The (hidden) Secret
After weeks of reading/hearing/watching the back-and-forth about “The Secret,” tonight I realized that what *most* interests me is NOT whether it’s real or not, but the *type* of discourse that has surrounded it.
More specifically, it’s incredible to watch both supporters and detractors cling tenaciously to a belief (rather than examine the belief, or even recognize that their arguments are, often, beliefs and not merely observations). It’s impressive to watch people take information that contradicts their beliefs and twist it into a support for their beliefs. It’s amazing to witness the rash of “thought-stopping statements” (responses that put the brakes on any conversation) and rampant projection that replace genuine dialogue.
The supporters say, “You’re just being negative,” (as if negativity is a problem) or “Keep an open mind,” (which they aren’t) or “It’s true for me,” (as if first-person anecdotal evidence is meaningful).
The detractors say, “It’s all snake oil” (overlooking the valuable data contained in understanding why people think it works) or “It’s just marketing,” (as if marketing is a bad thing).
For both parties — pro and con — I’d recommend this book, “How We Know What Isn’t So.” And before you think the title implies I’m saying that The Secret “isn’t so”, I’ll tell you that, instead, it describes the various thinking errors to which we are all prone. Errors that cost us happiness, money, and clarity… and errors that prevent a meaningful discussion, analysis and understanding of anything, let alone the phenomenon of The Secret, and the information it tries to convey.
I asked a therapist-friend of mine to sum up everything he learned in his 40 year career. His response was, “You’re never upset for the reason you think you are.” I’ve come to think that arguing in support or defense of The Secret misses the more interesting point: what can be discovered by examining the argument itself.
And, you may as well examine the argument, because the odds of convincing someone from either camp to switch sides makes winning the lottery look like a sure bet.
March 10th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Hi Steve,
Thought I would stop by and see the latest entry.
You know the Secret is only a updated for our times version of Napoleon Hill’s classic, “Think and Grow Rich”. I would be more partial to an updated version of a book called, “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George Samuel Clason, a contemporary of Hill’s. More practical.
Being never upset for the reason you think comes right out of the Course in Miracles.
I had a teacher tell me over 30 years ago that life is like a cafeteria, take what you need and don’t spit on the rest. I think why people defend and attack can be a fascinating study in human behavior.
Good stuff and yet, nothing new under the sun.
Waiting for the next iteration.
love,
Susan
March 10th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
They claim that The Secret is based on Wallace Wattles’s “The Science of Getting Rich.”
And while TSOGR does have more than its share of magical thinking, it spends a lot of time talking about taking ACTION — show up at work early, stay late, do more than anyone else, make sure your boss knows how important you are.
Clearly, that technique alone would accomplish more than any amount of “believe-receive”.
“Think and Grow Rich” is the best example of “hindsight bias” ever — Hill apparently asked already successful people “How did you get here?” … and then believed what they told him… and then made up a whole philosophy to surround their stories. (He was a smart marketer and wrote the book primarily to sell consulting services, speaking gigs, and workshops.) Sadly, the stories of cause-and-effect that we make up after the fact are rarely accurate.
Imagine how much different it would have been had he asked, “How much of what we’re calling ‘your success’ would you attribute to luck, fortune, accidents, and other elements that are out of your control?”
I have a fondness for asking that question and “How much of the life you’re currently living did you imagine, plan for, or anticipate 10 or 20 years ago?” to my “successful” friends. Without an exception, they all answer something like:
“Oh, I didn’t plan this at all… in fact, often I still can’t believe this happened to me!”
March 16th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I bought “how we know what isn’t so” in 1991, and found it to be marvelous. If I’d read it the previous year, I would have included it in my honors thesis on self-deception, but perhaps I didn’t need to.
As for cause/effect like The Secret, I have to smile. Who says the “cause” is actually *doing* something? Maybe it was *not doing* something. I’m thinking of a former neighbor who was so worried about getting ripped off, that he was constantly sour in his business negotiations. As a result, he didn’t get ripped off, but he didn’t get freebies thrown in either.
It’s the classic “non-event” (from the book). Since we don’t notice things that don’t happen, how can we really identify cause and effect, outside of a controlled laboratory? And last time I checked, few of us lived in such places.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
The Secret is just a retread, but that fact that it is selling so well is what’s curious to me. I guess humans have a natural appetitie for this stuff. I bet in 10 years, another retread book on the same subject will sell just as well…
March 19th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Pavlov’s dogs have nothing on us.
If someone rings the bell of: “I know how to solve your problems and make you happy,” we’ll start to salivate.
Add in, “And it’s a ‘secret’ that ‘they’ have been keeping from you,” and you’ll have a full time job draining the drool bucket.
August 16th, 2008 at 7:08 am
The Secret is the latest and by far the worst example of a HIGHLY profitable trend where self-help gurus with fabricated new age titles and little relevant education, credentials or legitimate expertise brainwash us into believing that they know what is best for us, our marriages and our families.
Often their only contribution to society is introducing some exotic sounding, new age philosophy. However, they often cleverly form an incestuous group of like-minded “experts†who cross-promote each other by swearing their success is due to following the beliefs of another member of their “cult!†All the while, they ply the airwaves jockeying for an ever-larger audience by appearing in the national media to garner third-party endorsements.
The Self-Help Movement has become the Self-Destruct Movement by diminishing or destroying our critical thinking skills to choose and evolve on our own. We have given up the freedom to build healthy lives, marriages and families based on our unique history and life experience. Instead many victims, blinded to the value of their own life experiences, are attracted to the latest secret in self-help, in an attempt to find out what they should think, feel and how they should act… this is the definition of a cult.
The solution is a return to our (common) senses! The best way out of this learned “self-helplessness†is to go cold turkey. Stop following ALL self-help gurus now. Begin, instead, to reclaim your natural, God-given ability to think for yourself. The common sense that was once readily available to all of us is still there free of charge and waiting to be applied to just about any challenge we might face in life… all you have to do is use it.
Please, let’s all work together to stop the flock of “sheepeople” who blindly move from one UNPROVEN concept to the next, looking for the answers to life’s challenges that you already possess and that is the OBVIOUS!
August 16th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Thanks to a 100,000+ year-old mode of cognition, we’re constantly on the alert for the answer to, “How do I get what I think will make me happy?” And, upon sensing a POSSIBLE answer to that question, our rational thinking goes into the toilet… and our money goes out of our wallets.
At least as bad as suggesting they know what’s best for us, John, these “gurus” sell the promise that they have a reliable and reproducible method for GETTING THERE.
And, of course, if the method is faulty (which they all are), or the goal doesn’t bring lasting happiness (which none do), then the “teachers” will gladly:
a) Explain how there’s something wrong with you, or it would have worked, and;
b) Sell you on the advanced course, or promote the course given by one of their friends.
And we laugh at hamsters running on wheels… ah, the irony.