reason why so many people find such patently-false absurdities charming or even inspiring has to do with the cuteness factor. People don’t really believe this stuff. They just read it and feel nice and warm about it, and then go about their life. The reason that I don’t get the same nice and warm feeling about it must be my dry overanalyzing of everything and my particular brain chemistry. That’s what I’ve been telling myself.

It turns out I was completely wrong and didn’t know about it. It’s not fluff. It’s much, much more than that. There’s this thing called the Law of Attraction which basically says that if you want something, you just put a lot of time and energy into visualizing it, and it should come to you. The universe is just a mail-order store. There’s a long history behind this drivel, and it has penetrated all corners of modern life, especially in the U.S., from New Age to mega-church Christianity to pop culture to corporate culture. It has become big business with coaches and gurus and motivational speakers busy milking the masses who apparently think that this is not the same as the old-fashioned voodoo magic. The ramifications of this trend of thought are so wide and deep that society in general, including those who haven’t fallen for this law-of-attraction gimmick, is in the grips of something called positive thinking.

This is a great book. Ehrenreich starts off with her personal account of her fight with breast cancer and finding herself smothered with pink ribbons and teddy bears. She then moves to discussing the roots of American optimism, and then all the interesting analysis on the tyrannical hold of “positive thinking” on the American way of life today. If Deepak and Coelho are your heroes, you need to read (and get annoyed by) this book.
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Dec 14, 2010 Judie Holliday rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Ehrenreich is the Richard Dawkins of positive thinking. While I like to think that I broadly agree with her, I'm sometimes put off by the way she says things and the spin she likes to put on certain people. Sarcasm should not be such a major weapon of an obviously intelligent and otherwise convincing author.

In some chapters, along with some very reasoned and potent argument, she attacks people for the way they dress or for their hairstyle (mullets and bulletheads). Do I have to dislike everythin...more

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Sep 12, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, merkins, distaff

This Just In

Short paragraphs and emoticons in reviews quadruple reading pleasure. :)

Shiny Happy People

Apparently, forced happiness is crushing the spirit of the American workforce and driving ravenous capitalists to unstoppable heights of self-delusion that contribute to the one hundred trillion dollars or so national debt. :) :)

I Love Your Smile

Millions of unemployed people, many middle-class professionals, have been forced into taking minimum wage jobs, in which any negative comments are met w...more

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Dec 01, 2009 Lena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, skepticism

Barbara Ehrenreich was first exposed to the dark side of the positive thinking movement when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Early into her cancer journey, she discovered that normal emotions such as anger and fear were being aggressively denied by those who believed that a positive attitude was crucial to survival. Cultural skeptic that she is, Ehernreich poured through the literature on the subject and found that, not only did science fail to support the hypothesis that a positive attitu...more Barbara Ehrenreich was first exposed to the dark side of the positive thinking movement when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Early into her cancer journey, she discovered that normal emotions such as anger and fear were being aggressively denied by those who believed that a positive attitude was crucial to survival. Cultural skeptic that she is, Ehernreich poured through the literature on the subject and found that, not only did science fail to support the hypothesis that a positive attitude contributes to healing cancer, but that those who failed to recover from cancer often experienced an especially cruel form of victim blaming at the hands of those who were convinced that it was their own faulty negative thinking that kept them sick.

This experience led Ehrenreich to explore in more depth the concept of positive thinking and how it is currently experienced in America today. She traces its roots back to the New Thought movement of the 19th century, a spiritualist reaction against Calvanism that gave birth to, among other things, Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science. Though nowhere near as depressing as Calvanism, these philosophies still heavily emphasized personal effort and striving, teaching that perfection was attainable if one worked hard enough and that problems in the physical body or external world were a reflection of work still needing to be done.

Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich) and Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking) helped to take these New Thought philosophies more into the mainstream. Though hungry salesman have often sought comfort in the promises of these sorts of speakers, Ehernreich explains how, over the last few decades, these kinds of ideas have deeply penetrated all levels of corporate culture. In a chapter titled "Motivating Business and The Business of Motivation," Ehrenreich details how corporations turned to motivational speakers to pump up workforces demoralized by layoffs and convince both those let go and those remaining that their attitude, and not the relentless pursuit of corporate profit, was responsible for their plight.

Though the recent phenomenon The Secret is a textbook example of how badly the idea of positive thinking can be misused in the service of personal gain, Ehrenreich also explores how certain Christian "prosperity" churches have gotten into the act, convincing their parishioners that God wants them to be rich and will help them get that way if they just show a little faith by giving money to the church. Her comments on how many of the devout poor were convinced the predatory mortgages they were being offered a few years back were a gift from God were particularly poignant.

