Ascetic Hedonism: Self and Sexual Conquest in the Seduction Community
2012; Indiana University Press; Volume: 11; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1537-7873
Autores Tópico(s)Gender, Feminism, and Media
ResumoIntroduction In the early twenty-first century, the international self-help movement seems more wide-reaching than ever before. The self-help movie The Secret reached millions of people, first through the cinema and then through a globally-distributed DVD. It stands a long line of international self-help blockbusters, spanning from Samuel Smiles's foundational 1859-book Self-Help and Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) to Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese? (1998) and The Secret (2006). Over the course of its history, the self-help movement also expanded its thematic outreach. While late nineteenth-century self-help predominantly offered career advice, idolizing the figure of the so-called self-made man, contemporary self-help covers everything from advice on career advancement, relationships, happiness and spiritual growth to more specific topics such as dieting and dating. The result is a diverse jumble of self-help products and gurus--some of which claim to have uncovered the fundamental law of the universe, while others merely offer practical tips for solving specific problems. The accompanying self-help groups and movements range from secular fan clubs to (semi-)religious cults; and from peer-to-peer mutual-aid groups to loosely knit movements revolving around a charismatic self-help guru, a bestselling publication, or a popular advice blog. Though contemporary self-help is thus highly heterogeneous, there are a couple of elements or general themes that loosely bind the unending mass of self-help discourses and practices together. These are as follows: 1. The attempt to cultivate a positive attitude; or more generally, a therapeutic or psychological approach to life 2. A focus on the problems and opportunities of the atomistic individual, frequently at the expense of a critical stance towards collective social issues (McGee 2005) 3. the value put on self-discipline and critical self-observation 4. the idea that people can and should radically transform themselves That last point--the belief self-transformation--in fact constitutes the fundamental premise of all self-help teachings and is that at which all self-help practices are ultimately aimed. You help yourself by transforming yourself into something better: a more socially skilled, spiritually enriched, financially successful, or sexually satisfied person. Self-help books, DVDs, and training programs promise to assist their readers, viewers and clients effecting a transformation of the self; and they usually suggest--at least initially, on the marketing level--that this transformation will be spectacular, extensive and relatively abrupt. In recent years, there has been an increased scholarly interest self-help narratives and teachings, as well as their broader social and cultural impact. Recent works on the topic include Sandra Dolby's folkloristic study Self-Help Books, Micki McGee's critical analysis Self-Help, Inc. and Eva Illouz's broader sociological research Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help. What these researches show is that self-help narratives and teachings not only help, or fail to help, individual self-helpers with tackling specific (perceived) personal challenges, but that they also encourage self-helpers to adopt a particular way of describing and perceiving their social life and overall identity. As Eva Illouz points out, the importance of self-help literature is its role in providing a vocabulary for the self and guiding the perceptions of one's social relations ... (Illouz 2008, 53) The basic idea here is that self-help can and frequently does change people and social groups by altering the way they view themselves, society, and their place within it. Self-help can thus exert a socio-cultural influence irrespective of whether or not it actually changes people the way it initially promised them; that is, irrespective of whether it actually helps self-helpers to become happy or successful. …
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