Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World
Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, explores the tyranny of positive thinking, and offers a history of how it came to be the dominant mode in the USA. Ehrenreich conceived of the book when she became ill with breast cancer, and found herself surrounded by pink ribbons and bunny rabbits and platitudes. She balked at the way her anger and sadness about having the disease were seen as unhealthy and dangerous by health professionals and other sufferers. In her droll analysis of the cult of cheerfulness, Ehrenreich ranges across contemporary religion, business and the economy, arguing, for example, that undue optimism and a fear of giving bad news sowed the seeds for the current banking crisis. She argues that the insistence on being cheerful actually leads to a lonely focus inwards, a blaming of oneself for any misfortunes, and thus to political apathy.
4.3 out of 5 based on 13 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Society, Politics & Philosophy |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
240 |
| RRP |
£10.99 |
| Date of Publication |
January 2010 |
| ISBN |
978-1847081353 |
| Publisher |
Granta |
| |
Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, explores the tyranny of positive thinking, and offers a history of how it came to be the dominant mode in the USA. Ehrenreich conceived of the book when she became ill with breast cancer, and found herself surrounded by pink ribbons and bunny rabbits and platitudes. She balked at the way her anger and sadness about having the disease were seen as unhealthy and dangerous by health professionals and other sufferers. In her droll analysis of the cult of cheerfulness, Ehrenreich ranges across contemporary religion, business and the economy, arguing, for example, that undue optimism and a fear of giving bad news sowed the seeds for the current banking crisis. She argues that the insistence on being cheerful actually leads to a lonely focus inwards, a blaming of oneself for any misfortunes, and thus to political apathy.
US title: "Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America"
Read an extract from the book on the Guardian's website
Reviews
The Observer
Jenni Murray
"Every so often a book appears that so chimes with your own thinking, yet flies so spectacularly in the face of fashionable philosophy, that it comes as a profoundly reassuring relief… Her book, it seems to me, is a call for the return of common sense and, I'm afraid, in what purports to be a work of criticism, I can find only positive things to say about it. Damn!"
27/01/2010
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The Sunday Times
Christopher Hart
"Fascinating, often very funny, and wholly convincing… Some historical comparisons would have added depth… Nevertheless, as far as it goes, Smile or Die is a highly entertaining, alarming read, and a ringing clarion call to America to brace up and remember sod’s law — which might have predicted that the invasion of Iraq wouldn’t go so trippingly easy as the Bush administration fondly imagined."
27/01/2010
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The Washington Post
Kate Tuttle
"A tour de force of well-tempered snark, culminating in a persuasive indictment of the bright-siders as the culprits in our current financial mess… The author deploys her sharpest tone to eviscerate the business community's embrace of positive thinking. Offered as a sap to those facing layoffs, used as a spur to better performance by those workers who remain (often while enduring cuts in pay and benefits) and relied on as an excuse to ignore unpleasant inevitabilities like bubbles bursting, American positivism reaches its giddiest and most dangerous heights in the corner office."
27/01/2010
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The Sunday Telegraph
Noel Malcolm
"Ehrenreich’s biggest claim is that the 'positive thinking’ movement caused the recent financial crash, by creating a corporate culture in which doubts and criticisms were not allowed. Perhaps she goes too far here; there have been many booms and bubbles in the past, long before the motivational coaches started bouncing up and down in the boardroom. But she is surely right to think that 'positive thinking’ has become one of the most damaging things in modern life. This is an eloquent and important book; let us hope that it has a long-lasting, and negative, effect."
27/01/2010
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The Times
Stefanie Marsh
"A thrilling, succinct and wittily written book. If it fails in any way, it is in Ehrenreich’s reluctance to concede that a positive attitude can sometimes be helpful in overcoming difficult circumstances, and that stress — and isn’t stress essentially a form of “negative thinking”? — has proven links with ill health. Her definition of happiness is also conspicuously narrow."
02/01/2010
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The Financial Times
Julian Baggini
"A measured and informed attack on the “cult of positive thinking”… The real value of Ehrenreich’s book is that it shows that the choice is not between being positive or negative. The issue, according to Ehrenreich, is whether we start with the facts or with our attitudes."
27/01/2010
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The Daily Mail
Sam Leith
"An invigoratingly aggressive and lucidly intelligent attack on the multi-tentacled nonsense monster… Sometimes Ehrenreich's targets feel a little bit fish-in-a-barrel-ish. Most people don't need a book to tell us that there's something iffy about cosmic ordering, motivational speakers, and the millionaire pastors of 'prosperity gospel' megachurches - and those that do aren't likely to read this one."
27/01/2010
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The New Statesman
Alyssa McDonald
"The alternative that Ehrenreich offers to positive thinking's strange mixture of self-absorption, personal responsibility and blind acceptance of the status quo isn't revolutionary: all she suggests is realism, and a little critical thinking. But, coming after the circus of mindless positivity that she documents, it is as welcome as a cool drink of water."
27/01/2010
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The Guardian
Lucy Ellmann
"It's when writing about the cancer industry that she's at her most eloquent… Cancer victims are expected to exude happiness – otherwise you're apparently exposing yourself, and fellow cancer patients who come into contact with you, to toxic negativity. You might also make your friends uncomfortable. Ehrenreich was told by a Panglossian oncology nurse that chemotherapy smoothes the skin and helps you lose weight! But all the denial and courageous cookie-baking distract patients from questioning their treatment or why they got cancer in the first place."
27/01/2010
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The Daily Telegraph
Sinclair McKay
"[A] beguilingly sharp, witty and clear-eyed account… Ehrenreich throughout is bracingly acidic and engaging, but also, shall we say, surprisingly “un-negative’’ in the face of so much smiley-faced idiocy. All she is ultimately asking for in a sane world is not gloominess or pessimism but simply “vigilant realism’’. Fat chance."
27/01/2010
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The Daily Express
Leo Robson
"Ehrenreich is often grimly funny. Discussing the belief that positive thinking can have a real impact, she uses the example of the son of a missing soldier who thought that the positive thoughts of Americans were as important as the army search: “Positive thoughts notwithstanding, the soldier’s body was found in the Euphrates River one week later.”"
27/01/2010
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The New York Times
Hanna Rosin
"[A] deeply satisfying book… Ehrenreich is right, of course, in her theological critique. But she misses a chance to dig deeper. I have spent some time in prosperity churches, and ... this brand of faith cannot be explained away as manipulation by greedy, thieving preachers. Millions of Americans — not just C.E.O.’s and megapastors but middle-class and even poor people — feel truly empowered by the notion that through the strength of their own minds alone they can change their circumstances. This may be delusional and infuriating. But it is also a kind of radical self-reliance that is deeply and unchangeably American."
27/01/2010
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The New York Times
Janet Maslin
"Her argument has the makings of a tight, incisive essay. And each chapter eventually delivers a succinct reiteration of the central point. But this short book is also padded with cheap shots, easy examples, research recycled from her earlier books and caustic reportorial stalking. Ms. Ehrenreich starts out with her ideas firmly in place, then goes out hunting for crass, benighted individuals whose perniciousness helps her accentuate the negative."
27/01/2010
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