The ‘Self-Help Wave’: an Antithesis to Philosophy?

Philosophy is an activity of wander. It is not a remedy to constantly make you feel happy every time one engages with it, or worse, to sugar-coat the truth.

Without a doubt, this idea doesn’t sell in the self-help industry. On the contrary, self-help literature is there to help the reader by motivating him or her with positive reinforcements and ‘resilience’. However, that is not philosophy; that is instant gratification.

A proper act of philosophical inquiry is when you are objectively assessing a situation from your current state. Self-help ‘philosophy’ on the other hand, is a make-believe practice of imagining that the world can always be turned for the better — with a flick of a finger — or with “5 secrets how…”.

Philosophy won’t always end on a good note; It challenges you, highlights patterns of thought, and most importantly, it transcends your way of perceiving the world. Self-help literature projects a unified perspective of your future self who can be a ‘bad ass’ when adversity hits the fan, always knowing what to do.

It is also repetitive, constantly letting the reader know (in different ways) that he or she can always find a way to transcend a problem or situation. The literature is written in a way that pleases the reader with positive encouragements, an illusion of reality.

The only way self-help books can be valuable is if it leads you to philosophy, that is, the act of wandering about a particular thought or…