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

The work of avoiding politics is hard work.105 In the context of self-help television, this labor of displacement is accomplished by adopting the notion of revolution to the most depoliticized possibilities: revolution is alive and well just as long as it’s a revolution from within that stays within: as long as it’s a revolution of the spirit, or a

The possibility of redress through political channels has been effectively eliminated: the victimized child grows up, throws off the shackles of family and liberates himself completely except from his membership in a depoliticized recovery group.

As each cell in the body is said to contain the DNA “blueprint” for the entire organism, Steinem’s individual is called upon to realize itself in the whole.71 In such a model, individual change would inevitably lead to social transformations, as long as the individual led a life of self-expression rather than conformity.

In the place of the traditional notion of the self-made man—a construct that is gendered in its basic formation, patriarchal in its assumptions of how individuals come into being, and self-congratulatory in its tone—the belabored self presents itself as overworked both as the subject and as the object of its own efforts at self-improvement.

In the mid-1990s, the artistic mentalité provided an ideal vehicle for motivating a demoralized, downsized, and otherwise dissatisfied labor force.55 And artists provided the ideal work model for this new postindustrial labor force, as they • Are trained to work with symbolic forms, so they offer an ideal model for the newly christened “knowledge w

Hochschild notes that “the authors of advice books act as emotional investment counselors. They do readings of broad social conditions and recommend to readers of various types, how, how much and in whom to ‘invest’ emotional attention.”45

Humor can speak what might otherwise be verboten: the idea that one can make oneself, invent oneself, is not only fundamentally mistaken but also a profoundly alienating one that implies estrangement from the social position of one’s origins as well as from those individuals who fostered one’s development.

The less predictable and controllable the life course has become, the more individuals have been urged to chart their own courses, to “master” their destinies, and to make themselves over. In addition to actual hours spent on the job—which have increased dramatically—Americans are compelled to constantly work on themselves to remain competitive in

In less than thirty years, “self-help”—once synonymous with mutual aid—has come to be understood not only as distinct from collective action but actually as its opposite.