Boy is it nice to see someone exposing Positive fucking Psychology, The Secret, the "prosperity gospel," and all the rest of the American happytalk crap. I get so sick of it. I get so fucking sick of it. God, I got so sick of it at the Health NonProfit Call Center I worked at--all the smileys and balloons and cheery emails with little animated cartoons ("Join me on the coverage train!") and the required-attendance pep rallies and the color-coded performance scales with little medals and the cute...

Before you back away from this title, understand that the opposite of positivism is not negativism, but realism. Ehrenriech does a masterful job of taking on the "happyness" culture that pervades business, organized religion, pop psychology, and the American way, where being "upbeat" is no longer a guideline, but a requirement. Particularly disturbing are her accounts of people being drummed out of cancer support groups for not being positive enough during obviously failing prognoses, and the qu...

Read the reviews by Trevor (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) and Lena (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) They are better, but I couldn’t resist a few comments.I didn’t expect to like this book. I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about Nickle and Dimed, but this title was chosen for our reading club, so I gave it a whirl. Ehrenreich uses her personal experience with breast cancer as a jumping off point.which led to her loathing for the pink-ribbon-cancer-is-a-blessing-and-will-make-you...

I enjoyed this book. It left me feeling angry, which I regard as the highest praise. Hurrah for realism however bleak and a pox on the blindness of optimism. Or instead as the old joke goes - lets draw the curtains and pretend the train is still moving. Indeed this is a book that reminds me of Douglas Adams' Electric Monk from a Dirk Gently adventure.The first chapter deals with her experience of breast cancer - did I mention this is cheerful book - her points in passing here the association of

It was bad enough that Barbara Ehrenreich suffered from breast cancer: what made it even worse was that so many people--medical professionals as well as friends and acquaintances--insisted that she be upbeat and positive about her affliction. Now, in addition to feeling angry and scared, she had to feel guilty about not looking on "the bright side." This experience led Ms. Ehrenreich to examine the origins of Positive Thinking in America (Dr. Quimby's New Thought, Mary Baker Eddy) as a reaction

“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” –Monty PythonAnymore, I have an aversion to much of this positive thinking cult and to religion that promotes it. It isn’t that I am against positive thinking, because I know it can help others; I am against its use in controlling people, as It is used for in religion or the business world, or, I might add, when it is used by anyone for this same reason. I saw its positive effects on a woman close to me who had been depressed for many years. She was readi...

This is a 2009 review. I belatedly found some really embarrassing typos and couldn’t help myself. :0Last year, while working in one of the roughest schools in one of the roughest districts of Orange County, I had a chance to see how the positive thinking/ self-help movement had slimed its way into public education. Each day at School X came with newly minted (and labeled) behavioral issues, expulsions, and cop cars, always cop cars. Many of the kids were flirting with, or had already joined, loc...

I remember reading this line in Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist: "When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true." I didn’t think about it too much. The book was full of such ridiculous but touchy-feely-warm-and-fluffy pronouncements. But then I kept seeing this quote everywhere. And Coelho is not the only one going around saying such vacuous platitudes. The reason why so many people find such patently-false absurdities charming or even inspiring

another book i wanted to like more than i did. also a book that makes me realize that i need to expand my book categories a little. anyway...i contemplated buying this book, but i saw barbara ehrenreich's interview on "the daily show" & found it really frustrating (is it absolutely necessary to be so hyperbolic & smug on national television?), so i settled for putting it on hold at the library. & i'm glad i did, because i was really disappointed. i was hoping for a smart, clever, somewhat mean-s...

Ehrenreich is the Richard Dawkins of positive thinking. While I like to think that I broadly agree with her, I'm sometimes put off by the way she says things and the spin she likes to put on certain people. Sarcasm should not be such a major weapon of an obviously intelligent and otherwise convincing author.In some chapters, along with some very reasoned and potent argument, she attacks people for the way they dress or for their hairstyle (mullets and bulletheads). Do I have to dislike everythin...

