Stand Firm E-Book

Svend Brinkmann

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 192

Beschreibung

The pace of modern life is accelerating. To keep up, we must keep on moving and adapting - constantly striving for greater happiness and success. Or so we are told. But the demands of life in the fast lane come at a price: stress, fatigue and depression are at an all-time high, while our social interactions have become increasingly self-serving and opportunistic. How can we resist today's obsession with introspection and self-improvement? In this witty and bestselling book, Danish philosopher and psychologist Svend Brinkmann argues that we must not be afraid to reject the self-help mantra and 'stand firm'. The secret to a happier life lies not in finding your inner self but in coming to terms with yourself in order to coexist peacefully with others. By encouraging us to stand firm and get a foothold in life, this vibrant anti-self-help guide offers a compelling alternative to life coaching, positive thinking and the need always to say 'yes!'

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Life in the Fast Lane

Mobility versus stability

Finding your feet

Notes

1 Cut out the navel-gazing

Gut feelings

Find yourself or learn to live with yourself?

The paradox machine

What can I do?

Notes

2 Focus on the negative in your life

The tyranny of the positive

Positive psychology

The positive, acknowledging, appreciative leader

Blaming the victim

Kvetching

Getting on with life

What can I do?

Notes

3 Put on your No hat

So what is the Yes hat – and why do people wear it?

The ethics of doubt in the risk society

What can I do?

Notes

4 Suppress your feelings

The emotional culture

The consequences of the emotional culture

What can I do?

Notes

5 Sack your coach

The coachification of life

The dangers of coaching

Coaching and friendship

What can I do?

Notes

6 Read a novel – not a self-help book or biography

The big literary genres of the day

The novel as a technology of the self

Literature without illusions

What can I do?

Notes

7 Dwell on the past

The personal significance of the past

What can I do?

Some final thoughts

Notes

Appendix: Stoicism

Greek Stoicism

Roman Stoicism

Notes

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Svend Brinkmann

STAND FIRM

Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze

Translated by Tam McTurk

polity

First published in Danish as Stå fast: et opgør med tidens udviklingstvang, © Gyldendal, 2014

This English edition © Polity Press, 2017

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1429-8

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

Acknowledgements

A vast array of books has been churned out on self-development, self-improvement and self-realisation. Millions of them are sold every year, and the philosophy of self-development is ubiquitous in the worlds of education and business. Our lives may be in a state of constant flux and change, but legions of coaches, therapists and lifestyle counsellors are on hand to steer us safely through these choppy waters. This book is an attempt to voice opposition – to posit an alternative – to the culture of self-development. In short, it isn’t about how to develop, but about how to stand firm on your own ground. It’s not about finding yourself, but about living with yourself. It recommends negative, not positive, thinking as your first port of call. It isn’t inspired by pop philosophies like the Seven Good Habits, spirituality or Theory U, but by the sober (though never boring) philosophy of Stoicism, as formulated in Ancient Rome by both a slave (Epictetus) and an emperor (Marcus Aurelius). This may sound a bit strange at first … but bear with me.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lise Nestelsø and Anne Weinkouff for publishing the original Danish version of the book, even though it differs so starkly from many others in the Gyldendal Business catalogue. That is precisely why I thought you were the right publishers for the job, and I thank you for your trust and confidence in me. The whole process was enjoyable from start to finish. Anne was an extremely helpful sounding board, reader and editor. I would also like to thank Anders Petersen, Ester Holte Kofod and Rasmus Birk, who provided many valuable comments on the manuscript. Also, huge thanks to Todd May for positive feedback and for recommending the book to Polity Press – a publishing house under whose imprint I am immensely proud to appear. And last but not least, my thanks to Louise Knight, who was such an excellent and helpful editor during the production of the UK edition and to Tam McTurk for having provided a phenomenal translation.

Introduction: Life in the Fast Lane

Many of us think that everything is moving faster and faster these days. The pace of life seems to be accelerating. We find ourselves under a constant barrage of new technology, rounds of restructuring at work, and fleeting trends in food, fashion and miracle cures. No sooner have you bought a smartphone than you have to upgrade to run the latest apps. Before you’ve even had time to get used to the IT system in your workplace, a new version is installed. Just as you figure out how to put up with an irritating colleague, the organisation is restructured and you find yourself having to get on with a whole new team. We work in ‘learning organisations’ in which the only constant is endless change, where the only thing we can be sure of is that what we learned yesterday will be obsolete tomorrow. Lifelong learning and skills enhancement have become key concepts throughout the education system, in business and in other sectors.

