Self-improvement books do more harm than good

Round 2 | Arguments | by Eav | 13/11/In the following I used the more appropriate self-improvement as often as possible, but as self-help is the more enjoyable term to write and read and as the limitation of the topic have already been set, I use them now as synonyms, to make it bearable to read. No worries, I always write that much starting off, it get's less once I said everything that was spinning in my mind.OverviewAspect 1: Self-Improvement incapacitates the reader1a: Necessary degrading 1b: Lowers ability to help yourself1c: Analysis Paralysis Aspect 2: Genre problems2a: Relevance of scientific validity2b: Ideologies in subtext2c: Business Circle Conclusion Round 2SourcesA1: Self-Improvement incapacitates the readerIn this section I want point out, why self-improvement books do actually the opposite of what they aim to: they don’t teach you how to help yourself but offer pre-phrased solutions that, over time can easily harm your ability to address your problems without the help of self-help. 1a: Necessary degrading Nobody buys a self-improvement on a topic of which they think they have nothing to improve. And nobody writes a self-help book on a topic of which one thinks nobody needs improving. This establishes from the very beginning a necessary hierarchy between reader and author: The reader is the inferior, less ideal individual, while the author is the superior one.How hard an author might (even honestly) try, there is no way you can phrase an advice as the equal of the reader because the relevance of this advice is tied to the predominance of the advice-giver. And self-help doesn’t only degrade the reader in the author-reader relationship but often also in comparison to the rest of the society. Best and saddest example is probably the sub genre of weight-loss-self-improvement. With catchphrases featuring famous people and/or unrealistically easy and short-cut methods in Product descriptions people get compared to representatives of their society and reminded of their visual inferiority and mental inferiority to grasp something supposedly so easy that you can fix it in less than two weeks. I spare us all the endless string of “Hugh Jackman got fit with this”-Quotes here, but I will provide them if requested. 1b: Lowers ability to help yourself“f you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn.” (A. I. T. Ritchie in Mrs. Dymond, 1885) The concept of helping yourself or improving yourself imply that you find a method to resolve your issue. They do the opposite by giving you the (fishy) solution. You never learn how to help yourself nor how to develop a strategy to resolve your issues. The more you rely on pre-phrased solutions the more you slip into a resolving strategy that doesn’t involve you doing any relevant thinking. That likely contributes to the explanation why 80% percent of the self-help-readers are repeat buyers {1}. The semantic problem that what it seems to say and what it does are effective opposites makes it difficult for the reader to become aware of this process of increasing dependency. Meaning it’s not only harmful but also hard to identify as such. 1c: Analysis Paralysis Lastly the whole genre can trap you in a state of “Analysis Paralysis” a term created to describe a state in which you are unable to actually resolve your problem because you can’t decide what guideline or strategy is best, due to the nature that the amount of information is overwhelming {2}.This can be a bit worse than it sounds because it offers a way of avoiding the actual problem: “I don’t have to start my diet yet, because I don’t know which program to follow. That’s why I can still eat things that make me sick.”And extending this problem, analysis paralysis covers also up, if the base problem is something you can’t resolve without professional help such as bankruptcy, mental illness or adiposity. Stuck in a circle of information gathering you avoid to face the seriousness of the problem and the need to see a professional for individual counselling. A2: Genre problemsSelf-help and self-improvement are an own genre. One of the most successful genre currently {3}. But there are some issues with this genre that the user is often not aware of and hardly able to detect, which makes him a likely victim of related side-effects. 2a: Relevance of scientific validityWriting a scientific article or book is not attractive. You spent years on independent research, you’re work and sources are double and triple checked over a long time and when it’s finally published nobody outside the specific science community will significantly notice. Even Johannes Kepler decided that writing a novel was probably a good idea to make science semi-scientifically interesting for the public; his “Somnium” (1609/ 1938) one of the first SciFi novels ever {4}. For self-improvement books you don’t need to work scientifically correct. And you don’t have to tell your reader that you’re book is not reviewed and edited in that way. Which is obvious for every book that promises and sells fiction. Self-help doesn’t want to sell fiction, but valid life guidance. That there is no limit to what extend theories can be made up and intuitive or biased by a certain Ideology, is hard to comprehend for the reader. He is encouraged to believe blindly in some-thing that he should approach critically. That many bookstores nowadays place self-improvement books wildly within their store {5} likely close to topic related properly researched textbooks can’t be helpful to make this distinction clear. A paper by Norah Dunbar and Gordon Abra in 2006 uncovered that from a sample group of 31 authors of 35 popular communication relationship self-help books none had a degree in said field and if they had achieved a higher university level education most had still non or rarely any acknowledged-edged publications in their specific field {6}.Those authors with master and doctor level education are technically able to approach the topic adequately, but do not have the required specific knowledge for it. Those with neither have no specific knowledge nor have they ever been taught how to acquire specific knowledge professionally. This makes their work highly controversial. 2b: Ideologies in subtextAs pointed out in 2a; there is no limit for an author on biasing his own text to support a certain ideology, religion or sect. Especially if we consider the problem that people already approach the genre with self-doubts and obedience affinity (1a, b) it’s a great way to subtly use your readers trust to inflict a world view on him. I don’t like the word “Brainwashing” and I think it would be the wrong term here, because I don’t suspect any conspiracy theory here. But it’s enough that the author believes strongly in a certain (misguided) ideology so that he will have a hard time not automatically including it in one way or another. In the softest case we have an author unaware of what he is doing and a reader unaware of what he is adapting. But that doesn’t change that this ideology transfer is as wrong as it is unprofessional and potentially harmful to vulnerable minds (leading to anorexia, depression …). And in the worst case we have a single black sheep author that intentionally covers a belief in self-help, with the intention of later making money from those believing in it. Already the concept that only a productive and successful person is worthy person is a worldview that may cause damage (with its performance pressure) on those already depressed, young and/ or with self-esteem issues.2c: Business Circle At last for today, I want to point out that the self-improvement market has nothing from people that actually resolve their problem and learn how to transfer that method onto other personal problems. Because that would make them no longer customers. To sell seminars, audio books and so on, you need the people to stay in a state of constant self-questioning and self-doubt. Which means that the publishers have an interest in publishing self-help books without proper quality inspection. The more they publish and the more valid they sound (not necessarily are) the better the genre keeps people hooked. There is no financial benefit in a self-improvement book that fully lives up to what it promises. Self-help brings us to a point were being happy is not profitable. Conclusion Round 2So how do I get this all together for the resolution? I’ve shown that said books are confusing the reader by doing the opposite of what the intuitively buys them for. It furthermore hinders skills that would help to make the reader overcome his problems and can lead the reader into not realising that a problem has reached a point of being a threat for the reader. I’ve discussed that the genre needs and fosters low self-esteem. It has interest in making the reader believe in something he will never have or achieve and to have the reader constantly circling a negative/ flawed self-image. The average self-improvement has barely educational quality, be-cause it attracts people who can’t or don’t want to put effort in high quality writing. And for now that’s all lot to indicate that this genre is making more people miserable than actually successful. Though rarely it might does both.Sources {1} http://www.theguardian.com...{2} http://www.investopedia.com...{3} http://publishingperspectives.com...{4} https://frostydrew.org...{5} http://nymag.com...{6} http://citation.allacademic.com...