>ALAIN DE BOTTON has become the self-help guru to the British middle-class—a life coach pitched at those who might read The Guardian on an iPad, buy ethical chocolate, and assert an interest in the Booker shortlist. If you’re a certain kind of amateur intellectual with self-improving impulses, it’s less vulgar to entrust your anxieties to a Cambridge- and Harvard-educated pop philosopher who speaks three languages than to the hearty exhortations of Tony Robbins or Oprah. Oprah asks the right questions, says de Botton—“how do we live with other people, how do we cope with our ambitions, how do we survive as a society”—but she “fails to answer them with anything like seriousness.” Enter Professor de Botton. But if the latest publications from his “School of Life” imprint are the current course curriculum, truth-seekers would be better off reading O magazine.
What does Veeky Forums think about “School of Life” ?
How to Be a Pseudo-Intellectual
I have no fucking time for this self-help, liberal-sentimental bullshit.
I'll take the Bible (or the Quran, or any handy anthology of the Pali Cannon etc.) over these fucking guru coaches any god damned day of any god damned week.
There cannot be anything more stupid than entrusting your life to power-point slide morality and How To Ethics that float on air or vaguely metaphysical cliches.
Fuck Eckhart Tolle, Fuck Tony Robbins, Fuck Joel Osteen, Fuck Allan Watts, Fuck Deepak Choprah, and Fuck Alaine De Botton.
THIS IS YOUR FUCKING LIFE. BE MORE SERIOUS THAN A BEST-SELLING PAPERBACK.
Great post. This.
Religion is actually far worse than de Button. Religion is pretty much The School Of Life without any ability to unsubscribe or watch something completely opposing.
This guy...
The Bible is a best selling paperback too.
I N T E L L E C T
Tony Robbins is almost a billionaire from essentially telling bored doughy middle aged women 'woooh, you can do whatever you want!'
I fucking hate it and you've already told the reason in your post.
SoL very clearly has a liberal bias, but that can be filtered and ignored.
The biggest problem is that Sol treats every philosophy as a self-help hooker that you can sleep with and throw away at a moment notice.
It presents transcendental concept, but they are explained in function of plebish actions and emotions.
It's actually pretty harmful for people who truly want to educate themselves.
>Alain Le Bottom
This is ass, guru are cancer.
Do want YOU want XDddDD
Manipulator like him are perfect for people who put University of life amd share stupid picture with a "really activated my almonds" sentence on normiebook.
fpbp
I loathe School of Life. That pretentious voice just tries to veil the message that you are a victim, that it's never your fault to bear your sins.
I think there is an unspojen assumption when talking about agency, or free will. I think theres something in the word "free", that automatically assumes free will is easy, like just make your own choices.
Howrver many of the studies on mindfulness, violition, willpower imply that this is not the case.
Which is a reason why i think too many people doubt the concept of free will. Becuase if it doesnt come easy then its seems so much out of reach.
He got a degree in counseling and made money off of making a spectacle of it.
However when it comes to self help fads, its really better to pick up a good work of fiction. Especially if you are trying to connect.
Isnt that the point of philosophy though.
To use it as a tool to come to your own conclusions, your own decisions, ask your own questions?
I mean i think the only philosophy that actually requires you to "stick with it" is deontology.
In tailoring your messege to the self help crowd theres a lot of implicit assumptions people tend to follow.
One is guilt, self help people , 12 steps all start with tying to minimize the guilt by accepting you past failures as meaningful exierences they still need to learn from. Beating yourself up isnt producticve, but is a better distractor when used as a coping skill.
I believe you can inform people that they have a problem without pushing them into mindsets that victimize themselves. Over the course of many failed attempts and actualizing the person you want to be, they just get told that they have nothing to really shoulder. it creates a bad habit and that's what bothers me most about their content.
trying to actualize*
Guys, people DO need guidance for living a good life. I don't know if this author provides it in quality, but to dismiss the entire genre of self-help seems like a brainlet move desu.
We're not mocking guidance, rather the fact that school of life specifically causes a more deep seated problem than offer their consumers a proper solution.
People victimize themselves before others tell them they are a victim.
Its a label , but usually the "woe is me" mindset is already there before someone else tells them they are a victim.
Which in labeling is only effective to validate the persons expierence, gain their trust.
Self help is for the people who are victims and if you dont like being called a victim then clearly you dont require any guidance from self-help gurus.
There are also many who do not realize they have been in oppresive environments their whole life which produces the low self esteem and low self efficacy that cause their life to get out of control.
Learned helplessness is totally a thing.
No, my life is pretty messy and I have my own problems, but I mean, if it works for you man. I just prefer reality because once you see it, it slaps you in the face and you want to run so fucking far, but if you stand your ground for even a minute knowing that truth and trying to grapple with it, I believe that is more helpful than anything. If you want to feel comfort and reassurance, I think friends or family are a better bet. If you don't have any...then maybe start on that first.
>ethical chocolate,
wut
>Self help is for the people who are victims and if you dont like being called a victim then clearly you dont require any guidance from self-help gurus.
Not that guy, but this approach simply does not work.
You may be a victim to certain extent, but there are still always a whole arrange of decisions and changes that could still improve your life, and by ascribing all of your problems to victimhood you're finding no motivation in pursuing those changes that may actually help you.
No matter wheter you're a victim or not, thinking like a victim won't help you in any sensible way: it's not a practical solution, and this is what self-help should be about.
the chocolate industry has a slave problem, a palm oil problem, and other yuge problems
So these problems you encounter in your life, are they new problems?