Sociologists use metaphors like ‘liquid modernity’ to describe our era, in which everything is in a state of perpetual change.1Time in particular is seen as liquid – it’s as if all limits have been expunged. Why this should be the case, nobody really knows. And nobody knows where we’re heading, either. Some claim that globalisation – or more specifically, ‘the threat posed by globalisation’ – means that constant change is inevitable. Companies need to adapt to changing demands and specifications, so staff need to be flexible and responsive to change. For at least a couple of decades, job ads have been regurgitating the well-worn phrase ‘We are looking for somebody who is flexible, adaptable and open to professional and personal development.’ Standing still is the ultimate sin. If you stand still while everyone else is moving forwards, you fall behind. Doing so these days is tantamount to going backwards.

Under liquid modernity – also referred to as flexible capitalism, post-Fordism and the consumer society – rule number one is that you have to keep up.2 But in a culture where the pace of everything is constantly accelerating, this becomes more and more difficult. The tempo at which we do everything – from changing jobs to writing essays to cooking meals – just keeps speeding up. For example, we now sleep half an hour less per night on average than in 1970, and up to two hours fewer than in the nineteenth century.3 In almost every aspect of life, the pace has quickened. We now talk about fast food, speed-dating, power-naps and short-term therapy. Recently, I tested an app called Spritz. It only shows a single word at a time, but increases your reading speed from 250 to 500–600 words a minute. Suddenly you can read a novel in a couple of hours! But does this help you understand literature any better? Why has speed become an end in itself?

Critics of the pace of change point out that it leads to a general feeling of alienation from the activities in which we are engaged, and to a constant sense that we don’t have enough time. Technological advances should, in theory, free up time – allowing us to have a kick-about with the kids, make pottery or discuss politics. But the opposite is in fact the case if the time that we free up (e.g. from routine or assembly line tasks that are now automated or outsourced to the Third World) is spent on new projects and filling an already packed diary. In our secular world, we no longer see eternal paradise as a carrot at the end of the stick of life, but try to cram as much as possible into our relatively short time on the planet instead. This is, of course, a futile endeavour, doomed to failure. It is tempting to interpret the modern epidemics of depression and burnout as the individual’s response to the unbearable nature of constant acceleration. The decelerating individual – who slows down instead of speeding up, and maybe even stops completely – seems out of place in a culture characterised by manic development, and may be interpreted pathologically (i.e. diagnosed as clinically depressed).4

How do you keep up in an accelerating culture? Keeping up implies a constant willingness to adapt. It implies ongoing development on both a personal and professional level. Sceptics refer to lifelong learning as ‘learning until you die’ (for many, interminable courses by well-meaning consultants are a form of torture, even a form of purgatory). In modern learning organisations with flat management structures, delegated responsibilities, autonomous teams and diffuse or non-existent boundaries between work and private life, it is our personal, social, emotional and learning competences that are deemed the most important. In the absence of orders issued by an authoritarian boss, you have to negotiate with others, work together and decide what feels right. Nowadays, the ideal employees are those who see themselves as reservoirs of competencies, and consider it their own responsibility to monitor, develop and optimise those skills.

All sorts of human interrelationships and practices related to what were considered personal matters in days of yore are now seen as tools and deployed by companies and organisations to drive staff development. Emotions and personal characteristics have been instrumentalised. If you can’t stand the pace – if you are too slow, lack energy or break down altogether – the prescribed remedies are coaching, stress management, mindfulness and positive thinking. We are all advised to ‘live in the moment’, and it isn’t difficult to lose your bearings and sense of time completely when everything is accelerating around you. Dwelling on the past is considered regressive, while the future is just a series of imagined and unconnected moments in time, rather than a clear and coherent life trajectory. But is it possible to plan for the long term when the world is so focused on the short term? Should you even try? Why bother when everything will inevitably change again? And yet, if you hold on to long-term ideals and stable objectives and values, you’ll be seen as difficult and inflexible – an ‘enemy of change’, as the consultants would say. ‘Think positive – and seek solutions’ is the mantra, we don’t want to hear any more whining or see any more sour faces. Critique is something to be quashed. It’s a source of negativity – everyone knows that things work best when you just ‘do what you do best’, right?