One might think that psychologists who extol the virtues of positive thinking would be on firmer ground than those who have a more openly exploitative agenda, but in an entertaining chapter in which Ehrenreich describes her futile attempt to pin down positive psych guru Martin Seligman, it becomes clear that the science of happiness is much murkier than it has been presented in the press. While few would argue that being positive can feel good and many of us would prefer to be around "positive" people, how much we are actually able to control our reaction to circumstances and what effect that ultimately has in our lives is still significantly up for debate. Those who would argue that there's no harm in trying to be positive regardless of what the science says, however, would do well to read the chapter "How Positive Thinking Destroyed the Economy." The exhortation to cut out negative people from one's life was applied all too literally by CEOs who fired those who warned that they were taking on excessive amounts of risk.

As someone who was exposed early on to the fantasy that what you think can directly impact external reality, I am no stranger to the massive amount of internal stress caused by trying to control one's thinking to be only positive. I've spent the last few years deprogramming myself from these kinds of ideas and feel much happier now that I am no longer afraid of my own random thoughts and can experience the full range of emotions without the fear that doing so will somehow screw up my life. Despite my own early indoctrination into the cult of positive thinking, however, I was still very surprised to learn that these are not just fringe, New Age/self-help ideas but ones that have deeply permeated all layers of American culture. Americans are a uniquely positive people, more likely to believe they will move up in life than people in other countries do. This optimism is in direct contradiction to the fact that we are actually less likely to improve our station than more socialist-minded Canadians and Europeans. Yet the idea that anyone in America can succeed despite their background and that those who don't have only themselves to blame is regularly used to deny our less fortunate citizens benefits that are already the norm in other Western Democracies. Erenreich's discussion of this phenomenon, as well as how positive thinking is twisted to the service of repression by totalitarian regimes, was one of the most disturbing parts of the book.

Ehrenreich concludes her writing with a discussion of the importance of learning to realistically assess both potential positive and negative outcomes of our choices instead of just focusing solely on what we hope will happen. As she so thoughtfully points out, "We want our airplane pilots to anticipate failed engines as well as happy landings." Developing this kind of healthy realism will go much farther towards bringing us real happiness than carefully controlled positive thinking can ever hope to. (less)

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Mar 29, 2010 Al Bità rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a superb examination of a current cultural malaise which has taken over and dominated western thinking: Positive Thinking. So prevalent is this malaise that we automatically accept its premise: be positive. Nobody wants to be negative!

But 'being negative' is not what this book is about. It is concerned to reveal to the reader that there are deep and ugly realities that masquerade under the big smiley face we see everywhere; and it can and does do real harm. This is to be found in politic...more

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Jun 17, 2010 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Trevor by: Lena Phoenix

Shelves: psychology, science, economics

There is little point writing a review of a book once Lena has written one - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... - not, of course, that that will stop me.

This is a wonderful book. The main idea behind it is that we have developed a religious (quite literally) fervour for positive thinking. The best bits of this book are when she talks about the Evangelical Churches in the US and how they have moved away from negative images (like Jesus on the cross) towards Jesus in a three-piece business s...more There is little point writing a review of a book once Lena has written one - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... - not, of course, that that will stop me.

This is a wonderful book. The main idea behind it is that we have developed a religious (quite literally) fervour for positive thinking. The best bits of this book are when she talks about the Evangelical Churches in the US and how they have moved away from negative images (like Jesus on the cross) towards Jesus in a three-piece business suit with a smile to let you know just how much he wants you to be rich. I’m not a Christian, but I would have thought that this particular bastardisation of Christianity is so far removed from Christ’s message (sell all you have and give it to the poor rings a bell) that some Christians out there might even object to it. I mean, it would be like saying Lenin just wants you to be rich – but apparently Christians don't mind this new and updated message.

The other bit of this book that is very disturbing is where she continues the theme she started in Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream in talking about just how obscenely wealthy the CEOs have became at the expense of the rest of us. Before I get accused of the ‘politics of envy’ – I really do have to say that I don’t envy CEOs in the least. The people I have met who have been wealthy have also tended to be rather sad, self-satisfied and obsessed with money to the point of fetishism. Their greed and their belief that nothing else matters beyond money is so repulsive that I always smile when I hear conservative politicians and their cheer clubs pull out that line. I try to avoid envying people their sicknesses.

I’ve seen Evangelical ceremonies (of both the religious and the make-me-rich-quick kind) and I feel there is nothing attractive about them. Both seem to appeal to our basest human emotions. But I have never really made quite the connections that are made in this book between the two. The stuff comparing Calvinism and Positive Thinking is really interesting.

