The "Philosophy good self help bad" trope - a librarians perspective. re: for the love of god, stop reading self-help
This is a reply to for the love of god, stop reading self help by Absurd Pirate.
The self help book carries a storyline that doesn't really need to introduction; it's one most of us has been taught ever since we we're little children. Act nice, use your time wisely, take care of your body, yadda yadda. With the exception of a hopefully well timed kick in the ass and being a 'first step' for gathering motivation to just start™ with whatever you want to do, it's hard to find a proper argument for reading one. But. It does actually entail reading one.
Moralism in reading
While I by no means want to accuse the original author of perpetrating this, I do want to point out a pattern. While what I'll from hereon refer to as kiosk literature, 'meaningless' books that you can buy at kiosks or airports with flat stories and simple plot lines, can be looked down on as meaningless by people who read classic literature, self-help can be looked down upon by people who seek classic philosophy for guidance.
Reading Nietzsche or Aurelius and reading Goggins or Mel Robbins doesn't necessarily serve different goals; it's just using different tools for trying to establish a framework of understanding and navigating the world we live in. In an abstract manner, Nietzsche and Goggins both look for the übermensch, and Aurelius and Robbins both try to establish a framework of being unaffected.1 Why is it that reading one is good and the other is bad? After all, Nietzsche certainly made a lot of... questionable claims in ie. Beyond Good and Evil.2 I also find it questionable to view self help as a mindless barrage of hustle slop but [moral] philosophy as of actual substance. I struggle to find a way of describing Nietzsche's texts about how he is "so wise" due to his having "so much race instinct in my blood" as filled with substance (ecce homo).
This is similar to the trope to "fans" vs "enjoyers", where one has "more class and sophisication" whereas the other is, to quote Absurd Pirate, more akin to masturbation than anything. It's also worth noting how Absurd Pirate points out in their own post how self help served as a "gateway drug" for them to go from the role of "fan" to "enjoyer" - after all, their motivation for reading stoic literature was it inspiring the self help books they (previously) enjoyed. Oh, and for the record, what's wrong with masturbation? It's really healthy and done by the vast majority of people, not to mention really damn pleasureable. AURORA recommends it too.
There is no lack of things I want to critique about the self help genre, and I'll gladly do so in-detail and at length. The belief that you are in total control of your life is, at best, misguided, and at worst actively harmful and disillusioned. Getting your shit together is a good strategy if you are middle class, have an education or in other words own shit that you can get together. But if Absurd Pirate wants to critique this or other tropes, they should write a critique of this - not a demeaning comparison to what they believe is something with actual substance.
Absurd Pirate makes the case that you are taking ideas and pondering them in your own head and questioning yourself and the world around you when you read philosophy, putting it in contrast to self-help even if that is the goal of the self-help book. They also make the case that biography books are probably some of the most important books you can read as you'll see the patterns in real life, even if many of the biography books I've read have provided me with less importance than purely fictional works3, and most definitely have had less historical importance.4
In another blog post, Absurd Pirate advices the reader to look deeper into things. With this text, I advice them to do the same.
For the record, I'd gladly make the case that much of philosophy is without 'actual substance' when it comes to being applied to the real world, not to mention the obscene euro-centricism and patriarchical structures of what we select as the 'important' works. Why should 'cogito ergo sum' be known by everyone, but not 'ubuntu'?
Epilogue: The joy of reading, and a tiny critique of Mark Manson
I enjoy reading. Both books and other mediums. I don't spend my time scrolling social media; I read newspapers, preferably long-form. I don't look for information in large language models; I open manuals for technical stuff and look for peer-reviewed articles in reputable publications. I don't read the kiosk literature; today I bought O Livro dos Abraços in Portuguese, a language I haven't even reached A2-levels in, and I couldn't move to Brazil without bringing with me some Karl-Ove Knausgård. Yet I do not criticize people for reading kiosk literature, self help or their equivalents - I have friends in law school who only read YA smut in their free time since their head is tired from, well, studying law. If I critcize it, it will be the specific choice of book.
I think people should read something else than Mark Manson; he seems very much like a jerk and makes many wrongful assumptions in his book. I genuinely do not think he is worth neither your time nor your money. He even as a footnote in his Everything is F\cked that his statement "This is not an exaggeration" is "most certainly an exaggeration". TSAoNGaF is somewhat questionable at best, and it's sad to see him try to dismiss many womens real stories about sexual assault as them making things up. Manson is not out to help you - he is out to profit off of you. But if reading self help (preferably not Manson) is what you want to do, if it gets you enjoyment, and most importantly if it gets you to read, I'm happy for you, even if it's just an at times worse repeat of what other have said before.
In Norway, I work part time as a librarian. I lend out many books I would very much abstain from reading. But whenever someone comes to borrow bad books, be it self-help, poorly written romance, or stories with no 'real' meaning, I still view it as a win. These people actively got out of their houses to head down to the library, with no other goal than to get a book, no matter if it's Hazelwoods A Love Hypothesis or all six books of Knausgårds My Struggle.
That has a value which shouldn't be negated.
Recommended reading: the superiority complex of the screen minimalist - ava's blog
Changelog:
1. Fixed some formatting and elaborated a little on footnotes. Also added AURORA quote
2. Added reply-button
3. Fixed more formatting. Does bearblog not accept \ to escape markdown? Also added the line about Manson wanting to profit off of you
Or so I assume. I've never found a reason to read either Robins or Aurelius as I find stoicism kinda... cringe? A quick look at reviews and summarisations support this though.↩
Aphorism 145: In comparing man and woman in general we can say that woman would not have the genius for finery if she did not have the instinct for the 'secondary' role.↩
It's hard to overstate how much Rick Riordans books affected my youth, or how many other fantasy books helped me develop compassion. Fiction is also proven to increase empathy, in contrast to non-fiction. These books are, for the record, without any "real substance". I still enjoy them today.↩
Orwells books, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, just to name a few.↩