Is Bright-sided (2009) CHUD or WOKE?
chudrank score: 74 / 100 (WOKE-leaning (left-wing)). 0 is CHUD (right-wing), 100 is WOKE (left-wing).
Book by Barbara Ehrenreich, 2009.
9 votes: 78% WOKE, 22% CHUD.
Why: Critique of positive-thinking culture
In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, 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,…