The saddest fact in the book is when she points out that the great American myth, the myth that allows the obscenely wealthy to gorge and pillage and to wallow in their wealth with impunity, is somewhat worse then mere exaggeration, it is quite simply a lie. The lie is that the average Joe will one day make it to being a billionaire (as he has been promised as a reward for his hard work). The problem is that this lie is even less true in America than it is in many other first world countries, countries where there is at least some hope of social mobility. Social mobility in the USA is actually virtually impossible. Ironically, the citizens of the USA do not even get upset with the excesses of the wealthy, because they (the poor citizens) are certain one day they too will be rich, and so, in preparation for that day, no limits must ever be placed on the greed of the wealthy. Their greed is our greed in waiting.

I initially thought this book would be limited to the evils of positive thinking in healthcare. The first part of this book looks at how positive thinking has a dark side that gets us to look on people who are dying and accuse them of having contributed to their illness by a kind of negative attraction. It is an idea I find truly repulsive. But this is only one of the kinds of Positive Thinking under attack here.

The book also looks at how we have created a culture where mentioning the train is about to crash, even if we offer the helpful suggestion that we might consider applying the brakes, is seen by many as being far too negative. We live in a world where the people in charge know they are being lied to virtually all of the time by their underlings, even if they can hardly complain because their underlings have been trained to always be positive and to never present senior management with problems, unless those ‘problems’ are referred to as opportunities after having been covered in a mountain of sugar. Not only has religion stopped being about suffering and been turned into a moronic self-help put-your-hand-in-the-hand of your heavenly personal trainer, but companies have become like Churches and so preach the same ‘wealth is wonderful’ message Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers about. The new-time religion is change, downsizing, mega-profits and smiley faces. There are now only two kinds of change – the kind that you affect on yourself, by smiling and saying ‘have a nice day’ until you fnally believe it is true and the kind that happens to you when you go from having a job to having the‘opportunity’ to discover the liberation of life without an income.

Barbara thinks that the financial crisis has done much to overcome this childlike positive mindlessness that has swept over us like mass hysteria. Although I really do wish this was the case, I have to admit to being somewhat less positive than she is. I have already heard in Australia that there actually was no financial crisis. I watch with horror at what is clearly a housing bubble here in Australia while being told that it will never burst by all manner of seemingly sensible people. In fact, here in Australia we are being told precisely what Barbara quotes was being said in the US prior to the little problem they had over there with that sub-prime mortgages thing from a couple of years back - isn't it amazing how quickly that stuff fades into the background. I need to chant that all is well and assure myself that house prices can continue to grow annually in double figures while the rest of the economy is growing at 2 or 3 percent. Why shouldn’t it be able to? Endless exponential growth sounds like just the ticket and can I interest you in a perpetual motion machine?

Obviously, there is something to the idea that Positive Thinking has something going for it. Like anybody else, I also like being around positive people and find negative people a strain. All the same, I would take a realist over someone who reads self-help books any day. There is something vacant in the eyes of those who have become obsessed with ‘positive thinking’. The most depressing fact is that the ‘positive thinking’ lobotomy needs to be self-administered. I’m not saying you should develop the personality of Melvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker’s Guide, but any idea that requires you to smile UNTIL you are happy, rather than BECAUSE you are happy, just can’t be a good.

The book talks extensively about the 'modern science of happiness' and some of what she says contradicts what is said in Stumbling on Happiness - a book I really quite enjoyed and would also recommend. However, I do think she has got a point and if you are interested in 'happiness' as the key to life, perhaps you should read Aristotle's Ethics rather than any of the self-help books she refers to that contain 'you' or 'your' in their title.

Like I said, a book well worth reading.(less)

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Mar 27, 2011 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Excellent wake-up call! Her criticisms of the positive thinking movement are well-grounded and insightful. She makes a critical distinction between positive delusions and true happiness, which allows for one's genuine emotions whether they be grief, anger, etc... She addresses our lack of empathy for others when we shut them out or blame them for becoming I'll because of their "negativity" whether they have cancer and are dying. She also makes the point that positive thinking that is delusional...more

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Mar 08, 2010 Vicky rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here is the book that deserves more than 5 stars. I see it as a very important read for many people and I highly recommend it. The concept of "positive thinking" had infiltrated everything around us and many people work so hard to stop the thoughts from being negative. At the same time regardless how hard we try to reprogram ourselves we still prone to negative emotions. In a very clever and entertaining way the book proves that it is impossible to apply positive thinking all the time and shows...more

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Aug 17, 2010 Laurel Watson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-psychology

Cynics Unite!!! This is perhaps one of the most thought provoking books I've read in a long time. Ehrenreich discusses how the positive thinking movement has duped Americans into buying into a culture of consumerism and blind faith. Here is a good quote because I'm too lazy to summarize in my own words:

"But always, in a hissed undertone, there is the darker message that if you don't have all that you want, if you feel sick, discouraged, or defeated, you have only yourself to blame."

