erin_oriordan_is_reading_again's review against another edition
4.0
The thesis of Bright-Sided is the U.S. residents tend, as a people, to subscribe to an optimistic outlook on life that isn’t so much based in fact as it is in wishful thinking. Sometimes this wishful thinking is presented to us with the best of intentions. At other times, it’s presented to us as a cynical ploy to make a fast buck with a minimal output of effort, since one of the tenets of positive thinking is often, “If it’s not working for you, you must not be trying hard enough.”
Sometimes, corporations use this mindset to try to increase productivity as much as possible while laying out as few benefits as they can get away with. Haven’t gotten a raise in five years? You’re probably just not working hard enough! Envision success and use positivity to attract a raise to you! At worst, this can be used as an excuse to pay people poverty wages for working long, hard hours at unpalatable jobs.
The problem, as Ehrenreich explains, is that very little scientific evidence shows that positive people fare significantly better than their less-positive peers. At the same time, individuals can experience real-world consequences, including loss of their jobs, simply for being perceived as not having a positive attitude.
As Ehrenreich shows, however, the economic sphere is not the only one in which people can find themselves blamed and shamed for not being cheerful enough. Oddly, one of them is the cancer support group sphere, as Ehrenreich found out during her bout with breast cancer. Women suffering from the disease will sometimes repeat the mantra that positivity strengthens their immune system and thus helps them fight the disease. The problem is that physicians don’t think there is much of a link between the immune system and breast cancer. Think about what the immune system does – it fights foreign “invaders” in the body, namely bacteria and viruses. Cancer cells are the body’s own cells, not recognized by the immune system as “foreign.” Women who get sicker and blame themselves for being too negative are expending their precious energy over something irrelevant.
The chapter on the religious aspect of positive thinking is also very interesting. In this chapter, I learned about the New Thought movement of the 1800s and its founder, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. If a 21st-century person believes human thought can affect atoms and molecules in the real world, that person can likely trace their thoughts back to Quimby. Followers of the so-called Prosperity Gospel as exemplified by Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyers, adherents of Oprah Winfrey, and readers of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret may not seem to have much in common on the surface, but all can trace their philosophical roots back to New Thought. Quimby’s most direct influence may have been on Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science.
The origin of Quimby’s “heal thyself” philosophy? He had tuberculosis. He was born in 1808, and when he was a young man, doctors could do next to nothing for the bacterial infection. His doctors gave him a remedy that did little to abate his breathing problems, but did make his teeth start to fall out. Fed up with the institutional medicine of his day (with good reason), he decided to study hypnotism. He eventually came to believe that all diseases were caused by the way one thinks about one’s body.
The scientific evidence that beliefs affect the human body is scant to nonexistent, but Quimby and Baker Eddy weren’t really interested in scientific evidence. I read a little bit more about Mary Baker Eddy in Wikipedia, and it seems she had something of a kerfuffle with Mark Twain in the first decade of the 1900s. Twain wrote an article criticizing Christian Science, which Harper’s magazine refused to publish. Twain then accused the publication of bowing down to pressure from high-profile Christian Scientists and of not being objective. He later published – elsewhere, one presumes – a lengthy critical essay on the subject of Mary Baker Eddy herself.
Touched on in this chapter, and quite possibly worth addressing in greater detail elsewhere, are John Marks Templeton Sr. and Jr. The senior John M. Templeton created the Templeton Foundation, which supports a large variety of both religious and scientific research endeavors. It has been accused of supporting unscientific theories such as “intelligent design” creationism and other dubious sciences. Ehrenreich herself has publicly accused the Templeton Foundation of a conservative political bias, which the Foundation has answered by saying that it stays within the guidelines set forth by its founder, which are designed to be unbiased and apolitical.
Dr. John Marks Templeton Jr., popularly known as Jack Templeton, was well known for donating vast sums of his personal wealth to Republican political causes. He and his wife are estimated to have personally donated a million dollars to opposing same-sex marriage. Having died of a brain tumor in May of this year, he didn’t quite live long enough to see marriage equality become the law of the land on June 26th.
Economics, politics, religion, medicine…areas of life in which people need to be at their most clear-eyed. Optimism and a positive outlook can make life more bearable, especially when one is ill or under stress, but it’s also important to be armed with objective fact. This is the point Barbara Ehrenreich makes in Bright-Sided, and it’s a good one.
Sometimes, corporations use this mindset to try to increase productivity as much as possible while laying out as few benefits as they can get away with. Haven’t gotten a raise in five years? You’re probably just not working hard enough! Envision success and use positivity to attract a raise to you! At worst, this can be used as an excuse to pay people poverty wages for working long, hard hours at unpalatable jobs.
The problem, as Ehrenreich explains, is that very little scientific evidence shows that positive people fare significantly better than their less-positive peers. At the same time, individuals can experience real-world consequences, including loss of their jobs, simply for being perceived as not having a positive attitude.
