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Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America |  | Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
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as of 11/22/2009 13:53 MST details
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Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 277
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0805087494
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.232
EAN: 9780805087499
ASIN: 0805087494
Publication Date: October 13, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
 Critical thinking! November 22, 2009
C. Wagner (On the banks of the Wabash far away)
Now, I almost gave this book a three star because I kept falling asleep during chapter six about the gobblegooking psychobabblers. Anyone with half a brain should already hold the advice of their profession in suspect. And, I suspect the destruction of the economy, described in chapter seven had nothing to do with optimism, but that the actual destruction was sired by unbridled greed and meanness of those who rule over us who work for a living. However, there is a great deal to be said about the charlatans who, for money, tell both the employed and cast aside they need to be more positive and accept their demise as an opportunity. The postcript pronouncement (p.196) that seemingly
gold medal organizations can "sometimes" override realism and common sense was right on the money. Anyhow, the author's "Nickel and Dimed" was so great I could not give her a three. Ehrenreich ridicules the hogwash that positive thinking can overcome cancer. (And, brother am I sick of the pink stuff!!! I do not want my daughters to be survivors. I want them to not get the stuff!) The authors properly skewers motivational barons who prey upon the unemployed and unfortunate and the God wants you to be rich gobbledygookers. A good summary of the book comes from page 197: "All the basic technologies ever invented by humans to feed and protect themselves depend upon a relentless commitment to hard-noved empiricism..." An encouragement of critical thinking...
 not what I expected November 21, 2009
Melissa Pettyjohn (near Seattle)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
So far, I've only got about 1/3 through reading. I just can't find a whole lot of enthusiam to read it. Excelent premise but so far, there's been WAY to much Cancer talk and I just can't "get into it" If you buy thre book solely on what you think the premise is, think again. It might get better, I hope.
Realism November 21, 2009
Stephen T. Hopkins (Oak Park, Illinois)
Anyone who has gagged at teambuilding events, or who rolls eyes while listening to motivational spiels will love reading Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. In her comprehensive account she describes how the purveyors of relentless positive thinking have led the ill to blame themselves for sickness, and have created the unrealistic mindset that any obstacle can be overcome through "right" thinking. Through multiple examples and historical context, Ehrenreich makes a compelling case that the emphasis on positive thinking has led to group and self delusion. She covers medicine, religion, politics and business with keen insight. Bright-sided is a call for a reality check, and a return to realism to make our individuals and our country healthier and stronger. Whether you're a pessimist or an optimist, there's much to learn and enjoy on the pages of Bright-sided.
Rating: Four-star (Highly Recommended)
Preaching to the Choir November 19, 2009
Keith Otis Edwards (Dearbron, MI United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Considering that you are reading this, it's obvious that you love books. Why do you love them? I certainly can't speak for you, but as for myself, I love books because they are an escape. Ah, that's an ugly word, so instead I'll use the word refuge. Human society is a dismal affair which always leaves one disappointed and disillusioned, but even a mediocre author like Dan Brown can create a world that is far more agreeable than the one we must live in. But it's not just escapist fiction that makes the world inside a book preferable. No matter how many times I've read it, Barbara Tuchman's account of Zola's declaration "J'ACCUSE!" makes me feel good, because that's humanity at it's finest.
So why would anyone want to read Mrs. Ehrenreich's litany of the baseness of America and the addled way it thinks? You already know everything contained within the covers of this book. Walk out your door, and you're confronted with it. Or stay at home and turn on the radio; almost all of the stations on the AM dial are devoted to either Christianity debased to its lowest form or demagogues indoctrinating the masses to support what is patently not in their best interest. Instead of agreeable titillation, television is devoted to lewdness, except of course for the numerous channels devoted to yet more preachers, including the motivational speakers your local PBS station broadcasts during their fortnightly pledge weeks.