Mobility versus stability

Mobility trumps stability in an accelerating culture. You need to be fleet of foot, ‘liquid’, changeable, able to dance to multiple tunes and set off in any direction at any time. Stability and roots imply the opposite, that you’re stuck in one place. You may be pliant, like the stalk of a flower, but uprooting and relocation are less simple. However, even in an accelerating culture, the term ‘putting down roots’ still has positive – albeit slightly olde-worlde – connotations. To have roots is to be connected to other people (family, friends, community), to ideals, to places, or perhaps a workplace to which you feel a certain sense of loyalty. Nowadays, these positive connotations are often undermined by a more negative definition of the term. Fewer and fewer of us put down roots in the demographic sense. We change jobs, partners and places of residence more often than did previous generations. We are inclined to talk about people being ‘stuck’ rather than ‘putting down roots’, and we don’t mean it in any positive sense. ‘You’ve grown into the job’ isn’t an unambiguously positive statement either.

Marketing is one arena is which these contemporary phenomena are particularly evident. Adverts are the poetry of capitalism – they are where society’s subconscious, symbolic structures are revealed. A few years ago, I saw an ad for InterContinental hotels that read: ‘You can’t have a favorite place until you’ve seen them all.’ The strap line was accompanied by a photo of a tropical island and the question ‘Do you live an InterContinental life?’ In other words, you can’t feel connected to a particular place until you’ve been everywhere. This is very much the extreme end of the mobility-versus-roots philosophy. To tie ourselves down is to cut ourselves off from the other great places in the world. Applied to other aspects of life, the message is patently absurd, despite being relatively commonplace: you can’t have a favourite job until you’ve tried them all. You can’t have a favourite spouse until you’ve ‘tested’ all potential partners. Who knows whether a different job would help me develop more as a person? Who knows whether another partner would enrich my life more than the one I’m with at the moment? In the twenty-first century, in an age that prefers mobility to roots, people have profound difficulties in establishing stable relationships with others, including partners, spouses and friends. In most cases, their relationships with others are so-called pure relationships, i.e. based exclusively on emotions.5 Pure relationships have no external criteria, and practical considerations (e.g. financial security) play no part. They are simply about the emotional effect of communing with the other person. If I am ‘the best version of myself’ when I’m with my partner, then the relationship is justified. Otherwise, it’s not. We think of human relationships as temporary and replaceable. Other people are tools in our personal development rather than individuals in their own right.

This book is based on the premise that it has become difficult to put down roots, to achieve stability. All of us are now focused on mobility, on moving forwards. For the foreseeable future, there is probably little that can be done about this – not that it would be entirely desirable to return to a state in which our lives are governed by rigid parameters such as kin, class and gender anyway. There is something unique and humanising about liquid modernity’s ability to liberate people from such strictures – albeit to a limited extent, because factors such as gender and class obviously continue to play a significant role in shaping the potential of the individual, even in modern, egalitarian welfare states. Many people, unfortunately, buy into the idea that they can ‘do anything’ (an idea foisted on the young in particular), so self-flagellation is a perfectly understandable reaction when their efforts prove inadequate. If you can do anything, then it must be your fault if success proves elusive in work or love (for Freud, ‘lieben und arbeiten’ were the two most significant existential arenas). Little wonder, then, that nowadays so many hanker after a psychiatric diagnosis to explain away perceived personal inadequacies.6 Another semi-poetic strap line – a slogan from the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, which makes products like the ‘happy pill’ Paxil – says: ‘Do more, feel better, live longer’. These are the key goals in an accelerating culture, and psychoactive drugs help us achieve them: to do more (irrespective of what it might be?); feel better (no matter what triggered your emotions?); and live longer (irrespective of the quality of the extra years of life?). In an accelerating culture, we are supposed to do more, do it better and do it for longer, with scant regard for the content or the meaning of what we are doing. Self-development has become an end in itself. And everything revolves around the self. If we believe ourselves defenceless in a world that Zygmunt Bauman described as ‘a global whirlwind’, then we become more self-oriented – and therefore, unfortunately, all the more defenceless.7 A vicious circle ensues. We turn inwards to master an uncertain world, which seems less and less certain as we become more and more isolated, finding ourselves with only our selforientation for company.