I always feel slightly guilty about my reaction to Barbara Ehrenreich's writing. I do admire her - she is ideologically committed, writes with passion, is on what I consider the "correct" side of the various social issues that concern her. And yet ... somehow I always end up with these niggling reservations that prevent me from endorsing her books wholeheartedly. In the case of "Nickel and Dimed", probably her best-known work, the niggling reservation was the artificiality of the whole endeavor

I dare say I'm too late to the party on this one to say anything that hasn't already been said. However....Of course I  knew all about the delusion of 'positive thinking', radiating from independent hucksters and Christian conmen, making a fortune from the scam. But I didn't realise that the scam reached deep into academia, shysters claiming to be teaching science, aka positive psychology.  And I hadn't cottoned onto the point that it is a manipulative tool to keep people down in the US, in exac...

This book grew on me, surely and steadily. I hadn't read anything by Barbara Ehrenreich, and at first she came off as a curmudgeonly contrarian, railing against elements of positive thinking that aren't really hurting anyone. She also launched very quickly into her own story of diagnosis with breast cancer and the sad facts about just how helpless a situation it can be (tension-releasing spoiler: this was written in 2009, and Ehrenreich's still alive at 80). One can sympathize with all of the pe...

Barbara Ehrenreich was first exposed to the dark side of the positive thinking movement when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Early into her cancer journey, she discovered that normal emotions such as anger and fear were being aggressively denied by those who believed that a positive attitude was crucial to survival. Cultural skeptic that she is, Ehernreich poured through the literature on the subject and found that, not only did science fail to support the hypothesis that a positive attitu...

There is little point writing a review of a book once Lena has written one - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... - not, of course, that that will stop me.This is a wonderful book. The main idea behind it is that we have developed a religious (quite literally) fervour for positive thinking. The best bits of this book are when she talks about the Evangelical Churches in the US and how they have moved away from negative images (like Jesus on the cross) towards Jesus in a three-piece business s...

I've been waiting my whole life for someone to write this book. THANK YOU! Ever since the positive thinking curriculum in sixth grade I've loathed the philosophy. Then there was the junior high math teacher who wanted us to visualize getting the "A." It makes me feel awful to want to slap any person who says, "everything happens for a reason" or "why did you draw that into your life?" -would you say that to a someone in the third world, or in a war -torn country?- Now someone has taken my side -...

This Just InShort paragraphs and emoticons in reviews quadruple reading pleasure. :)Shiny Happy PeopleApparently, forced happiness is crushing the spirit of the American workforce and driving ravenous capitalists to unstoppable heights of self-delusion that contribute to the one hundred trillion dollars or so national debt. :) :)I Love Your SmileMillions of unemployed people, many middle-class professionals, have been forced into taking minimum wage jobs, in which any negative comments are met w...

Well, I basically slept my way through this. (That sounded wrong...)I was surprised and disappointed that I was so bored by this, especially since Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America remains an invigorating favorite of mine. Her brilliance, humor, and biting cynicism is still in effect here - it's not as if her intelligence and wit has gone away - however, I find the material to be sorely lacking.Ehrenreich starts out on a high note, with one of the strongest chapters i...

This is one of the rare books that I can read, agree with the author on most points, and still hate. It took me a while to figure out why this was. I completely agree with Barbara Ehrenreich that people suffering from cancer and other chronic diseases shouldn't be coerced into thinking that they are responsible for their disease progressing poorly if they don't think positively enough. I completely agree with her assessment of "The Secret" and other such programs being complete BS. I also comple...

Great read. This book takes a look at the whole "positive thinking" culture. It offers a different viewpoint. Sometimes things just suck! Ehrenreich discusses everything from cancer, to the economic downfall. In order to have an informed opinion, I think both sides need to be investigated. While I may not agree with all her points, many rang true. I thought this was a well articulated and compelling read.