The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the bestselling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking. Utilizing the linguistic insights of her "witty and brilliant" (Blyth Roberson, author of America the Beautiful?) first book Wordslut and the sociological explorations of her breakout hit Cultish, Amanda Montell now turns her erudite eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in her most personal and electrifying work yet. "Magical thinking" can be broadly defined as the belief that one's internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world: think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain's coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven. In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the "halo effect" cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the "sunk cost fallacy" can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we've realized they're not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell's prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it.
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Community Reviews
Nothing groundbreaking but she does include bits of research in each chapter to discuss the halo effect, sunk cost fallacy, etc. however each chapter rambled about in various directions, which made me lose interest. Long winded sentences/ideas that did not take root in any direction. Sometimes I didn’t really understand what the chapter had even been about. But there were some glimpse of memoir that were interesting, and the chapter about her toxic relationship was probably my favorite.
I enjoyed Amanda Montell's book about linguistics in cults, and expected for her follow-up to be just as insightful. However, I don't think this sophomore release met the high expectations from her freshman debut. Each chapter was scattered, no cohesion for any connection in her social science findings on the pseudoscience of "positive thinking" to rid of all ailments.
interesting non- fiction about cognitive biases in pop culture / society today. reminded me to live in the present and consume less.
“It’s hard to consume and create in the same state,” she told me. “If you value any kind of creativity, and I don’t just mean art, give your brain a break from consuming, because that gives you space to process all that you’ve been reading or watching. We must afford ourselves this space actively, said Sanderville, because at life’s current pace, it won’t happen by accident.”
“It’s hard to consume and create in the same state,” she told me. “If you value any kind of creativity, and I don’t just mean art, give your brain a break from consuming, because that gives you space to process all that you’ve been reading or watching. We must afford ourselves this space actively, said Sanderville, because at life’s current pace, it won’t happen by accident.”
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