This book dis...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Lari Don rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a powerful book! I think of myself as a positive, optimistic, glass-half-full sort of person, and I would, last week, have described myself as someone who was in favour of "positive thinking" but now that I've read this book, I'll be much more suspicious of the phrase. It's fine to see a glass as half-full rather than half-empty, if there is liquid in it, but it's delusional and dangerous to claim it's half full just because you wish it was, and actually there is nothing in there, or the gl...more

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May 16, 2011 Alan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Bright-Sided has a terrific introduction about the history and influence of positive thinking in our culture. Ehrenreich's writing is always clear, well-supported and interesting but I was surprised how engaged I got in her argument that positive thinking is too often a mindless, childish whitewash over the reality of nature and our culture. She cites measures of happiness that place Americans way down the list although we work so hard at the happiness business. She wrote a terrific chapter abou...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Yael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Background: Yrs Truly, Dear Reader, is a Ceremonial Magickian. My avocation and day-to-day experience and work are all bound up with various esoteric disciplines, including Magick, alchemy, astrology, Qaballah, and related fields. Magick that works is a commonplace for me. Current thinking among Magickians like myself is that quantum mechanics underlies paranormal phenomena and successful Magick. There is even evidence to support that idea; life apparently harnessed quantum mechanics in its serv...more Background: Yrs Truly, Dear Reader, is a Ceremonial Magickian. My avocation and day-to-day experience and work are all bound up with various esoteric disciplines, including Magick, alchemy, astrology, Qaballah, and related fields. Magick that works is a commonplace for me. Current thinking among Magickians like myself is that quantum mechanics underlies paranormal phenomena and successful Magick. There is even evidence to support that idea; life apparently harnessed quantum mechanics in its service long ago, perhaps even from its very beginnings on Earth, as shown by extremely sophisticated biological processes occurring today, such as photosynthesis and the workings of the central nervous system.

That said, however, it's high time somebody jammed a gigantic hatpin into the egregiously inflated cultural balloon of Positive Thinking with so much energy that the bang can be heard over in the Norma Galactic Cluster. Its roots in a growing and very understandable 19th-century rejection of the American version of Calvinism, in its many incarnations, from Christian Science and the Prosperity Gospel to all the various New Age cults and Scientology, Positive Thinking has ultimately proved to be a blight upon the psychospiritual landscape of epic proportions. Not only has it gone over to the enemy; it was the enemy all along, the original wolf tricked out in a coat fashioned of sweetness-and-light lambskin. Calvinism was a hideous psychosocial cancer, promoting involutional black depression to the point of suicide, self-directed sadomasochism in the guise of religious instruction and training. The 19th-century Positivists, such as Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy, and William James, turned Calvinism inside-out and upside-down and pronounced it a cure, but it was the same vicious old slave-driving monster as it had always been, however pretty the new suits of clothing they dressed it up in might be. Billing itself as Magick by another name, it was and remains today anything but Magick: Magick is another of the countless paths to God, all of which demand surrender to the One Whom the aspirant is trying to approach on the chosen path, but Positive Thinking is all about the individual and his total control over and constant monitoring of his thoughts and feelings at all times, and nothing else. Magick is a way of life; Positive Thinking is the relentless cultivation of a fantasy of life on the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where all things and bright and beautiful and sweet at all times, there is no pain, there is no stress, there is no criticism, and all behave according to one's wishes -- so that no surrender to reality or its Creator is ever even mentioned, let alone required. Positive Thinking is an eternal I-I relationship, where there is no Thou and no It and only the lonely, relentless ego trying desperately to conjure up the perfect universe to fit its most infantile fantasies.

Such, anyway, are the modern incarnations of Positive Thinking. As Barbara Ehrenreich points out in Bright-Sided, the universe of Positive Thinking is glorious, desires mingling freely with their realizations. Everything is perfect there, or, at any rate, as perfect as you want to make it. Dreams go out and fulfill themselves, and wishes need only be formulated. The one fly in the ointment is that it is an utterly lonely place. Only one's own ego is real, and the only sin it can commit is letting others bring it down in any way. All must be subordinate to the demands of that ego -- which means that the owner of the ego must withdraw from serious personal relationships of any kind with others, because a real relationship, whether one of friendship, romantic love, parent-child, or any other, requires a constant give-and-take between the people involved, constant adjustment of one to another, of a sort that those who have embraced Positive Thinking refuse to engage in.

What happens when a Positive Thinker's toddler embarks upon the Terrible Twos, or, at age 3, discovers the delight of the Magick Word "NO"? Does he or she abandon the child at the side of the freeway and go roaring off into the sunset, CD player blaring out the latest New Age tunes, glad to be rid of the little baggage who has proved to be such an energy vampire? What if a Positive Thinker's spouse becomes ill, especially with something as terrible as terminal cancer? Does one turn one's back on a dying spouse or other loved one because of the "negativity" the dying one "projects"?