Yes, books are the only refuge from this ordure, but Mrs. Ehrenreich instead rubs your nose in it. Since you are unavoidably confronted with examples of her topic every day, why have her tell you what you already know? There are flagellants among the liberals who posit that it's important to keep all this in mind, because it's reality, but I am well aware of the irrational nature of America, and so are you. Is reading about it once again somehow good for you?
More important, will this book's stating the obvious over and over change anyone's outlook? I would wager against all comers that 99.8% of the readers of "Bright-Sided" are already of a cynical kidney (you don't seriously accept that the reviewers who gave it one star actually read the book, do you?), and that by writing it, Mrs. Ehrenreich has changed not one mind. Not one worshiper has laid down her rosary, nor has one devotee decided not to mail-in a love offering, nor by reading this book has one corporate peon gained the courage to stand up at an assembly and shout hoots of derision at the motivational speaker. Americans typically lack rational judgment, and that's a congenital defect to which there is no remedy. This book and a hundred like it will have absolutely no effect on anyone's behavior, and the pink teddy-bears will continue to be held as a talisman against cancer remission. Yellow ribbons will continue to be tied around trees and utility poles.
I further maintain that the only reason anyone has read this book is so that she can say to herself, Hey! Yeah! That's just what I think! Good for me! And that is the very worst reason for reading a book.
The chapter in which Mrs. Ehrenreich tells of her bout with cancer is somewhat touching, and she is to be applauded for her courage, but admit it -- you already knew that the televangelists were clownishly deluded, that Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie were full of hooey, that the corporate barons were maniacs of the most despicable order. You have already read more-detailed accounts of the shenanigans which caused the ongoing financial meltdown. You were already familiar with that rare bit of American wisdom: "Wish in one hand and poop in the other, and see which hand fills-up the quickest."
I suppose that you could carry this book around as a sort of breviary, as a means to maintain what sanity is possible in this society, but instead, why not read something really great? "Candide" for example.
Feeling More Hopeful After Reading November 18, 2009
mcryan
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
One great by product of a book like this is that it actually may bring a great deal of relief to the reader to realize that they don't need to constantly put on a phony air of pollyannaism if it goes against their grain or just feels wrong. Or maybe it's a relief to realize hey, maybe the world really doesn't revolve around me and my thoughts really don't control as much as I have been led to believe. The notion that someone who gets sick, did so because they somehow brought it upon themselves is the most hurtful, kick-me-when- I'm down, ridiculous garbage I have ever heard of. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. I actually felt more positive and less depressed after reading her book than I ever did after reading The Secret or watching an episode of Oprah or wondering how someone like Seligman can appear such a miserable grouch and still be called the Father of Positive Psychology?
From my understanding, Ehrenreich is not at all against being positive, sending out well-wishes, looking at the glass as half-full or whatever you want to call it although I can understand how her tone and spirit in which she wrote the book might come across that way to some. I did get the sense that anger and a general sense of being sick to death of the disservice of the positivist movement were two of the driving forces in this book. Who could blame her for having gone through what she has? Her writing it may have also served as a wake-up call to those who might be taking the message of a book like The Secret a little to far and then falling to pieces when they realize that simply wishing and desiring something, doesn't necessarily mean that you will ever receive it even if you really really really believe it. It's intersting how the whole movement has pat, c-y-a answers for anything that goes wrong yet takes full credit for any posssible good coincidences that may occur. Her point being that none of this stuff is science-based or quantified in any way nor can it be and that is the only fact.
If a person is going to spend the time reading The Secret or another book of its kind then they really owe it to themselves to read a book like Ehrenreich's to get both sides and hone those 360 degree thinking skills.
Whether you're a fan or not of this book or of Ehrenreich herself, she does get us thinking about the flip side of that cheerleader mentality and how even positivism has a negative side.
Ehrenreich is someone who is never going to appeal to everyone but don't let that stop you from reading her book and forming your own opinions. She offers many salient and useful points in spite of whether or not you like her.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
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