Book Club: Popular Science

You're invited to the 4th meeting of the IT Connect community book club

Have you often been told, 'just think positive'?

• Burned out? Try meditation.
• No money? Work on your mindset.
• Sad? Thank the universe for three good things.

Over the past 25 years, happiness has, in some sense, become an obligation.

And a multibillion-dollar market: books, apps, corporate wellbeing programs, government happiness indices.

😂 If you're unhappy, it means you didn't try hard enough.

Sociologist Eva Illouz and psychologist Edgar Cabanas, in the book "The Factory of Happy Citizens", examine where this came from and who benefits.

👉 They show:

• how celebrated findings in positive psychology turned out to be calculation errors;
• why employees are increasingly expected to produce not only results but also the 'right' emotions;
• how a conversation about living conditions is being replaced by a conversation about 'mindset'.

This is not a book against happiness. It's a book about why it's okay to sometimes be angry, to doubt, and to be unproductive.

Note: the authors are often criticized for being one-sided. So there will be plenty to argue about )) And maybe some of you will come to defend positive psychology.

To register, send a private message on Telegram to @NastyaShtein