Letters to the Editor
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the Salon weakness
the fluff article about some teeny tiny piece of comfortable white-person life.
sigh.
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Like many, I thought the lead-in was intriguing...
But the push for self-help books? Oy.
The letters here remind me of my friend who refused to list anyone who referenced The DaVinci Code as their favorite book. She was limiting herself, and yes, it was on the basis of a book. But...who'd want to screw a guy who listed The DaVinci Code as their favorite book?
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99% of chicks read nothing but self help books
I tried online dating last year and discovered that 99% of chicks read nothing but self help books and maybe a few really obvious trendy best sellers like harry potter, beatiful bones, kite runner or whatever.
The occasional self help book is okay. but if thats all they read, forget it. -and why would some one post a self help book in a fav book section? do they want to meet people with similar problems?
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Sabotage
My dear, you epitomize in this article the very thing which you seek to deconstruct and criticize. You get an A+ in name-dropping.
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Élitism in the face of eternal death
Good points before about snobbery, inverse snobbery, perverse snobbery, and triple--one-half--gainers-with-a-perfect-dismount snobbery.
To grow up a non-poor person in America is to grow up with a giant conveyor-belt loaded with mostly-crap aimed straight at your mouth---crap products, crap ideas, crap attitudes. The ability to close one's mouth selectively is important, so it's not surprising that some should boast about and try to get sex and affection thereby.
Of course any given book of any genre may be useful (if only by being pleasurable), any given artist ignored by The Art World may be worth your while, any given political idea from an ideologue who might even want Your Kind exterminated might be good---but "a travelling man has to play the percentages" as Calvin Trillin put it with regard to choosing a dining-place. (Am I advertising about myself when I name-check him?---yes, and I'd rather avoid that as I'd rather avoid all implicit appeals to authority, but he said it, I can't say it better, and he deserves the credit.)
Also, some genres aren't at all likely to be useful to some people. I have had Asperger's Syndrome since before it was playing small clubs for beer money, so most advice predicated on how "people" deal with each other is useless to me since it assumes a different reward/punishment matrix. If you can't appreciate sincere crap, stay away from Ed Wood's œuvre; if you can't stand cookie-monster vocals stay away from Black Metal. If you've got a brain, stay away from Dr Phil*; if you can't stand romance novels stay away from Ayn Rand, Laurell Hamilton, and the later Heinlein.
We have finite time.
*Unless Dr Phibes is guest-hosting...a man can dream....
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my list
i like megan.
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Some Sociological References
This is a topic that's received considerable sociological interest, from Thorstein Veblen's scrumptious writing on conspicuous consumption and invidious comparison to Pierre Bourdieu's enormously influential tome on "Distinction." In effect, taste is a social construct, and all about the production of social distinction. It is how we distance ourselves from others, and typically define ourselves as a bit more deserving. So Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class" and Bourdieu's "Distinction" might be good books to add to your reading list. (More recently, there's also a literature developing on how the privileged in North America have become "cultural omnivores" who mark their distinction by sampling broadly - hence the high/low reference to indicating where you might draw your reading material from...)
What really intrigues me, though, is how our tastes become wrapped up with morality. Michele Lamont, another sociologist, ("Money, Morals, and Manners," I think) has written that this is often how it works in the USA (as compared with France, where Bourdieu's work is set). This gets me thinking.
We act as consumers, and our actions as consumers have effects in the marketplace. That's why I try to buy organic stuff and avoid meat that isn't free-range. The snobbery in my consumption is also bound up with morality. I honestly think organic production methods are better for the environment and the current way meat is produced in North America is unethical. I'm struggling with how this differs from production chains more intimately tied up with the production of discourse. Buying a book by a right-wing, anti-tax crusader means that publishers are encouraged to publish more books by right-wing, anti-tax crusaders. Even checking out a library book encourages the library system to stock more of those kinds of books. Even attending a talk where those crusaders are featured encourages lecture organizers to recruit (and pay) more of those kind of speakers.
This is the dilemma for me. I like the idea of promoting discourse, reading widely, etc. For better or worse, I am something of a cultural omnivore. But I'm also attempting to remain aware of my moral position within a larger production/consumption chain. The production and consumption of discourse remains a big part of this chain. There are tangible rewards for having your ideas "consumed." Are my obligations to be a moral consumer dropped in the realm of discourse? Why or why not?
Incidentally, I'm also very fond of chickadees.
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Yes 20-somethings are shallow
As a someone in his late 20s, I can attest that a lot of us gain pleasure from pain-stakingly crafting lists of the movies, music, and books which define us. I can say this with a high degree of scientific certainty. And on MySpace at least, people do in fact read other people's profiles and initiate contact based upon said lists. This can be good and bad. It can be good because it makes it easier to find people with whom you are more likely to be compatible. On the flip side it can limit your sphere of experience to people who are already like you, thus encouraging you to be a somewhat shallow person. But last time I checked this kind of behavior occurred long before Al Gore invented the Internet.
Personally, I took off all of the lists from my MySpace profile, but then again I don't really sign on anymore - honestly!. When I had lists, at one point they were purposefully paradoxical - "uber-hip reference, pop culture schlock, uber-hip reference, pop culture schlock". But even those still read like an opportunity to name-drop so finally I gave up and reverted to one-line jokey answers that reveal nothing about me, except that I can be jokey. And this is fine because I've decided that I prefer to meet people out in the real world anyways.
I agree with Megan's argument that people should be active in exposing themselves to ideas that they normally wouldn't come into contact with and otherwise expanding your comfort zone. And I also agree that self-help books (the good ones at least) can offer a ton of things to actually DO to encourage this type of thing. Sure, they can be full of maxims and cliches that any bozo can figure out, but intellectually understanding "to thine own self be true" and actually applying it to your actions and behaviors is a whole other matter entirely that is not readily apparent.
Having said that I still empthasize with the desire to hide these types of books. There seems to be a general disdain for those who dare try to improve their lot in life, I would assume partially in response to some of the dreck foisted on the public by self-help gurus. My ex-girlfriend almost rolled her eyes out of her head when I mentioned I was reading a book on ways to lead a more fulfilling life, as if it was just another vapid riff on Purpose-Driven Life or Chicken Soup for the Soul. But hey, the unexamined life it pretty crappy, so I'm willing to take the flack.