There’s a joke my family used to tell.
Two parents have twins who are each irritating in their own way. One is relentlessly pessimistic and griping, and the other irritatingly optimistic. Finally, fed up, the parents decide that they’ll give the pessimist gifts so wonderful he can’t possibly be unhappy, and the optimist a gift so awful he can’t possibly be positive about it. Birthday morning, they send the pessimist to a room filled with all the best and most desirable toys, and the optimist to a room filled with horse shit.
They wait a bit, and then go to the pessimist. He’s sitting, sulking, in the middle of the room. They say, “But, why are you so unhappy?” And he says, “Because you gave me all this crap, and not what I really wanted.” They’re discouraged, but they go on to the other room, thinking, “He can’t possibly like horse shit.” They get there, and find the optimist cheerfully shovelling the horse shit out of the room. They ask, “What are you doing?” And he says, “With all this shit, there has to be a pony someplace.”
I’ve read a lot of self-help (some of it from as far back as the 17th century), and there’s often a pony, and I like the ponies. But there’s also a lot of horse shit. As it happens, I don’t need horse shit, but other people might be looking for manure, so they might find it useful. Or they might find ponies I didn’t notice. I’m grateful for self-help rhetoric.
Some of that shit, however, is toxic.
Self-help rhetoric has a structure. It says you have this problem, you’ve tried to solve this problem in various ways, and none of them have worked. It proposes a solution to the problem (the plan), shows how the plan will solve the problem, shows it’s feasible, and, ideally, argues that there won’t be unintended consequences worse than the problem it’s solving. In other words, it relies on the stock issues of policy argumentation.
I like policy argumentation, so I don’t think self-help rhetoric using that structure is a problem. Like any other discourse, it can be a problem depending on how the stock issues in policy argumentation are used. When self-help rhetoric is damaging, it tends to engage in shaming and/or fear-mongering in the need part. Often, it relies on identifying the problem as at least partially that we are bad people, or members of a bad group. It often says that the cause of the problem is a personal failing on our part and/or the machinations of a malevolent out-group. Thus, even though it isn’t necessarily political, it has a lot of qualities of demagoguery.
The plan they propose is to join their group, buy their product, pay for their advice. An important part of the argument for their plan is that they and only they or their product can solve our problem. They say the plan is feasible (is this policy practical) because you can pay in installments, or you just have to buy this one thing, read this one book, watch these free videos. They deal with stock issue of solvency (how will this plan solve the ill) in two ways. First, they provide testimonials, sometimes by representatives of the five percent (or less) that have succeeded (so far), or, second, by simply asserting that their group/plan/product will solve the problem if you commit with enough will.
Many of these ways of arguing are shared with discourses outside of self-help, and sometimes we argue one of these ways because it’s true. If our car’s brakes are failing, someone insisting that we might die if we don’t deal with this issue is not fear-mongering, and it may be that our options are limited. But it’s fairly rare that there is only one possible solution. There are many places that can fix our brakes, we might be able to take the bus for a while instead of driving, we might be able to borrow a car, or even buy a new one. So, one of the things that makes some self-help rhetoric toxic is that it says there is only one solution, and it’s the one they’re advocating.
Second, it says that, if this solution doesn’t work (and, honestly, I think every solution fails from time to time), it is our fault—we did it wrong, usually because of our inadequate will. So, there is no way that their plan/policy/product can be proven wrong because it can never fail; only you can. That evasion of accountability moves this whole discourse out of the rational, or even reasonable, and into the realm of a religious—perhaps even cult-like—way of thinking about the world. Because we failed, we have to recommit with greater effort and resources; we need to pay for another workshop, buy more products, perhaps even spend more time with other consumers of this product/members of this ideology. When it gets really toxic is when it says that we shouldn’t listen to any information that might weaken our resolve or make us doubt what we are being told.[1]
Just to be clear: what I’m saying is that the toxic kinds of self-help set you up for failure. And they set you up so that your failure will make you more dependent on the group/product.
It does this partially through appealing to the binary paired terms of good is to bad as pure is to mixed.
Good Pure Pride Determination
_____ :: _____ :: _____ :: ____________
Bad Mixed Shame “Doubt”
That we have this problem (procrastination, debt, low income) means that we are in the category of bad (the shaming part). The solution is for us to become good. If we want to be good, we need to think in absolute terms, with absolute (i.e., pure) commitment, cleansing our thinking of nuance, uncertainty, doubt, purifying our world of bad influences who might encourage us to doubt. We need to commit to this one group or one policy, and stick with it regardless of whether it works because, if it didn’t work, it’s our fault for not believing in it enough. In toxic discourses, purity becomes about opting for commitment rather than consideration. They say that we need to believe rather than think.
Far too much of our public (and even private) discourse about policy issues is the toxic kind of self-help rhetoric.
[1] Thus, as far as what makes something a pony is self-help rhetoric that is clearly presented as one way of doing things, doesn’t frame the issue as Good v. Evil, doesn’t promise its solution as one that will always work, avoids shaming, sets out reasonable expectations, recommends practices/products from which it doesn’t profit (or even benefit), can often be combined with advice/practices from elsewhere, and doesn’t present deeper commitment (more purchases) as the only possible response to setbacks or failure.