Letters to the Editor
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Dissent against self-inflicted snobbery is lame.
If Megan bothered to look, there's thousands of online self-help blogs and networks. Hell, did she not notice the huge audience for Cary Tennis on this site? I guess such things don't count as they would spoil her thesis of people shamed into hiding their opinions.
Megan Hustad commits the common sin of confusing personal gripes with the zeitgeist.
She can't read a book from an opposing viewpoint without worrying someone will assume she agrees with it. This is goofy self-hating snobbery depends on other people knowing what you read. Hint to Megan - nothing forces you to display your choices.
Self-flattering self-disclosure is the norm in life, especially online. This isn't sinister or snobbish, but normal.
Does Megan really believe otherwise? Or is she projecting her own anxieties into social analysis?
"He was saying that if I'd decided a book had nothing to offer me before I'd read a single word, then perhaps I wasn't as cosmopolitan as I liked to imagine I was." True, but that's your problem Megan. "When I started asking around, I found that quite a few people were consuming "off-message" books, but only in the privacy of their own homes." Yes, because many people, even young ones, don't feel the need to reveal everything. Self-help often deals with personal territory is something people might hesitate to share.
What's really going on in the article is not Megan's fear of being judged but her need to judge everyone else.
Thus she redefines other people's list making as having dishonest, sinister or corrupt motives. Megan's discomfort can't possiby her own problem - it's those others deluded by online memes which she has no obligation to read.
I'll admit I buy into ideas of cultural contamination at times, but this one is particularly reactionary and self-serving.
Her defense of Grover Norquist assumes those hissing him are unfamiliar with his ideas or words - perhaps they understand him so easily they've lost patience with his B.S.
Honestly Megan, grow up. Notice people other than yourself and maybe you'd see what you consider outre is the norm.
It's not surprising Salon has an essay which is unable to distinguish real dissent and ostracism from the faux anxiety of someone who considers certain books beneath them.