Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to “prosper” you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of “positive psychology” and the “science of happiness.” Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—contributed directly to the current economic crisis.
There is a simple test to find out if you are a cranky (AKA realistic) person vs. a willing victim of the epidemic of “irrational exuberance.” Answer this: Did you, or did you not, see the 2008 market crashes coming?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Barbara Ehrenreich | ||||
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