You may be using an older version of the Adobe Flash Player. To enjoy multimedia content on WGBH.org, please click here to upgrade to the latest version of the free Flash player.

Barbara Ehrenreich: How Positive Thinking Undermines America
October 15, 2009
Barbara Ehrenreich social critic, writer

Journalist and activist Barbara Ehrenreich discusses her book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. She shares how her own experience dealing with breast cancer showed her that the dogma of the positive thinking movement can lead to individual self-blame, and how institutional disregard for possible negative outcomes led to the national housing crisis.

Americans have a singular capacity for glossing over hardships with exhortations to "look on the bright side." The oft-prescribed power of positive thinking is certainly capable of altering our outlooks, but as Ehrenreich argues in her new book, this is not entirely for the better. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best--poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and calling for existential clarity and courage.

Business & Economics | Culture & Identity | History | Literature & Philosophy | People & Places | Politics & Public Affairs
Activism | Authors | bad day | Breast cancer | evangelical | Joel Olsteen | Lakewood Church | optimism | pessimism | positive psychology | positive thinking | realism | smile | United States | Career | Community Building | Non-Fiction | Philosophy | Law & Criminal Justice | Lifestyle | North American
WGBH
Harvard Book Store
Image of Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Metropolitan Books (2009)
Binding: Hardcover, 256 pages
Image of Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (2006)
Binding: Paperback, 272 pages
Image of This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (2009)
Binding: Paperback, 256 pages
Image of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Author: Frances Fox Piven, Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (2008)
Binding: Paperback, 240 pages
Image of Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Metropolitan Books (2007)
Binding: Hardcover, 336 pages
Image of The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Anchor (1987)
Binding: Paperback, 224 pages
Image of Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (1998)
Binding: Paperback, 256 pages
Login or register to post comments
Posted by DustTown November 24th, 2009 at 1:37am

Interesting. I agree with many of her points. I would like her to talk more of her understanding of positive psychology. At the same time, the self-help movement needs to reflect on the errors and accomplishments that it has brought, only by being self-reflective, can we move on to being integral.