DevInContext The Case For Personal Growth

Thoughts On “Thinking For Yourself”

Critics of personal development often assert that, rather than reading self-help books, we should "think for ourselves."  In fact, many critics even fear that personal growth products are actually stripping people of their ability to think independently.

"The self-help tradition has always been covertly authoritarian and conformist," writes Wendy Kaminer in I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional.  "Merely buying a self-help book is an act of dependence."  Similarly, literary critic Stewart Justman writes in Fool's Paradise: The Unreal World of Pop Psychology that the self-help "genre seems inherently authoritarian, implying as it does that we live and act according to sets of instructions."

These criticisms certainly make personal development sound unnervingly Orwellian.   But do they make sense?

Is Advice Anti-Thinking?

It's true that many self-help books offer us advice on how to live our lives -- how to find inner peace, parent our children, and so on.  But this alone can't be enough to strip us of intellectual independence.  After all, books on origami, changing tires, investing in bonds, and so on also offer advice, but no one seems to be concerned that these books are "brainwashing" anyone.

Kaminer seems to recognize that the mere fact that self-help books give advice doesn't make them "totalitarian."  Thus, she says she's not interested in critiquing "practical (how to do your own taxes) books."  Instead, she is aiming at books with "a strong emphasis on individual, personal, or spiritual development."  In other words, it's only people who give advice on personal or spiritual development who threaten the cognitive freedom of their listeners -- not those who tell you how to fix your car.

I think the trouble with this distinction is that it neglects the vast amount of advice on personal and spiritual development that writers outside the self-help genre offer.  Philosophers, at least since ancient Greece and probably before, have wrestled with the question of how one ought to live.  The world's religions also have pretty clear ideas about how we should develop spiritually.  But I suspect Kaminer wouldn't claim that we shouldn't read books on philosophy or religion because they might control our minds.

Is Simplicity Sinister?

On some level, I think Kaminer is aware of this objection, and thus she tries to distinguish personal growth from philosophy and religion on the ground that self-help teachers' advice is overly simplistic.  Personal growth books, she writes, encourage an intellectual "passivity and search for simple absolutes."

I actually agree that much personal growth advice is simplistic.  I think the personal development blogosphere, for example, could stand to churn out fewer "50 Quick Happiness Tips"-style posts, and dive deeper into what really creates motivation and suffering in human beings.

However, the fact that some self-help advice may be simplistic doesn't necessarily render it sinister and manipulative, as Kaminer seems to believe.  In other words, another person's mere act of offering you simple advice doesn't turn you into a mindless zombie under their command.

Suppose, for instance, you come to me with all kinds of concerns about your relationship, and I tell you that you should leave your partner.  My recommendation in this example is certainly simple, and perhaps simplistic, because it doesn't address the underlying feelings and behaviors creating your relationship issues.

However, it would be absurd to claim that, merely by offering you simple advice, I've put you at risk of becoming my brainwashed slave -- just as it would be silly to argue that a book called "5 Simple Steps To Doing Your Taxes" threatens its readers' mental autonomy.  You're free to accept or reject my advice -- or, at the very least, my advice won't make you any less free to do so than your current cognitive capacities allow. 

Sometimes Simple Is Superior

What's more, in some cases, simplicity is a virtue.  The most complicated advice or viewpoint is not always the most helpful one.  I think there are great social advantages, for example, in simple moral rules like "rape is wrong" that leave no room for exceptions.  A society where people accept such a rule, I think you'd agree, is better off than one where the morality of raping someone depends on a nuanced cost-benefit analysis.

In other words, I think it's entirely possible to both "think for yourself" and read a book, or listen to someone, offering simple advice -- even if it's of the self-help stripe.  What's more, the simplicity of a message alone doesn't rob it of merit.