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Redux: The Self-Help Industry
Lynn Parramore looks back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
Can we help ourselves out of the downturn?
Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.
~The Beatles
Self-improvement is in the American cultural DNA. After all, the pursuit of happiness is one of our inalienable rights. From the get-go, American society was relatively fluid in its class structure compared to European counterparts. This dynamic situation encouraged people to believe that perseverance and hard work could bring the bluebird of happiness flapping to their door. Founding Father Ben Franklin was a self-improvement guru, outlining strategies for attaining moral perfection and improving body and mind. Franklin, was a pragmatist, too. He didn’t shy away from investigating the most orderly, self-disciplined path for the accumulation of wealth.
Americans have an abiding enthusiasm for hearing life’s problems articulated in neat phrases and receiving our solutions in palatable style. The self-help genre draws on anecdotes, aphorisms, standardized observations, and nuggets of wisdom that have the ring of universal truth, the air of timelessness. At their worst, self-help books are simplistic formulae, tricked out in ritual and ripe for ridicule. At their best, they can be inspiring blueprints for real transformation. Like fairy tales, they recast stories and ideas into a form that people connect with easily.
The self-help industry as we know it today kicked off during the Great Depression, when down-and-out Americans sought solace and advice. Bill Wilson was a New York stock broker who became a hopeless drunk after the crash of 1929. In 1935, he and fellow-alcoholic Dr. Bob Smith started Alcoholics Anonymous, which spawned a twelve-step manual that became perhaps the world’s most popular self-help book. Dale Carnegie, a serial screw-up, became interested in the idea of success and embarked on a quest to find its secret ingredient. In 1936, he published How to Win Friends and Influence People, which, together with his other self-help volumes, has since sold over 50 million copies. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937) was another Depression-era best-seller, laying out a strategy of repeated positive thoughts to attract happiness and wealth by tapping into an “Infinite Intelligence.”
The current climate of insecurity and uncertainty begs for a new wave of self-help antidotes. We yearn to have our hope buoyed by stories of bootstrapping achievement. We want to believe that the downturn has given us the opportunity to find our true calling. We want to self-actualize, connect with our Inner Thises and Thats. We’re game to take the road less traveled and re-discover our identity. In short, we want help.
As the downturn continues, the self-help industry will likely be reconstituting itself to accommodate new economic and cultural conditions. Recent self-help best-sellers like The Secret, with its bald emphasis on getting rich, reflect the money-obsession of the boom years, encouraging us to believe that financial reward awaits us if only we ask. Such promises may ring a bit hollow now in the wake of massive financial disaster that nobody seems to be able to wish away.
We might see a shift in emphasis to rags-to-riches tales and stories of overcoming depression, along with books about rediscovering our passions and the transformational power of failure. Best-selling self-help author Chris Gardner, who went from homeless single father to corporate bigwig, has a forthcoming book called Start Where You Are, which acknowledges in its title those in straightened circumstances who need to believe that their best days are ahead. Americans want help, and even in the downturn, we’re willing to pay for it. The New York Times recently described a gathering of laid-off and unemployed folks who shelled out over $1,000 to attend an event called the “Harmonic Health Weekend” led by James Arthur Ray, an up-and-coming figure in the $11 billion self-improvement industry.
Some of the self-help gurus will be peddling false hope in the Recession, Some will be merely repackaging ancient practices like meditation into new-fangled formulae that sound ground-breaking. Others, though, will find a useful role in helping the knocked-down and the lost find comfort, community, and consolation.
And somebody, you can be sure, will get rich showing us the way.
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“Like fairy tales, they recast stories and ideas into a form that people connect with easily.”
You hit the nail on the head for the formula of the next great inspirational path. I love this article. The self help books that came out of the depression all seem to have one thing in common. The authors found positive change within recast success stories of very real experiences. I’ve recently found that the best advice can come from resources that are the most rarely called upon. Our elders…or tribal leaders. Not only is it free but its given away with caring and excitement.
I was told by a 74 year old man to read “Younger Next Year” by the duo Chris Crowly (70) and Geriatric specialist Dr. Harry Lodge. He described it as transformational. (It’s a book I would have never picked up at age 42.)
Although targeted to Boomers, the message is timeless. It humorously describes how our body and brain have evolved so that behaviors that helped our ancestors survive – robust daily physical activity and close links to members of a tribe or clan – send positive signals to our most fundamental biological systems that say, “life is good”. It’s scientific self-help combined with the wisdom of the ages. The first edition was written primarily for men and its huge popularity just spawned a new edition dedicated to women specifically.
I found it as no surprise that Barack Obama carried the book under his arm as he walked along the beach in Hawaii. Our President made no secret that his inspiration came from the timeless wisdom transferred from his mother Ann, born in 1942.
Our parents, grandparents, retired neighbors and friends may just have the answers we are looking for. Whether it’s advice to read a book…or a story about past family struggle that reminds us of our current situation. It’s all there for the price of a cup of coffee.