You have to wonder, because Positive Thinkers can, in their own diabetes-inducing way, be incredibly cruel to others in their relentless determination to project Light and Sweetness everywhere they go and strongarm the world into behaving the same way. They will not tolerate the slightest signs of distress on the part of others, accusing them of "negativity" if they seem to be uncomfortable, injured, or ill. Cancer patients are supposed to be frenetically upbeat, never giving in to "negative feelings" or complaining about their illness, always seeing that illness's bright side even if it's killing them. Grief, anger, depression, sickness, pain -- all are verboten, New Age demons forever banished to the Pit of Old Age Thinking.

Problem: grief, anger, sickness, pain, depression, and other "negative" feelings and emotions are an integral part of our heritage as vertebrate organisms. There is a time and a place for all of them, and not experiencing them at such times and places indicates that one has either been so horribly traumatized by life that the ability to feel them has been knocked out of one, or that one was born a sociopath, with an inherent inability to ever lead a normal emotional life. Actually rejecting others for experiencing these very normal emotions in situations to which those emotions are appropriate reactions is not only cruel, but it warps the fabric of social reality to a dangerous degree, ensuring that only people who support the "everything is roses forever" mentality of Positive Thinking will have a say in top-level decision-making -- and that those who do the actual day-to-day, hands-on work of the world and are best placed to know when things have begun to go wrong and should be attended to immediately will be automatically shut out from the decision-making process. This is an extremely dangerous development in any society. Positive Thinking is the sociocultural equivalent of a diet of nothing but various incarnations of pure white sugar, eventually giving rise to pathological processes that can destroy that society and its people.

Admittedly Barbara Ehrenreich's incisive, timely critique of Positive Thinking often veers into outright cynicism. Sometimes she makes flat claims that aren't necessarily supported by the evidence. But in pointing out the all-devouring Wyrms at the heart of the golden apples of Positive Thinking and New Age-ism, she does a tremendous service to us all. Positive Thinking's ruthless assaults on the dignity of the organism, its insistence that injury and illness are the result of spiritual failings in the injured and ill, its blame-the-victim mentality, its psychotically relentless determination to shut out the real world and live forever in an egoistic fantasy land are the signature symptoms of a soul-sick culture reeling on the brink of disaster. In some cases, Positive Thinking may have helped some to overcome the trials they were facing and make better lives for themselves. But in far more cases, the damage created by it has become greater than we can afford, and it's time we junked it for good.(less)

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Jan 26, 2010 Ellen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I found this book disappointing. I agree with Ehrenreich that the "positive thinking" movement is a load of malarky, and I found her arguments about the harm that positive thinking does in business world and in the prosperity gospel movement to be convincing. But the section on breast cancer patients really turned me off. I think it's true that patients should be allowed to deal with cancer in their own ways and not be shunned or ostracized for being angry or upset about their disease. I also ag...more

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Jan 18, 2010 Kathryn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Summary: Barbara Ehrenreich has never been hugged...

I'm sorry, Barbara Ehrenreich thinks that positive thinking is ruining our country. It denies people their genuine emotions and convinces them that they can do things just with their mind. Wait, I'm sorry, is that what she said? I'm still not sure because her logic was all over the place.

Review: Obviously I can't give an impartial summary, largely because this book was more poorly argued than my senior thesis....and I wasn't a very bright coll...more

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Jan 04, 2010 Kellen rated it 3 of 5 stars

In "Bright-Sided", Barbara Ehrenreich provides a timely and provocative portrayal of positive thinking as a pestilent cultural phenomenon. For me, this book was reminiscent of reading "The Culture of Fear" (Glassner) shortly after 9/11, and experiencing the fear-lockdown that gripped the US and much the world. Like fear, positive thinking--in health care, religion, and business/finance--is another manifestation of American culture at odds with reality. According to Ehrenreich, "There seems to be...more

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Jan 23, 2010 Bill Kerwin rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was bad enough that Barbara Ehrenreich suffered from breast cancer: what made it even worse was that so many people--medical professionals as well as friends and acquaintances--insisted that she be upbeat and positive about her affliction. Now, in addition to feeling angry and scared, she had to feel guilty about not looking on "the bright side." This experience led Ms. Ehrenreich to examine the origins of Positive Thinking in America (Dr. Quimby's New Thought, Mary Baker Eddy) as a reaction...more

