I’ll go with the low-hanging fruit: Mein Kampf. I’ve read it, cover to cover. As a piece of propaganda, it’s good. As an example of good writing? Absolutely not (though I will admit I have only read it in translation). Oh, and the whole fascist, racist, and generally shitty worldview of the author that he infuses into the text. And the fact that the author is literally Hitler. You 5-star that book? You’re a Nazi. Period. And as a Jewish person, I don’t look too kindly on them.
I’ll throw out anything like “The Gift” or similar “visualize your joy” type books. The corollary to their attitude is you deserve the bad in your life.
Which “the Gift” are you referring to? I know my sister’s favourite book is called “The Gift” but I’ve never read it… and I feel like there’s probably hundreds called The Gift
Just corrected the name. Someone else reminded me it’s The Secret.
Yeah, any of those “I can make it happen by thinking about it/believing it/behaving as if it’s true or has already happened” etc are such a bunch of laughable bunk. Try to have a positive attitude and strive to be better. That’s legit. Imagining things into reality only works for the writers of those books. They imagine big folks will believe what they themselves know is bunk because it’s more digestible than reality.
I guess I never thought this far because of how dismissive I am off the whole genre, but geez, they are implying that if you don’t have all the things you want in life, at the very least you’re failing to successfully envision them into reality and attract them.
Not all of these books are hogwash. I personally like the books that teach a beginners approach to concepts like stoicism. Things like “The art of not giving a fuck” is very crudely written but it’s supposed to attract you and give you the initial interest with some perspectives.
Who actually the not so subtle art of giving a fuck would be my answer. you gave so little fucks that you decided to write a whole book about it. Sure.
Just a heads up, the guy who wrote that book (The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck) is actually a far-right extremist and hates stoicism (he equates it to socialism and nazism for some inexplicable reason) despite the book itself more or less aligning with a lot of principles of stoicism. I learned this recently and it was extremely weird to find out.
That’s really weird given the book is basically a beginners guide to stoicism
Yeah, it’s pretty bizarre!
Look into the affirmation/meditation/spiritual guru, Abraham hicks. Her whole thing was about this law of attraction stuff. Anything that happened to you was your fault. And then her husband got cancer and she begged all her followers to give him a bunch of money to help him, and somehow that was in no way his fault at all. I think I read somewhere that she was originally one of the authors of the secret but they got rid of her for some reason that I don’t remember right now.
I think there are some base skills in those books people could pick up on they may never have learned. Like when you break your goals down into smaller steps. But the way the book presents it sucks.
and isn’t that how a lot of cults work? “if our tried-and-true method doesn’t work for you, it’s because you aren’t trying hard enough or giving us enough money! give us some more and we’ll send you a workbook on where you’re going wrong! prove to us that you’re worthy!” it’s sickening really seeing generation after generation get sucked into this spiral where the only reason bad things happen is because you didn’t stay positive enough
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Hey, Michael and Peter did an episode on that in January