Lecture Series:Ehrenreich

Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

Ehrenreich reveals how Positive Thinking has infiltrated every part of American culture and she exposes the downside of this insistence on always and only seeing the bright side. She tracks this phenomenon to all corners of society—the medical profession, which encourages staying positive as a form of healing; the mega-churches, which spread the good news of the prosperity gospel and that God wants you to buy that car or home, even if it means going further into debt; and most of all, the business community, where the refusal to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—and CEOs’ groundless optimism have replaced risk analysis as the basis for company decisions. Positive thinking has become a beacon of hope for many but all blind optimism has its consequences, not least a failure to find the real culprits or tackle the real causes at work. Bright-Sided is a call for a clear-eyed assessment of the problems at hand and a return to realism in America.