Bright-Sided

by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.   

Not very often do I make an essay into a book review, but it happens occasionally.  I reviewed the book, Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, 2009), for our BookClubandthensome.com web site, and I had no intention of using it for an essay until I read this in a column by John Swartzberg, M.D., Chair of the editorial board for the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, “As Barbara Ehrenreich points out in her new book, Bright-Sided, women with breast cancer are often assaulted with the idea that negative thinking brought on their cancer and that positive thinking will cure it” (p. 3, January, 2010).  Suddenly, his reference to the book gave it new attention and credibility, and I thought readers of my essays might like to hear more about her book.  It is a wonderful book full of insights.
   
First, it is helpful to know something about the author.  I am quoting this from the back flyleaf of the book: “Barbara Ehrenreich is the author os sixteen previous books, including the bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch.  A frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time magazine.”  At the Wikipedia web site, the following information was found: “Ehrenreich studied physics at Reed College, graduating in 1963. Her senior thesis was entitled Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. In 1968, she received a Ph.D in cellular biology from Rockefeller University.”  And in her book, Bright-Sided, she calls herself “a former cellular immunologist” (p. 39).
   
Although you do not need a sophisticated vocabulary to understand the language she uses in her book, having one helps at points.  For example, she says, “Continuing in an anthropomorphic vein, there’s an interesting parallel between macrophages and cancer cells...” (p. 39).  I want to quickly add, however, this is not typical of most of the book.  She writes well.
   
In Chapter 1, “Smile or Die: The Bright Side of Cancer,” Ehrenreich’s conclusion, after carefully examining the evidence, is, “Besides, it takes effort to maintain the upbeat demeanor expected by others [who have been diagnosed with cancer]—effort that can no longer be justified as a contribution to long-term survival” (p. 41).  In an excellent example of the belief in optimism to overcome cancer, a woman wrote that she changed her lifestyle, meditates, prays, eats properly, exercises, and takes supplements, and asks Deepak Chopra if she’s missing something?  Chopra replied to her, “As far as I can tell, you are doing all the right things to recover.  You just have to continue doing them until the cancer is gone for good...” (p. 42).  Chopra’s response is utter and total nonsense!  Ehrenreich concludes her first chapter saying that it is American culture “that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate” (p. 44).
   
In Chapter 2, “The Years of Magical Thinking,” Ehrenreich traces much of the history of positive thinking, disembowels the use of pseudo-science to justify claims that thoughts can magically control actions (using The Secret as one extensive example where Rhonda Byrne, the author, “cites quantum physics” (p. 67), and ends the chapter saying, “It’s a glorious universe the positive thinkers have come up with, a vast, shimmering aurora borealis in which desires mingle freely with their realizations.  Everything is perfect here, or as perfect as you want to make it.  Dreams go out and fulfill themselves; wishes need only to be articulated.  It’s just a god-awful lonely place” (p. 73).
   
I loved her characterizations of Calvinism, Puritanism, the “New Thought movement,” Christian Scientist thinking, and Norman Vincent Peale—all in Chapter 3, “The Dark Roots of American Optimism.”  I found it fascinating to follow, with Ehrenreich’s guidance, the thread that connected all of these and the way positive thinking “was beginning to be an obligation imposed on all American adults” (p. 96).
   
“Motivating Business and the Business of Motivation,” is the title of Chapter 4, and in this chapter Ehrenreich describes the motivational-speaking business and how such experiences “can be a thrillingly cathartic experience—not something to expect at any company gathering and even feel entitled to as a temporary release from the ongoing pressure” (p. 106).  “One unusually forthcoming motivational speaker,” Ehrenreich writes, “expressed some discomfort with her role, telling me that employers use people like her in part “to beat up employees” if they don’t achieve the goals that have been set for them. “They can say, ‘Didn’t you listen to the speaker we brought in?’” (p. 117) 

She also discusses the dependence on positive thinking by the speakers at motivational meetings, groups, and “boot camps” designed for recently fired employees as well as the formation, development, and use of “team building” (p. 120)—which is simply another form of motivation (p. 121) often designed to soften the blow of being released.  Result? “[Employees] may have had less and less power to chart their own futures, but they had been given a worldview—a belief system, almost a religion—that claimed they were in fact infinitely powerful, if only they could master their own minds” (p. 122).
   
Ehrenreich’s descriptions of the positive preachers Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and Joel Osteen fit perfectly as examples of Chapter 5, “God Wants You to Be Rich.”  The enemy for positive preachers is “negative thinking” (p. 127).  

Ehrenreich’s story of her visit to Joel and his copastor and wife, Victoria Osteen’s megachurch (pp. 128-133) is both delightful and revealing.  Ehrenreich writes, “My Baptist friends in Houston can only shake their heads in dismay at Osteen’s self-serving theology.  On scores of Christian Web sites,” she says, “you can find Osteen and other positive pastors denounced as ‘heretics,’ ‘false Christians,’ even as associates of the devil...” (p. 133).
   
My attention to Ehrenreich’s book was drawn to Chapter 6, “Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness,” simply because I have cited Martin Seligman a number of times in my books and articles, and I own his book, Learned Optimism.  I knew that “academics tended to dismiss the ideas of his successors as pop cultural ephemera and the stuff of cheap hucksterism” (p. 147).  How the new positive psychology became mainstream, the benefits it offered to nonacademic motivational speakers, coaches, and self-help entrepreneurs, the influence positive psychologists have had in the corporate world and on therapy, and the interview Ehrenreich had with him are fascinating revelations that, by themselves, make this book worth reading.
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In “Living Well: There’s a Downside to Positive Thinking,” Bob Condor offers a large number of useful insights—many more benefits to positive thinking than negative effects.  This is an essay that is interesting and useful.

Amelia writes in the essay, “The Down Side of Positive Thinking,” at the web site, contextscrawler, a review of Ehrenreich’s book, Bright-Sided.  The value of her review essay is that she offers readers two substantial quotations that will give you a good idea of Ehrenreich’s writing style.

At TheNation, in an essay, “The Down Side of Positive Thinking,” you can see a brief video of a conversation of Barbara Ehrenreich with GRIT TV's Laura Flanders.  In the conversation, “she discusses how her personal struggle with breast cancer was overshadowed by her personal struggle with the cheerleaders who dominated the breast cancer support groups.”
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Copyright August, 2011, by And Then Some Publishing, LLC.