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Feb 02, 2010 Douglas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An extraordinary book. I possess Barbara Ehrenreich's books on US poverty and the current travails of the middle class but I never expected the intellectual power of this book. Here she documents the replacement of dour Calvinism by optimistic positive thinking in the 19th century and tracks it forwards to the nightmare world of CEO America (in religious and financial circles) culminating in the current financial crash. All in all an appalling picture of a nation leading the world on the wrong t...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Margaret Sankey rated it 3 of 5 stars

As someone who has run afoul of the pink and yellow ribbon brigades, been kicked out of an orthodontist office for bursting out laughing at the sales pitch ("you'd be so pretty if you had straight teeth!") and successfully evaded motivational keynote speakers' pleas to clap, I appreciate Ehrenreich's salient attacks on positive thinking, prosperity gospel, corporate trust exercises and all things cutsey. I'm all for being genuinely sick, angry, disappointed and dissatisfied and then doing someth...more

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Mar 09, 2010 Doug rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics-politics

Here Ehrenreich offers a fascinating debunking of the cults of happiness, positive thinking, and optimism which have such a strange grip on American culture. From cancer therapy, church life, consumerism, to Wall St. and more, she shows how the dogma of American optimism has long worked as a form of social control, a way institutions effectively block criticism and distort reality. She delves into the strong Christian contribution to this peculiar brand of dysfunctional optimism. Quite an eye op...more

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May 20, 2013 wmvdbiii rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent. She does a good job of putting her sources within the context of her arguments. Her focus is a bit more on the evils of the corporation than I would have chosen (she doesn’t mention the environment until the very end), but that’s ok. Everything else you need is in there. I would have mentioned Easterbrook and climate deniers. She fudges a couple of things: the Declaration of Independence is quoted, but not “the pursuit of happiness” in it; I’m not sure SERE schools were set to inventi...more

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May 03, 2013 Desiree Loeven rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reads more like a history of positive thinking, with the first chapter as a retelling of positive thinking's entanglement with cancer and other diseases as a cure- and a rather stunning look at corporate America's use of positive thinking as a means to control employees and dismiss problems. Labeling positive thinking as a cure-all often leads to thinking that if someone is not cured, or has lost their job, then they must not be positive enough and are to blame for attracting negative energy. Yo...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Virginia Bryant rated it 5 of 5 stars

wanted to THANK this writer while reading. the subtitle of this book is a neccessary critique of the dishonesty and lack of balance that ails our culture.

traces the roots of our countries positive" outlook back to mary baker eddy and napoleon hill.

great and insightful commentaries of the self hypnosis of "positive affirmations"

traces how denial was directly responsible for the financial meltdown of 2007.

delineates "positive outlook" as a corporate tool to dominate and misuse. we do not need any...more

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Feb 28, 2013 April rated it 5 of 5 stars

I found this to be a fascinating read especially in our present economic circumstances. While I think being positive is a good character traits when it puts common sense and the ability to see things realistically on the back seat it is a problem. Even more disconcerting is the way people use the so called power of positive thinking to manipulate and even as an excuse shun others who are maybe a little more aware of what is really going on...

It has been so refreshing to find such a well research...more I found this to be a fascinating read especially in our present economic circumstances. While I think being positive is a good character traits when it puts common sense and the ability to see things realistically on the back seat it is a problem. Even more disconcerting is the way people use the so called power of positive thinking to manipulate and even as an excuse shun others who are maybe a little more aware of what is really going on...

It has been so refreshing to find such a well researched and thought out book that targets this concern I have had about this trend...that is what it really seems to be. Trend. One that does not always have a positive influence on everyone, mainly when it is used for gain and to take advantage of others.

I think for happiness balance is essential. Positive thinking needs to be weighed and balanced by consciousness. It seems to be human nature to want to ignore the facts...mainly when they are leaning towards what we desire. Yet nothing is improved by shoving things under the rug and I value the drive within a human being to face a challenge head on...somehow we have become to focused on avoidance.

It is my personal belief that although we want to nourish our light side we need to also take a look at the dark side of life and who we are. There are lesson there that can prevent us from making the same mistakes over and over. There is awareness that come by acknowledging the nitty gritty and looking for solutions. Personnel growth comes from a real in-depth look at what is going on then taking the information and using it for improvement.

I think all the positive thinking and affirmations should be a tool that can take the undesirable things in life that you've acknowledged and help you make the best of it. When positive affirmations are used to blind oneself from the truth it seems like it just creates a viscous cycle of ignorance and zero effectiveness in life progression.

I believe that Barbara Ehrenreich hit the nail on the head here. She has some legitimate concerns and questions. She also makes some good points along with data to back it up. Some, despite my own personal beliefs on the subject I had never even considered or realized. I sincerely desire to have a heart to heart with her. After reading this book I feel as though I had listened to a friend confidently expressing and sharing as though in a private conversation between friends her personal life's experiences and revelations.

