Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life [Hardcover]

Micki McGee (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195171241 | ISBN-13: 978-0195171242 | Publication Date: September 8, 2005

Why doesn't self-help help? Millions of people turn to self-improvement when they find that their lives aren't working out quite as they had imagined. The market for self-improvement products--books, audiotapes, life-makeover seminars and regimens of all kinds--is exploding, and there seems to be no end in sight for this trend. In Self-Help, Inc., cultural critic Micki McGee asks what our seemingly insatiable demand for self-help can tell us about ourselves at the outset of this new century. This lucid and fascinating book reveals how makeover culture traps Americans in endless cycles of self-invention and overwork, and offers suggestions for how we can address the alienating conditions of modern work and family life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The huge success of self-help, according to McGee, rests on the fact that its practitioners seamlessly combine two conflicting goals, financial or outward success and religious or inner transcendence, claiming that you can eat your cake and have it, too. In a tone less caustic and more sociological than Steve Salerno's in SHAM (Reviews, May 30), McGee, a sociologist and cultural critic at NYU, carefully demonstrates the fallacious underpinnings of this mindset, drawing from a deep well of quintessentially American resources ranging from Cotton Mather to Emerson and Max Weber. Self-help overemphasizes the individual's agency at the expense of the necessary reliance on or assistance of a network of others, and it can be sexist, too, says McGee. Women's rise in the workplace has revealed the "fault lines" in the image of the self-made man, who really depends on a wife to sustain his efforts. To McGee, it's such mendacity that lies at the core of the self-help project, for we cannot make ourselves. Fortunately, her gracefully written account is tinged with sympathy for the harried souls for whom "self-improvement is suggested as the only reliable insurance against economic insecurity" at a time when companies do not properly look after their workers. (Aug.)
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Review

"McGee writes clearly and thoughtfully.... She moves seamlessly from high theory to pop psychobabble, using the former to illustrate the powers of the latter. Overall, she offers a compelling argument for resisting the self-improvement genre's worldview."--American Journal of Sociology

"But credit for coming up with real insight into the self-help juggernaut more properly belongs to Micki McGee, a faculty fellow at New York University and the author of Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life.... "McGee's grasp of the philosophical underpinnings... is formidable."--Salon

"Sociologist and cultural critic McGee offers a nuanced examination of the socioeconomic roots and attractions of self-help.... She argues, elegantly and persuasively, that self-help's individualistic approach and its false assumption of autonomy disregard the systemic social inequities that cause individual discontent and do not acknowledge social solutions that might actually help.... scholarly in tone but accessible to interested general readers. Recommended for public and undergraduate collections."--Library Journal

"From Cotton Mather to Stephen Covey, America has been the land of self help. But why, Micki McGee asks, do we see a two-fold increase in self-help books in the last quarter century? Partly, she argues, because women now stand beside men in the hazardous new economy, and like them need help navigating it. Such books propose that we create out of a miscellany of jobs our own career punch-lines, that we reinvent ourselves when market demand turns quixotically elsewhere. Where, she asks, is a vision of a better way to do this thing called life? Elegantly written, brilliantly argued, and very important, a must read."--Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of The Time Bind and The Commercialization of Intimate Life

"Self-help overemphasizes the individual's agency at the expense of the necessary reliance on or assistance of a network of others, and it can be sexist, too, says McGee.... To McGee, it's such mendacity that lies at the core of the self-help project, for we cannot make ourselves. Fortunately, her gracefully written account is tinged with sympathy for the harried souls for whom 'self-improvement is suggested as the only reliable insurance against economic insecurity' at a time when companies do not properly look after their workers."--Publishers Weekly

"Wander through virtually any bookstore across the country and you will be swamped by the self-help section, edging its way closer and closer to the heart of the shop. Micki McGee helps us to track this phenomenon, from its ancestral roots in an unsure immigrant culture to its beating heart in a risky neoliberal one. Wonderfully researched, superbly written, well-organised--this is simply a stand-out of contemporary cultural studies."--Toby Miller, author of The Well-Tempered Self

"From its beginnings, the 'tale of before and after' has been a central myth of American life. For many, the opportunity of self-improvement is regarded as a national birthright. In her penetrating exploration of this enduring cultural tradition--particularly as it has unfolded in recent decades--Micki McGee has revealed the self-help industry as an obsessional treadmill far more than a path to a better life. In an innovative way, Self-Help, Inc. offers a revealing look at the profound dissatisfactions that loiter beneath the topography of our consumer culture." --Stuart Ewen, author of PR!: A Social History of Spin

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195171241
• ISBN-13: 978-0195171242
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #300,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of insight into the making of the self-help culture, October 19, 2005

By 

Gabrielle Lichterman (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life (Hardcover)

This book isn't the one you turn to when you want an extreme makeover. It's the book you turn to when you want to figure out why you want an extreme makeover to begin with.