As Ehrenreich shows, however, the economic sphere is not the only one in which people can find themselves blamed and shamed for not being cheerful enough. Oddly, one of them is the cancer support group sphere, as Ehrenreich found out during her bout with breast cancer. Women suffering from the disease will sometimes repeat the mantra that positivity strengthens their immune system and thus helps them fight the disease. The problem is that physicians don’t think there is much of a link between the immune system and breast cancer. Think about what the immune system does – it fights foreign “invaders” in the body, namely bacteria and viruses. Cancer cells are the body’s own cells, not recognized by the immune system as “foreign.” Women who get sicker and blame themselves for being too negative are expending their precious energy over something irrelevant.
The chapter on the religious aspect of positive thinking is also very interesting. In this chapter, I learned about the New Thought movement of the 1800s and its founder, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. If a 21st-century person believes human thought can affect atoms and molecules in the real world, that person can likely trace their thoughts back to Quimby. Followers of the so-called Prosperity Gospel as exemplified by Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyers, adherents of Oprah Winfrey, and readers of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret may not seem to have much in common on the surface, but all can trace their philosophical roots back to New Thought. Quimby’s most direct influence may have been on Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science.
The origin of Quimby’s “heal thyself” philosophy? He had tuberculosis. He was born in 1808, and when he was a young man, doctors could do next to nothing for the bacterial infection. His doctors gave him a remedy that did little to abate his breathing problems, but did make his teeth start to fall out. Fed up with the institutional medicine of his day (with good reason), he decided to study hypnotism. He eventually came to believe that all diseases were caused by the way one thinks about one’s body.
The scientific evidence that beliefs affect the human body is scant to nonexistent, but Quimby and Baker Eddy weren’t really interested in scientific evidence. I read a little bit more about Mary Baker Eddy in Wikipedia, and it seems she had something of a kerfuffle with Mark Twain in the first decade of the 1900s. Twain wrote an article criticizing Christian Science, which Harper’s magazine refused to publish. Twain then accused the publication of bowing down to pressure from high-profile Christian Scientists and of not being objective. He later published – elsewhere, one presumes – a lengthy critical essay on the subject of Mary Baker Eddy herself.
Touched on in this chapter, and quite possibly worth addressing in greater detail elsewhere, are John Marks Templeton Sr. and Jr. The senior John M. Templeton created the Templeton Foundation, which supports a large variety of both religious and scientific research endeavors. It has been accused of supporting unscientific theories such as “intelligent design” creationism and other dubious sciences. Ehrenreich herself has publicly accused the Templeton Foundation of a conservative political bias, which the Foundation has answered by saying that it stays within the guidelines set forth by its founder, which are designed to be unbiased and apolitical.
Dr. John Marks Templeton Jr., popularly known as Jack Templeton, was well known for donating vast sums of his personal wealth to Republican political causes. He and his wife are estimated to have personally donated a million dollars to opposing same-sex marriage. Having died of a brain tumor in May of this year, he didn’t quite live long enough to see marriage equality become the law of the land on June 26th.
Economics, politics, religion, medicine…areas of life in which people need to be at their most clear-eyed. Optimism and a positive outlook can make life more bearable, especially when one is ill or under stress, but it’s also important to be armed with objective fact. This is the point Barbara Ehrenreich makes in Bright-Sided, and it’s a good one.
shereadsshedrinks's review against another edition
4.0
When I put this on hold from the library a few weeks ago, I had no idea that the chapter on resisting the barrage of positive thinking after a cancer diagnosis would resonate so much.
amroemer's review against another edition
3.0
The author was on target, the writing style however was tedious
michelle1113's review against another edition
3.0
The premise of this book is that the positive thinking movement in the United States has resulted in crises ranging from the recession to the government's woefully inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina to the war in Iraq. In particular, Ehrenreich pointedly attacks the "prosperity gospel" embraced by many evangelical churches and the widespread focus on positivity in U.S. corporations, asserting that the positive thinking movement has led to a culture of blaming the victim and being blind to negative consequences. She castigates those who encourage (and often mandate) positivity and suggests replacing positivism with realism.
This was an interesting, somewhat informative read, and I generally agreed with what Ehrenreich writes -- particularly that people/organizations should be realistic and consider potential negative as well as positive consequences and that people should feel free to express feelings of anger and pain and sorrow. However, I may have drunk the Kool-aid, but on an individual level I have a hard time believing that a positive attitude and willingness to make the best of difficult circumstances is not beneficial and preferable to dwelling on (often justifiable) anger and fear. In my experience, I've certainly found that a positive attitude makes me happier and more willing to tackle challenging tasks.
