Bright-Sided
Ratings19
Average rating3.5
Finally, someone with the neck to stand up to the positivity industrial complex. Wonderfully written indictment of positive psychology.
I like Ehrenreich. She can seem cynical, but I really think she's not a killjoy at heart. She's an optimist of the best kind, who thinks that things can get better, but aren't going to on their own, so we might as well take a good, hard look at what's going wrong. So, if you're curious to find out what pastors of megachurches, the inane author of “The Secret,” positive psychologists, and Wall Street have in common (or if you're just in the mood for a well-written, timely, and not-too-long work of non-fiction), definitely check this out. Ehrenreich is mordant and sly at her best, which is often, but only when people deserve it (ahem, Martin Seligman).
Hmmm... I mean, I definitely agree with her basic thesis that The Secret and other “positive psychology” pseudoscience is bogus. That said, I didn't love this book? It's interesting–she rightly criticized The Secret and other self-help books for just being random strings of anecdotes, but this was... also kind of that? I got the sense that she did more research than she used, and I think maybe I would have appreciated it if she'd gone in deeper about some things, like her visit to Joel Osteen's church? Or, for that matter, about her own personal experience as a breast cancer patient who felt infantilized by all the extremely positive cancer speak (eg people saying cancer is the best thing that ever happened to them, because it taught them how strong they are.)
Still, it's a good resource that does have some science to debunk (or just highlight) a lot of the nonsense that's out there.
A quick and eye-opening read. The chapter about how positive thinking (ie, delusions of grandeur and an inability to do math) caused the financial meltdown is especially worth reading.
I REALLY liked this book. It sums up nicely all the things I hate about the positive-thinking push, from the implication that if you can't “manifest” it then you must not be trying hard enough, to the tendency to overlook obvious warnings signs. Oh, and the “no complaining” rule which never made any sense to me, seeing and discussing problems is how you find solutions. I honestly can't say enough, if you ever wanted to understand me, go read this (and yes, power through her grumpiness about cancer-culture, it's not her best chapter but the rest of the book is better).
ALSO, goes into the history of the movement, where it came from and how it got there, along with pitfalls along the way.
This book has a range of topics held together loosely by how positivity can be harmful in the face of actual adversity. A broad exploration of how various pop psychology movements do more harm than good, and how it's in a way a distinct flavor of American hucksterism.