Self-Help, Inc. sets out to examine how and why the current self-help culture was created and what its impact is on individuals and society -- and it boldly hits its target dead center.

Dense with facts, history and insight, Self-Help, Inc. examines the movement of self improvement. How did the idea of making oneself better not only start, but become en vogue? What is its impact on the individual, society and the workplace? How does the idea and history of self-improvement differ between men and women (which, as a woman, I found incredibly fascinating)? Where has self-help culture come and where is it going? And what is the long-term advantages and disadvantages of living in a society that puts such a high value on a nearly impossible to achieve "extreme makeover"? Micki McGee, Ph.D., uses her sociology expertise and many years as an NYU professor to answer these questions and more. And she does so with eloquence and intelligence, making this a truly fascinating and illuminating read.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good questions, flawed answers, March 17, 2007

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life (Hardcover)

The best part of the book comes at the very beginning, when author McGee takes us through a history of self-help. Coaches and gurus often associate "spirituality" with "prosperity." I must admit I've wondered myself about parallels with early Calvinism and I was intriguted by McGee's thorough review.

I also like the premise of the book. Why has self-help become so popular -- not just in the US, but world-wide? But I had some concerns about the way the question was answered.

First, self-help is a very broad genre. If you think about it, any how-to book can be considered self-help, even "how to plant a greener lawn" or "how to de-clutter your home." So why not have books like "How to cope with difficult people" or "How to find a job you want.

Second, McGee chose an archeological method to evaluate self-help. She chose a collection of texts and analyzed the contents. This method makes sense if say, you turn up a collection of documents on a dig. It's the way many scholars evaluate documents associated with the founding of world religions.

But, as religious scholarship demonstrates, these methods can lead to distorted interpretations. Many scholars emphasize that contemporary readers of the current Bible would have recognized stories as myths and legends, not as absolute truth. \

Since many readers of self-help are alive and accessible, why not ask them how they read and apply self-help to their lives? I believe many readers of self-help read selectively and skeptically. I think readers embark on affirmations and create treasure maps in a playful sense of fun. I don't think most readers study these books with the author's intensity.

And I think most readers (and certainly publishers) recognize the importance of packaging. These days, we've been conditioned by advertising to apply the puffery discount as we make choices and as we read. My own ebook "9 Steps to a new career" sells many more copies with a new title promising a 21-day "extreme career makeover."

Third, some of the author's examples seem misleading. For instance, McGee criticizes Sinetar's definition of "right livelihood" in her best-selling book, Do What You Love: The Money Will Follow.

Actually, Sinetar is one of the most grounded, down-to-earth writers around. She does refer to spirituality and vocation. But that's not woo-woo. In other books and tapes, she's very open about her commitment to Catholicism. An earlier book was about being a monk or mystic in the world.

If you read Do What You Love with care, her message really is, "Do what you love: the money will follow, but not very much or very fast." I've recommended her tapes of To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love and The Mentor's Spirit.

McGee also criticizes Cheryl Richardson's appearance on Oprah. Cheryl's coach-y solutions don't seem to help an overworked, underpaid mom who holds dowon two jobs. True! But I find many coaches have trouble explaining that their approaches are targeted to a specific readership segment.

As I tell my own clients, you need to be at a certain comfort level before you can begin to consider a career change. When you're a few months away from welfare, you need to get back to basics. The harried mother won't benefit from Richardson's techniques...but she also won't benefit from fashion makeovers, power yoga classes or psychoanalysis.

And that brings me to another point: I've been critical of some self-help but I would also ask, "What's the alternative? And what's the harm?" People do face problems that their parents and grandparents never confronted. Mainstream psychology has offered good solutions but also perpetuates ideas that are not backed by research. Carol Tavris has written that popular theories of anger ("let it out") are not accurate. Others have criticized popular mainstream trauma practices ("relive the experience"). Read Annie Paul's book, The Cult of Personality, to learn how psychologists, corporations and courts use tests that have no more validity than horoscopes.

Finally, McGee associates current interest in self-help with economic downturns. But in my experience, most self-help readers come from upscale, educated backgrounds. I believe it was Pascal Boyer who suggested that New Age is the first religion to be created in an era of prosperity. Readers, coaching clients and Tony Robbins followers want to know how to make good lives better (although they may not use those phrases consciously).

Bottom line: We need a solid analytical discussion of self-help. McGee offers a starting point. I'll be interested to see more.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Self-Help, Inc., July 3, 2008

By 

Martha J. Williams (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life (Hardcover)

Wow, this book rocked my world and greatly inflenced my own work as an dance/theater/art maker. McGee wizely points to the underlying currents of personal darkness that result not from our relationships, our schools, our government, but rather from our hyper-competitive economy. This book made me question the fundamental paradigm that runs my own life/how I cope with life and left me in a challenged yet honest and hopeful place.