This was an interesting, somewhat informative read, and I generally agreed with what Ehrenreich writes -- particularly that people/organizations should be realistic and consider potential negative as well as positive consequences and that people should feel free to express feelings of anger and pain and sorrow. However, I may have drunk the Kool-aid, but on an individual level I have a hard time believing that a positive attitude and willingness to make the best of difficult circumstances is not beneficial and preferable to dwelling on (often justifiable) anger and fear. In my experience, I've certainly found that a positive attitude makes me happier and more willing to tackle challenging tasks.
rick2's review against another edition
3.0
An anecdote to the ‘cult of happiness’ that seems to permeate so much of mainstream society. You know that coworker that says “living the dream“ when you ask them how it’s going. Your the boss who thinks management and motivation is mostly comprised of empty platitudes one might shout in a football field. “Go get them!” Or those god-awful “motivational“ posters people leave lying around.
Barbara describes the disconnect she felt after her cancer diagnosis and through her treatment with the weird “too smiley” feeling many in the cancer community impart. “Oh this is just a blessing in disguise,” “you’ll be happy you had cancer,” and other such tripe. I’ve felt the same way at times about 12 step groups I am a part of.
She goes on to delve into the historical precedent for this mentality. Starting with Calvinist thought around work and toil. And eventually, ‘hello darkness my old friend’ she ties it back to capitalism and the fact that happy workers are easier to manage. The author seem delighted to point out that no real evidence says happy workers produce more, but bosses like to believe they are overseeing happy workers.
We then discuss the cult of happiness itself. An industry of speakers and peppy charlatans who tell each other to “keep your chin up” in a glassy eyed attempt to forget that we’re all hurtling towards entropic irrelevancy. Desperate to shout down any semblance of reality with cries of “attitude determines latitude“ and “mind over matter. If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t matter if you don’t mind.” Honestly the section in the book mostly triggered my PTSD from a call center I worked at several years ago. It’s a condemning look at a bunch of weirdos who should be treated as such. Fuck these people.
We then get a brief discussion of how happiness research is self perpetuating bullshit machine. And I wish the book had gone into more detail here. I know it probably changes every couple years depending on who’s working at what university and who’s funding what center, but a deeper examination of the process of churning out stupid studies on happiness would have been nice for the next time my relatives forward some nonsense.
She then tries to blame the “cult of happiness” on on a bunch of social ills. Some of which I agreed with, but the 2008 financial crisis fell super flat for me. If you dig into some of the “panics mania and crashes” or “irrational exuberance” reading on the topic, I think that literature convincingly shows that much of the mania is a collective delusion. Irrational happiness is more correlation than causation.
In all it’s an interesting book. It’s a great reminder that it’s ok to not be ok.
Barbara describes the disconnect she felt after her cancer diagnosis and through her treatment with the weird “too smiley” feeling many in the cancer community impart. “Oh this is just a blessing in disguise,” “you’ll be happy you had cancer,” and other such tripe. I’ve felt the same way at times about 12 step groups I am a part of.
She goes on to delve into the historical precedent for this mentality. Starting with Calvinist thought around work and toil. And eventually, ‘hello darkness my old friend’ she ties it back to capitalism and the fact that happy workers are easier to manage. The author seem delighted to point out that no real evidence says happy workers produce more, but bosses like to believe they are overseeing happy workers.
We then discuss the cult of happiness itself. An industry of speakers and peppy charlatans who tell each other to “keep your chin up” in a glassy eyed attempt to forget that we’re all hurtling towards entropic irrelevancy. Desperate to shout down any semblance of reality with cries of “attitude determines latitude“ and “mind over matter. If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t matter if you don’t mind.” Honestly the section in the book mostly triggered my PTSD from a call center I worked at several years ago. It’s a condemning look at a bunch of weirdos who should be treated as such. Fuck these people.
We then get a brief discussion of how happiness research is self perpetuating bullshit machine. And I wish the book had gone into more detail here. I know it probably changes every couple years depending on who’s working at what university and who’s funding what center, but a deeper examination of the process of churning out stupid studies on happiness would have been nice for the next time my relatives forward some nonsense.
She then tries to blame the “cult of happiness” on on a bunch of social ills. Some of which I agreed with, but the 2008 financial crisis fell super flat for me. If you dig into some of the “panics mania and crashes” or “irrational exuberance” reading on the topic, I think that literature convincingly shows that much of the mania is a collective delusion. Irrational happiness is more correlation than causation.
In all it’s an interesting book. It’s a great reminder that it’s ok to not be ok.
jrobles76's review against another edition
5.0
I've read 4 of Ehrenreich's books and I think I can officially say that she is my favorite non-fiction/muckrakey author. She writes with a specific point of view, but she backs up her assertions with good research and facts, not "facts". This book takes on the Power of Positive Thinking movement that has been a part of American Culture for decades. If you don't think positive thinking hurts America, just read the second to last chapter on how optimism caused our current recession. If you've ever been called a pessimist for being realistic, this book is for you. This is like the Anti-Secret.
wenwe's review against another edition
3.0
Making me think... and enjoying my critical thinking skill and ability to question. Her SEAR school explanation was just WRONG!!!