You’ll hear it in the patter of friends who have been reborn as part of Dr Phil’s flock, or read it in the codes of behaviour spelt out in your company’s personnel manual. The incorrigible sceptics fall prey to passive reinforcement. Nowhere is this truer than in the area where self-help’s efforts have been most concentrated over the years: love and relationships. And again, it becomes clear that the “payoff” has not been as advertised.
In 1960 divorce claimed about a quarter of all marriages. Today it claims about half. It can be argued, and has been by feminists, that increased divorce isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People in general, and women in particular, no longer feel compelled to suffer dismal unions in silence. The rising tide of women’s rights and opportunities, combined with other support factors in society, has given restless wives the initiative and optimism to leave the kinds of marriage that counterparts from prior generations “made-do”.
But how many walk away because they no longer feel compelled to suffer so-so marriages in silence? Worse, how many has Sham conditioned to think that their marriages are so-so, when in reality they are pretty normal? Nowadays, young marrieds of both genders may be too focused on their own fulfilment with disastrous effects for domestic tranquillity. It may not be coincidence that the greatest jump in US divorce, postwar, came between 1975 and 1990, a 15-year period that roughly corresponds to the most feverish Sham activity. As troubling as how many of us get divorced today is how fast we do it: a third of US divorces occur before couples reach the five years. The ramifications of this trend are dire. Census Bureau figures reveal that the nuclear home is about to sink into minority status. Just 50.8 per cent of US households consist of a married mother and father and children whose conception awaited the start of the marriage itself — the figure was 67 per cent in 1970. A quarter of the nation’s children are now living in broken homes.
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Many people now approach their wedding day with a reserve that can’t help but handicap the marriage. For example, they draft prenuptial agreements and refuse to mix assets. Many postpone having children, in part for financial reasons, but also because they “want to make sure the marriage works first”. Others take separate vacations, glorying in the notion that each partner “needs his/her space”. Hardly a recipe for marital bliss?
Sham’s most prominent relationships guru might be John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. It is hard to imagine that during the ultra-PC 1990s someone could have built an uncontested Sham franchise by reaffirming almost every stereotype about gender-identified emotions and behaviours. But that’s what Gray did. His book has sold 15 million copies and his annual income exceeds $10 million. The trouble with Gray, as with most Sham gurus, is that he goes too far. On the basis of little or no science, he presumes to know everything about what makes men and women tick. (“Dr” Gray is not a medical doctor but a PhD.)
His most eyebrow-raising contention may be this: “The difference between a man and a woman is that she doesn’t feel her strong desire for sex unless her need for love is first satisfied.” This is not the view of three major scientific studies, including one from Ohio State University two years ago, which found that to the extent that women differ from men in their sex drive, it is because of social expectations and not their genetic code.
It’s been a decade since a pair of New Yorkers, Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, ignited a cultural firestorm with their bestseller The Rules. Their directive to women was simple: play hard to get and you dramatically improve your odds of being got. The 35-point formula included: “End phone calls after ten minutes” and the manipulative, “Don’t call him and rarely return his calls”. The Rules sets forth one of the most diabolical stratagems for finding “true love” ever published. Today, it’s as if the seeker of love is seeking not a person but rather a representative of a certain gender. People learn to look for the stereotype, not the individual, and they respond to one another on that misguided, impersonal basis.
The simple truth is that no one can orchestrate real love or even honest chemistry. No one can explain why people feel love for those they feel it for. You can’t will falling in love, but you can make people cynical and hardbitten. You can remind them so often of the dangers of finding Mr Wrong that they second-guess every romantic spark within them. You can remind a woman non-stop that men just want to get laid, while reminding a man that women just want to go shopping on his credit card. By doing so, you contribute to a climate wherein both genders believe in nothing, trust in nothing.
An edited extract from Sham: How the Gurus of the Self-Help Movement Make us Helpless, by Steve Salerno. Published by Nicholas Brealey on Thursday at £10.99. It is available through Booksfirst for £9.89 (p&p inc.). Call 0870 1608080.
© Steve Salerno 2005
A SHAM DIVISION
THE self-help movement divides into two camps. Empowerment — the idea that you are responsible for all you do, good and bad.
And, in contrast, Victimisation, which sells the idea that you are not responsible for what you do (well, not the bad things).
Victimisation held sway from the late 1960s to the 1980s. With its backdrop of excuses, it appealed to many people. It eroded personal responsibility, convincing believers that they’re pawns in a hostile Universe and that they can never escape their pasts (or biological makeup).
Empowerment has weaned a generation of young people in the belief that aspiring to something is the same as achieving it. It suggests that a sense of “positive self-worth” is more valuable than developing the talents or skills that normally win recognition from others. Those in this category tend to approach life as if it were an endless succession of New Year’s resolutions.
Though the Empowerment camp gets most of the coverage (and profits), Empowerment and Victimisation represent a pair of estuaries flowing from the same river. They exist side by side on bookshelves and often together in the same self-help expert.
THE UK BESTSELLERS
THE five bestselling self-help books (based on popular psychology and social sciences) for 2004-2005 are:
Overall, an estimated £39 million was generated from self-help books during 2004. The most successful so far is Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, with 843,288 copies sold in the UK since 1996 generating around £7.5 million. The Little Book of Calm is second with 813,759 copies sold, but at only £1.99 each. The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck, is eighth on the list.
(Data by Nielson BookScan)
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