If you have ever looked at the growing number of coaches who tout how positive thinking alone will change your world and bring you success and riches...then even worse see then shun you when you question it...well you may want to read this book. By all means keep making lemonade out of lemons but don't tell yourself the lemons are tangerines. (less)

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Nov 07, 2012 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Ehrenreich's painful battle with breast cancer leads her to take a harsh look at America's optimism in this nonfiction book. It was sad to read anecdotes about people with cancer believing that their negative thoughts were making their cancer get worse. I absolutely identified with her cynicism. People thinking good thoughts to heal themselves has never been in my believable category.

Ehrenreich's point is that choosing positive thinking over realism can have a negative impact on everything from...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Glenn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, therapy-self-help

I was disappointed with this, having loved Ehrenreich's other books of real-world social reportage.

I'd argue that what Ehrenreich attacks here is not, as she suggests, Positive Thinking (and by unfair association Seligman's Positive Psychology) but Pollyanna-ism and conformity. She blames positive thinking for totalitarianism and narrow-thinking in states and corporations; but dissidents aren't punished for being 'negative' -- they're punished for not conforming and for not flattering the ego of...more I was disappointed with this, having loved Ehrenreich's other books of real-world social reportage.

I'd argue that what Ehrenreich attacks here is not, as she suggests, Positive Thinking (and by unfair association Seligman's Positive Psychology) but Pollyanna-ism and conformity. She blames positive thinking for totalitarianism and narrow-thinking in states and corporations; but dissidents aren't punished for being 'negative' -- they're punished for not conforming and for not flattering the ego of higher management. When management hear something they don't like they *call it* 'being negative' because that's how they hide their own ineptitude, short-termism and egotism. Pollyanna-ism and conformity are fair targets; but perhaps not such a good hook-line for a book?

Here, I think, Ehrenreich's own emotional experience with some cancer internet-groups has got in the way of a thorough exploration of the subject. A brief book (200 pages), it seems to skirt around the issues and leaves many important topics unexplored, most glaringly the huge corporate interest in 'negative' psychology and in medicating social problems; the role and mechanisms of placebo; the evidence from 20 years of psycho-neuro-immunology; recent discoveries about neuro-plasticity; and the growing body of evidence on mind-body interaction unveiled by modern brain-scanning techniques.

Even when she has an easy target (the self-indulgent nonsense of a 'Cosmic Ordering Service') she doesn't demolish it the way she could. And, by association, she ends up implying that such superstition is an integral part of Martin Seligman's Positive Psychology work, which it most definitely is not. It is true that many 'Life Coaches' have adopted the philosophy of 'wish for things and you'll get them without having to do any hard work' as a way of extracting money from the gullible, but it's unfair to beat Seligman with that stick.

Ehrenreich has some interesting observations about the Positive Psychology 'movement', but I think she ends up throwing out the baby with the bathwater, not even discussing the important notion of shifting from thinking about problems to thinking about solutions. And, aside from ignoring the influence of the pharmaceutical companies, she also ignores the 'Negative Psychology' movement so prevalent in the US over the last 60 years or so: the evidence of the unnecessary suffering caused by poorly applied Freudian psychoanalytic methods, which by encouraging people to repeatedly relive traumatic events and emotions may in many cases actually deepen and perpetuate suffering, the only main benefit being paying of the analyst's mortgage.

For decades the mental health industry focused on how to eliminate illness, rather than how to promote wellness. Thus the conditions that give rise to illness continue, and we simply try to medicate them away. Discomfort with this view has been around at least since the 50s and 60s, with Fromm, Maslow, Rogers and Ellis among others. So Seligman's 'Positive Psychology' doesn't mean 'Pollyannish' but means promoting wellness rather than eliminating illness. This simple definition doesn't appear in Ehrenreich's book -- and for someone so (rightly) focused on scientific principles, failing to define one's terms is a major omission.

The author also, like many others, seems to hold to the dogma that Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are the only 'valid' form of scientific evidence, as if case studies hold no value at all. The limitations of such trials are not discussed, and interpretations of the results are taken as unarguable. For instance, she cites a study showing no benefit of outcome over the control group among cancer patients who attended group psychotherapy, and so concludes there is 'no evidence' that psychotherapy (in whatever form, it seems) can be beneficial with cancer patients.

Anyone familiar with psychotherapy knows how important details are: one therapist may get much better results than another; one type of therapy may be better indicated for certain conditions, or for certain patients, than others. So all that was shown by that particular RCT was that for those patients, receiving that particular type of group therapy, facilitated by that particular therapist, there were not very good results. As I say, the author makes no attempt to balance such evidence with the evidence from psychoneuroimmunology, neuro-plasticity experiments, or the accumulated evidence from the placebo-groups of all those RCTs she is so keen on.

