The Three Sections of Cynicism

[forsyth]

I work at B&N, as I've mentioned before. And there are four sections of the store that make me feel the most cynical. Three of them are for largely the same reason, the fourth is the politics section, since a lot of screeds get shelved there that really should go in fiction, what with how much relations they have to reality.

The three other sections are large chunks of the self-help, New Age, and "Religious Inspiration" sections. And all for pretty much the same reason. Much like the South Park joke about Christian Rock: take regular rock songs, and change the words so they're about Jesus instead of some dude/chick, a lot of the religious/new age inspiration books are just self-help books with bits about Jesus/the Green Man/Universal Life Force/Whatever added. But that's not what really annoys me. What annoys me is a vast selection of these books are, in a word, bullshit. Bullshit in the technical sense used in the "On Bullshit" essay, wherein the authors simply don't care if what they say is true or false, as long as they (literally, in this case) get you to buy whatever they're saying. If you look, you can find two books arguing for EXACTLY OPPOSITE THINGS and saying you'll lose weight/get laid/get happy/find god/get rich/whatever. They don't care if it actually works or makes any sense, they're just in it for the money.

The really ironic thing about it. though? People are weird And because people are all weird and different, sometimes totally opposite things can work for them, so even the most outlandish balderdash actually will work for some small number of people. Enough to make a page full of half a dozen quotes anyway. But most of the people will just end up wasting $10-20. And even if the people are totally sincere and it really did work for them, chances are it won't work for other people. So which is worse, the ones selling people useless advice because they're scammers, or the ones selling useless advice they believe in?

There's a bunch of "business" books of the same type too, like most of the "management handbooks." And for some reason, most of the books about talking to people or making connections or so on are in business. If they really worked, they'd be good for a lot more than business. And honestly, if they really worked, those techniques should be taught to everybody, in school. Good communication would solve a lot of problems.

Comments

[frustratedpilot]

In one of the Joseph Campbell books, perhaps The Power of Myth or Transformations of Myth Through Time, he related this folk tale from Africa about a god who walked around with a hat on, and the hat was a different color to whomever saw it. He wore this hat for no other purpose than to cause people to argue and fight over what color it was.

I think about this story a lot these days.

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

I know he referenced it in The Hero With a Thousand Faces at least once. I remember a bit about that story.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

I think you're talking about Eshu. He showed up in Trickster Makes This World too.

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

It works because they believe it will work. And that's not always a bad thing.
In some cases, it saves a lot of money. :)

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

That's exactly my point. For some things, it's just a matter of thinking it'll work, and the book or whatever giving you a plan that you can work with, even if it's almost identical to every other one out there.

There's quite a few times though where it doesn't work, and thinking it'll work isn't the only thing that'll fix it. And many of them won't work for a lot of people, and the things convinve people they can't fix things themselves without some "system" or "expert" or whatever. So most of the books, most of the time, are a waste, was my point. And, along with the not caring if they work thing, is why they annoy me.

[dirkdada.livejournal.com]

honestly, I don't think that hokem works for anybody. They just think it does long enough to write back enthusiastically. Kinda like faith healing. A little old lady acts healed because everyone around her wants her to be healed, she wants to be healed and doesn't want to disappoint everyone else. So adrenalin sets in and she throws away her walker.

Then after the cameras are gone, her hip gives way.

[dirkdada.livejournal.com]

My cynicism meter broke the day I saw the book "What Would Machiavelli Do?" in the business section.