Finding your feet

If mobility is the be-all-and-end-all of modern culture and it’s difficult to put down roots, what can we do? At the risk of adding to the burden of expectations heaped on the individual in recent years, the message of this book is that we should learn to stand firm – and perhaps, in time, even find our feet. It’s easier said than done though. The buzz all around us is about development, change, transformation, innovation, learning and other dynamic concepts that infuse the accelerating culture. Let it be said right from the outset that I am perfectly well aware that some people don’t want to stand firm. They are doing just fine in the accelerating culture. While I do believe that, over time, they risk losing integrity and missing out on important aspects of life, I do, of course, accept their preference for perpetual motion. This book isn’t for them. It is for those who do want to find their own feet but are unable to express this wish. They may even have tried to do so, only to be dubbed rigid, recalcitrant or reactionary by their peers.

Our secular age is shot through with fundamental existential uncertainty and angst, and this makes it difficult to stand firm. The upshot of this is that most of us are easy marks for all sorts of guidance, therapy, coaching, mindfulness, positive psychology and general self-development. In spheres like diet, health and exercise, a veritable religion has emerged that constantly churns out new edicts to follow and regimes to live by. One moment what you should eat is determined by your blood type, the next by the diet of your Palaeolithic ancestors. It seems that we – and I’m not afraid to count myself among the collective ‘we’ – lack purpose and direction, and run around looking for the latest recipe for happiness, progress and success. From a psychological perspective, this resembles a collective state of dependency. Carl Cederström and André Spicer call it the Wellness Syndrome.8 Some (fewer and fewer) are addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, but a growing majority of people seem to be dependent on advice from lifestyle mentors, self-developers and health gurus. Multitudes of coaches, therapists, self-development experts and positivity consultants have emerged to help us change and transition in the accelerating culture. Countless self-help books and seven-step guides have been written to encourage and support personal development. Just look at the bestseller list – it always includes books about food and health, self-help books and celebrity biographies.

That’s why I have written this book as a seven-step guide, in the hope it will turn on their heads some of the received ideas about positivity and development that proliferate in the accelerating culture. I hope you will recognise problematic aspects of the Zeitgeist from your own life, and perhaps build up a vocabulary with which to counter all the terminology of incessant development and change. The idea is that it will act as a kind of anti-self-help book, and inspire people to change the way they think about, and live, their own lives. I contend that in order to learn to survive in an accelerating culture – to stand firm – we should look to classical Stoic philosophy for inspiration, especially its emphases on self-control, peace of mind, dignity, sense of duty and reflection on the finite nature of life. These virtues engender a deeper sense of fulfilment than the superficial focus on permanent development and transformation. Stoicism is a fascinating tradition in its own right, of course, and one of the foundation stones of Western philosophy, but it is presented here for purely pragmatic reasons. Why reinvent the Stoic wheel? My interest is in Stoicism’s relevance to our age and its challenges, rather than in whether I am interpreting it correctly in the context of its own time (probably not). My use of Stoicism is selective, and there are aspects of the philosophy to which I certainly do not subscribe (for a more detailed account, please refer to the appendix on Stoicism).

Stoicism originated in Ancient Greece and was later taken up by Roman thinkers. This book is not intended as an introduction to Stoic thought, e.g. as represented by the Romans Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and, to an extent, Cicero.9 Rather, I use aspects of Stoicism to respond to some of the challenges of modern life:

Where positive visualisation is preached nowadays (think of all the things you want to achieve!), the Stoics recommend negative visualisation (what would happen if you lost what you have?)

Where you are now encouraged to think in terms of constant opportunities, the Stoics recommend that you acknowledge and rejoice in your limitations

Where you are now expected to give free rein to your feelings at all times, the Stoics recommend that you learn self-discipline and sometimes suppress your feelings