Perhaps unhappily, let’s run through some notable self-help books. Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is a classic in contrived charisma. Every suburban dad bequeaths Barefoot Investor or Rich Dad, Poor Dad in the name of someone else’s prudence. For men lusting after elusive and unlikely importance, you have The Prince and Robert Greene’s bewildering yet engrossing 48 Laws of Power. There are probably many great relationship books, but just as Adam was cursed to toil for listening to Eve, my troubles remain with me and the reader will have to go fishing.
Whether in career, finances, or relationships, self-help is the order of the day. This wide spectrum provides defined avenues toward success. But each presupposes that the world as we know it, including its hierarchies, inequities, and privileges, is fixed and correct. It is up to each individual to adapt to this set truth. Insofar as you are struggling, excluded, or not successful, it is simply a story of maladaptation. In an atomised society devoid of accepted narratives, blaming society is — if one has the gall to do so without a spotless room — nothing but passing the buck.
If we were to speak of a moral landscape, the highest peak these books summit is pragmatism and adaptability. If you are struggling to make friends, currently unable to save, or simply ineffectual…
