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Improving Ourselves to Death

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Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#41

Post by RobertRoberts »

trowawee wrote: post #38
AndrewOMartin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most of what you've read about him" is not equal to "most of what he said". The most charitable source for this is probably Lewis's trilemma, which argues Jesus was either correct (he's the son of god), he's evil, or he's deluded. More polemically, you have anything written by Christopher Hitchens on the subject.

I think he was deluded about being the Son of God, but that doesn't mean we should throw out the ethical precepts he advocated. A life lived by the major tenets espoused by Jesus in the Bible - treat other people the way you would want to be treated, be compassionate to people who screw up, take care of people who are less fortunate than yourself - would be a good life. Not surprisingly, those are tenets that are com…

If you do what Jesus said to do, doesn't that make you a follower or a student of his teachings? (the greek word for student is often translated as disciple)

I find it interest that just claiming a title is meaningless if you don't follow the rules associated with that title. But if you follow the rules and don't claim the title, what does that mean?

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#43

Post by bostonpete »

trowawee wrote: post #40

I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…

I don't see how the comment about Plato and Aristotle implies anything about their attitudes towards physical fitness. It seems like he's just using it to contrast people striving for a good life with people cannot satisfied without the "perfect" life.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#44

Post by Jemmeh »

mziel wrote: post #6
the_greyd wrote: post #2

Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I als…

There's a lot of very bad pop-sci books on this topic. Do you mind sharing the ones you read and recommend?

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie - It's a classic in that genre. https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0...

Charisma on Command channel for social skills. https://www.youtube.com/user/charismaoncommand

Personally I also really like a lot of the talks from Tony Robbins when it comes to emotional intelligence and personal psychology. I listen to them on youtube while I'm cleaning fairly often. He can be a bit over the top and rambly for some people though and I do disagree with some things. But it's a good starting point on what to think about.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#45

Post by thwawaywaq23498 »

jcadam wrote: post #4

tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make. What is life but a struggle to become the best person one can be? And who cares if the quest kills us? We're all going to die anyway. What else were you going to do…

> tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make.

An essay of this length should communicate something that is not necessarily digestible into a single point. In fact, it's arguable that a good essay cannot be summarized into a single point, and that the entire article needs to be taken as a whole before the full nuance of what it's attempting to convey can be understood. Sometimes "the point" is difficult to articulate and that, in my opinion, is something to be desired across all artistic forms.

I see this sort of criticism on the internet very often, as if people expect writers to create digestible, elementary essays that they can only vaguely engage with and still walk away with something to agree or disagree with. Personally, I demand more of both the writing I read on the internet, as well as myself.

Not to defend this particular essay too hard, but the conclusion does the exact opposite of recommend another self help book. Literally the final paragraph is the shrugging off of self-help books entirely.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#46

Post by acangiano »

trowawee wrote: post #40

I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

― Socrates

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#47

Post by goodroot »

> Knight, who favors the shouty, super-caffeinated tone of a spin-class instructor, calls herself a “bestselling anti-guru.” She is particularly proud of the best-selling part, and it’s easy to see why her approach appeals. The phrase there is nothing wrong with you takes up two full pages of her first chapter.

...

> Then the book became a best-selling sensation. Brinkmann now lives the life of a successful European public intellectual, appearing on TV and radio and travelling the world to lecture “on the big questions of modern life.”

...

I agree with the sentiment of the article. I find it interesting from a meta-analytical perspective, too. As the above quotations demonstrate, even when aware of the sinister, deep nature of the hamster wheel, the author perpetuates their own forebodings. The pattern is being unable to see value or usefulness without highlighting the material end; do we want to stoke the fires to encourage more of the same under a different brand?

There's some reference to the Stoics, aye. That's a good place to start. I'd suggest this book: The Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (https://www.amazon.ca/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/01953...)

One of the secrets the Stoics have uncovered, I believe, is to practice will-power so that we can identify and resist craving. Simply saying "stop it", or "re-think the system" undermines the reality that billions upon billions of dollars and our smartest minds are, at this very second, applying our most advanced technologies to further expand this soul-less, insatiable machine which we've created.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#48

Post by tonystubblebine »

graphitezepp wrote: post #5
the_greyd wrote: post #2

Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I als…

I could write this out word for word and it would be true for me as well. Generally, I think interacting with self help stuff is bad and can lead to being overly self critical. But when you take a hard look at your self and truly acknowledge that you aren't being who you feel like you are, what else is there to do?

From an insider's perspective (I work in self help), there are a couple of hidden things that contribute to you feeling self-critical that aren't your fault.

1. The field is very competitive and so everyone in the field hypes up their success stories. It's easy to go in to a self help book thinking it will work 100% of the time. The truth is that it probably only works 10% of the time. 10% is great unless you were expecting 100%. So failing is normal. And the most common cause for failure is simply discovering change is a lot of work and you'd rather put that effort somewhere else.

2. The vast majority of free self-improvement articles are written by content marketers with zero personal experience. They are essentially writing book reports about different famous people. It's actually a little worse than that--many think up the title and framing, and then farm the words out to Upwork (this happens even for articles you find on Inc.). The downside of this is that the advice has never been tested, not even on the author. So the readers hype themselves up and then find out that the actions they've been given just flat out don't work ever.

3. Otherwise well meaning professionals in this space get obsessed with problem solving. And as a result they talk at you like you have a problem. That's not their call though. You need to be in charge of deciding whether you are happy with your weight or not, or wealth or productivity. I walked out of a Mobile Health Conference once because I was so disgusted by the parade of thin speakers who were talking about how awful fat people are. But it comes up in article titles too--many of the proposals I see are framed as a chance to fix you. I politely talk them into a different framing.

So those are three things our industry does to unintentionally make people feel bad about themselves.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#49

Post by goodroot »

thwawaywaq23498 wrote: post #45
jcadam wrote: post #4

tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make. What is life but a struggle to become the best person one can be? And who cares if the quest kills us? We're all going to die anyway. What else were you going to do…

> tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make. An essay of this length should communicate something that is not necessarily digestible into a single point. In fact, it's arguable that a good essay cannot be sum…

I agree with you, poster. I'm baffled as to why you felt you needed a throw-away, though. If you don't think you can speak in earnest within this community, it probably isn't healthy for any of us to be here.

Back to your point, though, I think that the mark of an effective essay on the Internet is whether or not it drums up interesting conversation. This one has.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#50

Post by jdtang13 »

trowawee wrote: post #40

I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…

I think the author, who admittedly sweeps through a lot of strange generalizations on classical history in this article, is just using the idea of Aristotle and Plato "not being enough" to illustrate the delusions of consumer culture. We are no longer satisfied with pure virtue but instead have to buy things to display our success.

I do agree that self-help writers have a strong tendency to completely ignore Aristotle or do some terrible injustice to his self-improvement philosophy, but I'm not sure if it's really happening in this particular article.

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