Though many individuals believe they benefit from self-help books, they certainly aren’t a one-size-fits-all. In fact, many people find them to be generic and believe that they tell you exactly what you want to hear. Because your specific life circumstances will vary from one person to the next, it makes sense to engage in therapy, meditation, or behavioral changes that will actually push your life in the right direction. One Washington woman has another hot take when it comes to pop psychology self-help books. She thinks that a lot of these books simply feed into the alt-right pipeline, and she may be onto something.
Ali (@buggirl23) says, “I’m not the biggest fan of pop psychology books and think a lot of them are right wing adjacent.” She goes on to say that novels like The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie are “low key like a soft, alt-right pipeline.” Ali isn’t saying that everybody who reads these books is super conservative. She’s also not saying that these authors are all bad people intending on converting people to conservatism. But she makes some fine points in her video.
As Ali explains, self-help books are meant to teach people “how to gain power or control over other people.” They do this by using psychology tricks even though the authors aren’t typically real psychologists. How do you trust a person preaching better mental and physical health when they’re not even a real health professional? Ali also says that a lot of people will read these books instead of getting real therapy. If a person is in desperate need of therapy, then reading a self-help book is not a good replacement.
Ali has experience working in a bookstore. She also read a lot of these books herself when she was going through a hard time. I’ve also had experience with self-help books and understand that so many of them have a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality, which is a hard alt-right take on living life. Also take into consideration that people like Jordan Peterson, a right-wing ideologist who claims he’s liberal, are out here talking self-help to people. Who can you trust when it comes to a self-help book? You’re guaranteed to not get the help you thought you were when you crack open one of these books.
In the end, it’s important to acknowledge that books like these can be dangerous. If somebody submits to the ideals of a self-help book instead of individualized therapy, they could be asking for disaster. But the power trip some of these books give people can be detrimental as well. As one commenter pointed out on Ali’s video, “You should check out the If Books Could Kill podcast. It’s all about examining these kinds of books and showing how they’re all about laundering reactionary conservative ideas for a wider audience. And part of a plan to shift the country to the right.” It’s scary out there; choose your books wisely!
