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| "The Secret" as Stepford Spirituality |
If you have read the book, "The Secret" or viewed the movie of the same name, I humbly request a “reality check.” To me, they seem shallow and scary. I initially was troubled by the movie's “infomercial,” motivational structure and reliance on powerful circular reasoning and testimonials, but was assured by others that it (The law of attraction) was a generally positive idea (How could they say otherwise - without attracting negative energy?)
To be sure, positive thinking and enthusiasm generally do help us. Thinking negatively makes it more difficult for us to suceed. Duh! The problem I have is with the flip side argument which blames victims and people who are not succeeding - for their own challenges and disabilities. We roll our eyes when televangelists blamed the people of New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina. But if “The Secret” is literally true, then any volcanoe, storm or war could be stopped by the power of our thoughts. Same with global warming. Whew! We don't have to give anything up at all, and we can use all the energy we want and still reduce carbon emissions! Yipeeeee! If you don't think that is a dangerous meme for our culture to carry at this time, remember “The Inconvenient Truth.”
Another of the ripple effects of “The Secret” which I noticed was that many of my colleagues and friends no longer expressed dissatisfaction with anything. They had never been big complainers, to begin with, but now everything was wonderful and everyone was praying for the success of President Bush. For months, everyone would always say that their practices and businesses were doing “great” even if they were doing terribly. It seemed that any negative reference was to be avoided like the plague. Everything was always fine, or even wonderful.
I generally associate with a great bunch of people, but this had a sort of “Stepford” feel to it, which has dissipated only a little over the months after the memes of the “Secret” rapidly spread through my community of spiritual friends. So, what do you think about the long term effects of “The Secret?” Please let me know.
I was surprised at how quickly it spread through our culture, but there were probably many contributing factors, such as skillful marketing, coat tails of books like “The Da Vinci Code,” dissatisfaction with organized religion, fashionability of Australian accents, apparent desensitization to obnoxious infomercial styles, fear generated by politics, war and 9/11, peer pressure to keep up with the “prosperity” being experienced in America, politically correct reluctance to criticize anything with a “spiritual” label on it, and, certainly not the least, the support of Oprah (Wow!).
In American cultural history, I believe that “The Law of Attraction” was the basically the same “Power of Positive Thinking” which sold many millions of books for Norman Vincent Peale in the 1940's through the 1950's. Peale was very widely published and one of the first ministers on television. He was a mentor of Rev. Billy Graham and televangelist Robert Schuller and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.
“The Secret” also has a similar feel to the famed “Dale Carnegie” courses, with over 40 millions copies of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” sold since 1937. Carnegie's classes and books were a dominant factor in fashioning, creating, intensifying and exporting America's marketing and salesmanship techniques and corporate values throughout America and the world. He is known as the father of the self-help movement and Carnegie's books continue to sell well even today in the US and all over the world. Towards the beginning of the “cold war,” The former Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev was so impressed with “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that he had it translated and distributed throughout the Kremlin and the KGB in the late 1950's to help them be more effective in their work.
None of this is a “secret” of course. “The Power of Positive Thinking” was severely criticized during its day and it eventually lost much of its glamour appeal. But motivational speakers like Dale Carnegie and preachers like Norman Vincent Peale have always known how to use concepts like “The Secret's” positive thinking to gain popularity and make lots of money. People like to hear that they can become rich. As for whether there is any “spiritual” content, strikingly absent from all of these motivational techniques is concern for other people or the larger society. The Golden Rule may be referenced, but the bottom line is wealth-building and influence-building for the individual.
In some ways, it may yield results. Some people will find enough encouragement to go forward with greater self-confidence and succeed. For them, “The Secret” may have been a boost. However, this is not the case for those who don't succeed - at which time the implication is that there was something wrong with them - because they didn't succeed. And, for those who are not well grounded to begin with, “The Secret” may encourage them towards the pursuit of unfocused projects, hoping that the power of their intentions will make up for the lack of planning.
Circular reasoning cuts both ways. And, despite the laws of magical thinking, not everyone can be a millionaire - nor does everyone really want to be. Shipping 50,000 copies of the “Secret” will not stop the tragedies in Darfur or New Orleans. Nor will “The Secret” stop global warming. And if you tremble out of fear that my negativity is really what will limit our ability to stop global warming, it is time for your own “reality check.” It is one thing to spend twenth plus dollars on lotto tickets or “The Secret” in the hopes of becoming wealthy. It is another thing to forsake rational planning and action to protect our spectacularly beautiful planet and its amazing inhabitants.
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Posted by divineprimate on 2007-09-18 00:40:00 | Rating: | Views: 175
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