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The age of magical overthinking : notes on modern irrationality

Montell, Amanda2024

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Summary

Utilizing her linguistic insights and sociological explorations, the best-selling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult delves into the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, including "magical thinking," offering a prevailing message of hope, empathy and forgiveness for our anxiety-riddled human selves. "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.