Sometimes I find insightful reviewers more interesting than the subject of the review. This Amazon review is exactly that and I feel it's important enough to share.
"This fascinating & cogent cultural study is as far from a chatty, glossy puff piece as you can imagine -- but it's no mean-spirited character assassination, either. It examines Oprah as cultural phenomenon, and the ways in which she both influences contemporary culture & embodies it. Well-researched & thoroughly attributed, it's an exemplar of research & analysis, with some unsettling but irrefutable conclusions.
Author Janice Peck begins with a detailed history of American magical thinking -- from 19th century mind cures to modern New Age philosophies. She shows how this strain of thought downplays or outright dismisses political, economic, and social factors in creating poverty & despair, in favor of "personal responsibility" -- which more often turns out to be a more rarified way of blaming the victim. She also shows the disparity (some might say hypocrisy) of such magical thinking, which touts itself as spiritual & highly evolved, yet also offers the less fortunate contempt rather than pity & compassion.
The most blatant example of this, of course, is Oprah's fervent embrace of "The Secret," which essentially proclaims that our own thoughts, whether negative or positive, create the reality in which we live. Think good thoughts, and you'll attract good things; thing bad thoughts, and you'll attract bad things. The clueless callousness of this belief system is obvious -- do abused infants attract their abuse through negative thinking, for example? Do you attract cancer, or violence, or having your pension stolen by a corrupt CEO? Do you attract toxic landfills, or horrific battlefield maiming?
Throughout this study, there's never any personal attack on Oprah as a human being. This isn't a juicy screed or rant by any means! But it is a penetrating study of a way of thought that pervades American culture today, from the most intimate relationships to finance & foreign policy. Boiled down, this way of thought pretty much says that those who have wealth, fame, power, etc., deserve it; those who don't, simply don't deserve it, because it's all their fault. So of course helping them is useless. In much cruder (but sadly accurate) terms, "F**k you, I got mine!" And you get to feel morally superior while saying it, too!
Is this really how we want to live?
Let me forestall certain objections. In no way is this book discounting genuine personal responsibility, or glorifying victimization. It merely points out that even with the fiercest will & ambition, too many people are unable to escape to something better. And in looking down at them, in blaming them for immense political & economic forces beyond their control, we not only diminish their humanity, we diminish our own. Putting a shiny facade of faux spirituality & narcissistic philosophy over that only makes it worse.
For those who want to look a little more deeply at our culture, highly recommended & vital reading!"
All I can say is "WOW", that cut to the person has an amazing ability to cut like a razor the the heart of the pathology of this society!