Ehrenreich rails against the 'interests' of the Positive Psychology movement; but in ignoring the body of evidence for the influence of emotional state on physical health, and instead focusing solely on drug and chemical causes and solutions to health problems, she ends up reinforcing the interests of a far bigger unaccountable lobby: the major drugs companies. A disappointing position for a left-leaning social commentator to end up in.

So, over all, I found this to be a less than rigorous examination of the topic.(less)

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Oct 20, 2012 Erica Verrillo rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 occasiona...more 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. (less)

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Sep 11, 2012 Clare Herbert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Americans are a positive people”, so begins Barbara Ehrenreich’s ‘Smile or Die’; a thorough and thoughtful examination of the ‘cult of positivity’ that informs modern American culture.

After being diagnosed with breast cancer, the author found herself swept away in a sea of pink and positivity. Her attitude, she was told, could cure her. Rather than having the opportunity to be angry, upset or sad, she was encouraged to see cancer as a gift, a perspective-altering exercise designed to make her a...more “Americans are a positive people”, so begins Barbara Ehrenreich’s ‘Smile or Die’; a thorough and thoughtful examination of the ‘cult of positivity’ that informs modern American culture.

After being diagnosed with breast cancer, the author found herself swept away in a sea of pink and positivity. Her attitude, she was told, could cure her. Rather than having the opportunity to be angry, upset or sad, she was encouraged to see cancer as a gift, a perspective-altering exercise designed to make her a better person. Understandably, she began to challenge the consensus that positivity cures all ills. Her experience as a cancer patient sparked her distain towards practiced, forced positivity. This book chronicles how blind optimism, delusion and denial contributed to the economic collapse and the war in Iraq. She portrays how “positive psychology” taints academia, business and popular culture and the often disastrous consequences of feigning happiness.

It’s a great read. I’m optimistic, by nature. But, I find Pollyanna-ish positivity hard to take. At its core, it’s about hiding your real emotions under a thick layer of fake cheer. Authenticity and meaning cannot co-exist with the ‘smile or die’ mentality characterized by the “motivational industry”.

She highlights the “inescapable pseudoscientific flapdoodle” that orders people in pain to hide their distress. The unemployed, the sick, the poor are called to task for being ‘responsible’ for their suffering because, according to the sect-like Positivity Police, happiness is a choice. To an extent it is, but ordering people how to feel and manipulating those emotions in order to sell “motivational products” is unethical.

“Optimism is the opium of the people,” Ehrenreich argues. As we see from both the 2008 economic crash and the war in Iraq, blind optimism is dangerous. Secretary of State Condelezza Rice described President Bush as “almost demanding optimism. He doesn’t like pessimism, hand wringing or doubt”. The global financial sector ran on “intuition, snap judgements and hunches” which left governments, corporations and ordinary people under-prepared for the impending disaster and unwilling (or unable) to see warning signs.

“Smile of Die” is a comprehensive examination of perhaps the greatest cult of our time, the cult of positivity. Whether you’re a scientific nerd or a wannabe motivational guru, this book will challenge you to explore the consequences of your outlook as well as the national and global price that we pay for inauthentic happiness.

At times, there’s a thread of bitter-ness running through the prose but it’s superseded by a sharp, criticial eye for the nuance of a nation’s character. (Indeed, bitterness would be justifiable in a woman diagnosed with an iatrogenic cancer* and forced to be happy about it!)

Ultimately, this book is a valiant call for a balanced, reasoned and nuanced outlook on life and an end to mindless platitudes, pep talks and positivity proselytizing.

Highly recommended.

*cancer caused by the side-effects of medical treatment, such as HRT.(less)

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About Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich is the bestselling author of sixteen previous books, including the bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. A frequent contributor to Harpers and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time Magazine.

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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women

This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation

Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy

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“But the economic meltdown should have undone, once and for all, the idea of poverty as a personal shortcoming or dysfunctional state of mind. The lines at unemployment offices and churches offering free food includes strivers as well as slackers, habitual optimists as well as the chronically depressed. When and if the economy recovers we can never allow ourselves to forget how widespread our vulnerability is, how easy it is to spiral down toward destitution.” — 17 people liked it

“I do not write this in a spirit of sourness or personal disappointment of any kind, nor do I have any romantic attachment to suffering as a source of insight or virtue. On the contrary, I would like to see more smiles, more laughter, more hugs, more happiness and, better yet, joy. In my own vision of utopia, there is not only more comfort, and security for everyone — better jobs, health care, and so forth — there are also more parties, festivities, and opportunities for dancing in the streets. Once our basic material needs are met — in my utopia, anyway — life becomes a perpetual celebration in which everyone has a talent to contribute. But we cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it. We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles, both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.” — 12 people liked it

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