Enough smiling!

The always perceptive Barbara Ehrenreich, author of 2001's "Nickel and Dimed," takes aim at mind-numbing cheerfulness, specifically the positive-thinking culture that surrounds breast cancer patients. Ehrenreich learned that she had the disease in 2000, and when she sought out information and support all she found was a "Don't Worry, Be Happy" attitude that drove her absolutely batty. And heaven forbid she try to question the pink-ribboned mindset. Most infuriating, she added, was the advice to "consider your cancer a gift." From the NYT:

Every rosy affirmation -- the advertisements for breast cancer teddy bears and other tchotchkes, the inspirational slogans ("When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile"), and the politically correct language ("victim" and "patient" are avoided because they suggest passivity) -- sharpened her keen sense of outrage.

It's not so much the power of positive thinking as the power of non-thinking, and Ehrenreich says it can be found everywhere.

She kept encountering the same smiling insistence elsewhere that a positive outlook itself was the solution to problems. It had infiltrated the large career-counseling industry that serves the unemployed; the Ivy League, where "positive psychology" has nested in the curriculum; the best-seller list, where "The Secret" has taken up residence; mega-churches run by evangelists; and conferences for motivational speakers. Then the financial crisis hit. "Wham," she said. "It was so clear to me that it was connected." The relentlessly optimistic forecasts about subprime mortgages and endless increases in real estate values were the product of the positive-thinking culture.

Her new book is "Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America."