{"id":25,"date":"2007-03-07T13:56:22","date_gmt":"2007-03-07T19:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/25\/the-hidden-secret\/"},"modified":"2007-03-07T13:56:22","modified_gmt":"2007-03-07T19:56:22","slug":"the-hidden-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/25\/the-hidden-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"The (hidden) Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

For both parties — pro and con — I’d recommend this book, “How We Know What Isn’t So<\/a>.” 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evolutionary-psychology","category-psychology","category-self-improvement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}