 | As a bookstore employee, I've often wondered about the space dedicated to the many useless books on self-help, many of them by the same authors. If each has the answer, why do they need to keep writing books? Obviously it's the failure of the reader to achieve his potential. More likely the need of the author to make more money at the expense of the gullible by selling the continuous spinoffs and cassettes. As I was shelving books today, I found an answer not in the self-help section, but in the current affairs section.
In SHAM, Steve Salerno takes on the self-help industry by pointing out that it is in fact an INDUSTRY based on perpetuating it's business by working against actual self-help; if one actually helps themselves, then why the need for a self-help guru? (The author quotes George Carlin: "If you're reading a book on self-help, it's not really self-help, is it?"). Salerno traces the history of the movement back past Ben Franklin's POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC, but notes that it was books like Dale Carnegie's HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE and the transition of salesmen like Zig Ziglar into the lecture circuit as "life coaches" that really set the stage for today's obsession with the self-help industry. He identifies the main focus of self-help books as the perpetuation of the victim mentality and the gender neutralization of society at the expense of males. In response to the victim mentality comes the "empowerment" camp represented by Tony Robbins, Dr. Laura, and most notoriously, Ernhardt's est therapy. Instead of advocating victimhood, they berate the individual for not being good enough to "bootstrap" themselves into the ideals that the good doctor project. Salerno sees the problem on both sides of giving unrealistic expectations about their abilities as a result of the "I'm OK, you're OK" school of self-esteem. (Witness the crushed spirit of the talentless on AMERICAN IDOL.)
Salerno takes on many individual authors, pointing out that many so called doctors are not. He traces the origins of Dr. Phil from being a self-professed "poor-therapist" who hated listening to his clients to a chance connection with Oprah Winfrey during her burger-trial and earning the coveted "O" rating. Many self-help authors spout oversimplified platitudes that resemble Yogi Berra-like aphorisms. John Gray of VENUS AND MARS fame supposedly had a primarily female audience in mind in his attempt to feminize men.
Indeed, Salerno questions the results of this gender-neutralization, with gender neutral play for boys stressing non-violence and "sharing your feelings" by crying. He claims this has backfired: consider that many black male fans of "gansta rap" songs that celebrate cruelty to women are raised without male role models and raised by single mothers and grandmothers, or the violence perpetrated by the Columbine shooters in an age where students are mandated by schools to attend "sensitivity training" and forbidden to play with little green army men.
Compare the culture of self-help to the work of Ayn Rand. There is nothing wrong with self-help in the sense that Rand wrote about. There is nothing wrong with trying to understand the workings of the mind, or our motives behind destructive behavior. And a psychologist can be helpful as an objective observer to facts that an individual may not recognize in themselves (lack of introspection). Rand wanted man to be able to function without her. Self-help gurus want you to keep coming back for more.
You want a real self-help book? Find a book that fosters your interests and learning. Find a book on how to play an instrument. Go to the technology section and study science, or car repair, or go to the home section and get a gardening book or home design book. Like cooking? There are many books available to get you started. You'll spend less time in agony over your failings and more time developing a self you can be proud of.
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SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless by Steve Salerno
