A reposting of old posts (from the old blog) that I like.
Having just written a self-help book (What’s Stopping You? TBP 2011) about overcoming fear of failure, it may seem odd that one of the books I enthusiastically quote is an anti self-help diatribe. In The Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need (2005) neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall attacks the self-help industry’s version of happiness and fulfilment and instead suggests greater “well-being” may come from developing a “contrarian consciousness” or what he calls a “yes but” mental attitude.
In other words Pearsall’s plea is for a high level of scepticism regarding the claims of the self-help industry or “self potential” movement as he calls it. There’s “not just one good life” he states, so we should stop looking for it – and instead search for “a good life”. Discontentment cannot be cured by consumption, he claims, even of ideas. Indeed, it is the “compliant thinking” encouraged by the self-help industry that seems to most annoy Pearsall. Sometimes vulnerable people evaluate this now huge industry at face value, he states – accepting the strong words flowing from the page or DVD because they sound right and feel comforting and appeal directly to our own personal pain. Yet in doing so we are ignoring the rigours of scientific reasoning – often we are ignoring our own intuition and experience.
Indeed, we have been hypnotised – but not in order to improve our lives. Instead, we have been seduced into unquestioningly believing and accepting the statements of the “guru” or “life-coach” saying them. How could we not? After all, to question the validity of the cure is to render it impotent. The balm only works if we believe – and even if that belief conjures no more than the benefits of a placebo effect, at least it still counts as a benefit, doesn’t it?
Yet Pearsall states we must be mindful of the claims of the self-help industry – nothing is proven and much of it is “grounded” not in science but in mysticism and spirituality. Of course, Pearsall’s attitude chimes well with my own, which is why I liked his book. In my view conditions such as fear of failure are incurable, although progress is possible once we realise this and restructure our responses accordingly. But he also struck a chord because he made me realise my own approach may have stronger theoretical roots than I had previously realised.
In fact, Pearsall’s book took me right back to my first-year undergraduate lectures in political theory. Wide-eyed with enthusiasm I would arrive at the Monday lecture to hear about the works and theories of Thomas Hobbes, or John Locke, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Max Weber or Karl Marx. After 90 minutes I was inevitably convinced and would spend the rest of the week becoming further indoctrinated by reading the actual works or other supporting books and articles. Yet on the following Monday we’d hear the critique of the theorist – the often blood-drenched riposte that would leave me cursing my naivety at ever being taken in by such an obvious charlatan with so easily-refutable ideas.
This cycle of conviction and disillusion – of total belief followed by total disbelief – lasted until the Monday of the lecture on Karl Popper. Popper’s quest was to decide from all the theories and ideas that had sometimes fiercely competed in the post-Enlightenment world what was science and what was not science. Far from trying to disprove a particular theory or philosophy, Popper was simply trying to find a way of cutting through the noise – of being able to evaluate the ideas being postulated and see which deserved to be labeled a “science” and which didn’t.
This transformed my view of politics. Popper had shared my confusion, but instead of bobbing about with the ebbs and flows and currents – as I had in those Monday morning lectures in 1980s Manchester – he had invented a structure by which non-quantifiable ideas could be immediately judged. His key notion was one of falsifiability or refutability – that anything purporting to be a scientific theory had to be able to submit itself to physical experiments that could show it to be false. This doesn’t mean that it is false, just that the theory offers observable predictions that are open to being proved or disproved.
For instance, if we theorized that once the workers had seized the modes of production for themselves the state would whither away, we are open to the charge of refutability if the state stubbornly refuses to die and in fact grows stronger. And while we can quibble regarding the reasons why our theory failed to pan out as predicted, it has nonetheless been falsified and therefore can no longer call itself a scientific theory. Of course, those that cling to this view could add the word “eventually” to the notion that the workers’ paradise will lose the mechanisms of the state – but this is to render the theory “unfalsifiable” according to Popper, which still relegates it from the world of scientific theory.
Yet just because something is "falsifiable" doesn’t mean it is false, just that it can be tested and potentially disproved by observable experiments. However, it is a hurdle that most political theories failed to overcome – most either failing falsifiability tests or ducking them – although it must be stressed it doesn’t render them pointless or false. They may still be valid treatise on the perfectibility – or otherwise – of man. But, importantly, they are not science and should not be treated as such. Certainly, Popper wasn’t condemning unfalsifiable theories, just stating that they were non-scientific. For example, he stated that religious ideas have cultural or spiritual meaning and that people were entitled to believe them, especially if it brought them some comfort. But they were not and could not be scientifically proven, which matters in terms of claims regarding the “truth” of any hypothesis.
In my view the self-help industry would be revolutionized by a swift application of Popperian rigour. Almost all the “guaranteed” cures and methodologies – often wrapped up in fantastically pseudo-scientific language – would be rendered “unfalsifiable” and therefore unscientific. Valuable they may be to those they give comfort, but science – at least according to Karl Popper – they ain’t.
So where does this leave us in terms of seeking a cure for fear of failure, or any other fear of emotion-based condition? Potentially in a better place, in my opinion. With no guaranteed cure available, maybe we are – according to Pearsall – able to develop a better perspective, although not necessarily a more positive one. Indeed, constantly “thinking positively” about tomorrow robs us of the joys or critical thinking and of fully experiencing today, he says. Instead of “self-absorption” via all-embracing philosophies or techniques, he suggests we develop the seven more critical attributes of a healthy personality:
1. Be sceptical,
2. Be willing to deceive yourself, especially in favour of loved ones,
3. Embrace the craziness that is your family,
4. Workaholism is not necessarily bad for you if you’re doing something you love,
5. Obsessing about your health isn’t good for your health,
6. Realise its impossible to stay young forever and get on with the rest of your life,
7. Death is not the enemy. It is just another part of life – deal with it.
And while these seven attributes may not be Popperian in their falsifiability – in fact Pearsall makes no claim to be scientific – they at least take the world as it is and therefore have some grounding in reality, which in the self-help industry is progress indeed.
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