Or have they been there for awhile only to put them off when you're ready. Do they still not affect you?
Theres people that think victim is a bad word.
But really, on the path to liberation/self actualization/enlightenment whatever the first step is realizing you are a victim to the thing you arent aware or mindful of.
Its funny alot of people i see mainly say they have issues connecting with people.
Underrated point of view. A ridiculously high amount of folks are not able to grasp the damaging influences they grew up with and are living in. It's not about self pity but about realizing having a problem and processing the causes in order to live by your genuine determination.
Many people have issues connecting with friends and family.
Mostly adults, usually young like 18-30.
Mainly becuase they feel guilty, or some self esteem issues.
Alot of interpersonal issues have to deal with trust as well.
What is thinking like a victim?
Thinking ''my life is shit cause of X'' instead of thinking ''how could I improve my life, which is currently affected by X?''. It's the difference between a negative and a positive approach.
Thank you for elucidating
Step one is identifying the issue
Step 2 or 3 is researching for solutions.
Acceptance that you have a problem again implies that you need to know what your problem is before you can go fixing it.
If i may loosely intetpret maslow but i think people who just are looking for self improvement rather than puting your psyche through triage and crisis management are at the level of self actualization.
Those that are more accepting of personal victimhood are probably looking to fulfill their basic or psychological needs.
My main problem with SoL is that they treat each philosophy, no matter how much it's opposed to other philosophy, as being true i.e. they "teach" each philosophy as being true which is contradictory.
>Thinking there is one true philosophy
Dude some answers have to come from within, you can only do research.
If you want to grow up anytime soon you have to stop expecting to get spoon fed answers. Especially when it comes to the deep questions.
>treating philosophy as dogma
noice
> Thinking ''my life is shit cause of X'' instead of thinking ''how could I improve my life, which is currently affected by X?''.
Not him, but isn't this still just clinging to victimhood, but directing it outward rather than inward? Someone on /pol/ could say, "how can I improve my life, which is currently under assault by Jews?", or someone could be like that celeb who blamed Trump for her weight gain, and take the attitude, "What can I do about Trump to deal with my weight gain?" These latter ones still seem like a victim mindset to me.
hate on him all you want but ever since i decided to cop this fresh philosophy jumper from school of life i've never felt so interested in books! thank you alain de botton for showing me how great it is to be really philosophical and care about all sorts of philosophical stuff in life.
"No"
this, the only inherently conflicting philosophies are different schools of metaphysics. Everything else is just an attempt to explain
this is why Veeky Forums is so awful lately.
low class people that were raised in pentecostal or neopentecostal environment and are unaware of the rich philosophical and theological traditions of religions.
>pentecostal
Oh the horror
Current year and the most primitive of religions are gaining the most adherents
>doesn't understand that christianity is perfect
Yea but that's a fear that only YOU can get over. If you decide to classify this as self help and then still fail to actualize after watching, then there's no reason to believe that it has any use besides being an appealing 5 minute a piece video to tell yourself that you can't be the inherent problem of the own demons you must face within yourself. Don't forget to click subscribe when you inevitably fail, but don't worry, that's just society's fault.
His response to getting one bad review was pretty funny for someone who considers themselves knowledgeable on self help and philosophy.
>Caleb, you make it sound on your blog that your review is somehow a sane and fair assessment. In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a review driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value. The accusations you level at me are simply extraordinary. I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon – so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a reviewer.
>You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review. You present yourself as 'nice' in this blog (so much talk about your boyfriend, the dog etc). It's only fair for your readers (nice people like Joe Linker and trusting souls like PAB) to get a whiff that the truth may be more complex. I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude.
telegraph.co.uk
How about he understands that he can choose to pick and choose the values he deems of worth while knowing that the rest of the values or fictional bits of it comes from either a historical need or embellished grandiosity?
Literally go back to _Reddit_. You are not welcome here.
my friends love school of life.
Alain de Botton confirmed psychopath
Top kek
>Step one is identifying the issue
Sure.
>Step 2 or 3 is researching for solutions.
Which is not what De Button promotes, nor this is what people mean for ''victim mentality''.
There is nothing wrong in these 2 steps, what's wrong is to assume that most self-proclaimed victims will ever take that second step.
Once you're entitle by your victimhood, taking that second step will look like a further offense, something that you technically should not do, but you have to cause of eventual oppression/physical and mental shortcomings/poor or abusive background/whatever fucked up scenario you can imagine. Too bad that in this case this line of thought will bring you NOWHERE, it will make your life stagnant, that's it.
This is why I think that people should recognize these elements, but not identify themselves with it: there is a certain lenience that comes from victimhood, and very few people are able to overcome it, especially if they link this victimhood to a group.
>If i may loosely intetpret maslow but i think people who just are looking for self improvement rather than puting your psyche through triage and crisis management are at the level of self actualization.
The problem is that very rarely the problems in your life can be rationalized: the truth is that most problems in the world are meaningless, there is no deeper insight behind them. It makes sense to observe and analyze them, but that's it. An identification with meaningless suffering won't bring you anywhere.
>Those that are more accepting of personal victimhood are probably looking to fulfill their basic or psychological needs.
The ambition is irrelevant, what matters, in this case, is the result. My point is that victimhood as a state of mind won't help you overcoming these psychological needs.
Also, I know that what I've written now sounds somewhat /pol/-ish: it's not the case, I'm just talking from personal experience.