The Age of Magical Overthinking
Notes on Modern Irrationality
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4.4 • 28 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A BookPage Best Nonfiction Book of 2024
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Best-selling author and podcaster Amanda Montell takes an entertaining look at the science and myths behind what we believe and why. In a world where internet influencers have folks believing intentional thinking can cure diseases, urban legends convince bank robbers lemon juice will make them invisible, and “fake it ’til you make it” has become standard advice to entrepreneurs, how do we know what’s true and what’s a lie? Montell delivers an in-depth discussion of the dangers of information overload in the age of smartphones and social media, the many ways it impacts us, and how to cope with it. She shares her thoughts in a style that’s straightforward and conversational, adding plenty of wit and her own life experiences. It’s a welcome dose of smarts and sanity in an increasingly hectic world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Linguist Montell follows up Cultish with a ruminative examination of "self-deceptive thought patterns," which she contends are a powerful substratum of the modern psyche. While "magical thinking," or the belief that one's thoughts can affect the real world, may function as a necessary mental shield in certain situations (Joan Didion famously wrote about its importance for dealing with grief), Montell argues that "magical overthinking" is that same tendency set into irrational overdrive by the internet era's overabundance of information. To illuminate this phenomenon, she dissects pop culture oddities and contemporary relationship issues to show how they are symptomatic of otherwise anodyne "cognitive biases" run amok. One standout chapter posits that fans' "parasocial" relationships with celebrities, which rely on attributing to the celebrity an invented personality based on scant evidence, are an instance of the "halo effect" (the "unconscious tendency to make positive assumptions about a person's overall character"). Originally documented decades ago as characteristic of how people think about close associates, this cognitive bias is made irrational by "closeness" to celebrities via social media. Other chapters analyze the "sunk cost fallacy" in relationships and "confirmation bias" in astrology. Montell's arguments sometimes hinge on reductive generalizations (e.g., everyone believes they are a good person), but she makes more than enough astute connections to compensate for occasional glosses. It's an alluring diagnosis of what ails modern minds.
