Now I’m not sure why my professor has us read this book but it was required for our course work and I’m not sure how literal I was supposed to take it but it used a lot of literal examples so I assume I’m supposed to apply this to life.
The book had several statements declaring how poor people are poor because of their mindset and going as far as to say the oppressors in an ideal society should receive as much compassion as oppressed because they are both ignorant.
I had to write notes on each chapter and was honestly shocked by its positions. Some were nice and I feel like if you applied some of these chapters messages very loosely you could be better off such as “think positively” or at the end it said something like “don’t waste your time searching for wealth and find peace elsewhere” or “work hard”. However a grand majority of its perspectives seemed so wrong.
If you’ve read this book, can you tell me your perspective? Was it different? Did I understand it differently?
by Kenndraws
9 Comments
I think your critique is fair.
It’s a sort of moral essay that winds up a grab-bag of aphoristic stuff that wavers between bullshit and practical wisdom… I remember thinking, “Huh. If Khalil Gibran, Oprah, Ayn Rand, and Dear Abby had a baby, this would be it.”
Professor of *what* might help.
It’s a self help book that’s 123 years old, a lot of what it says is going to be out of touch garbage by out standards, what is your class about, what about this book is relevant to your learning? that’s what your professor wants you to focus on and get from it.
For historical context, his book was published in 1903 in the uk, and should ideally be read with this in mind rather than being taken at face value. There was a significant amount of upcoming social change, more political awareness among the working class, a rise of trade unions and the labour movement. a lot of the “you can unpoor yourself if you set your mind to it” stuff was actually super motivational for people and influential to these movements, and the “treat the oppressors well” stuff capitulated enough to have to spread the books ideas at least somewhat successfully amongst the “elite” as well.
The read that it’s just garbage isn’t a “wrong” one, but probably you can get a little deeper and nuanced than that.
Its intentions are to give any reader peace of mind and to think positively, I believe. The poor person mindset was more about their perception of needing more than them having a low salary. It was about working hard and being content. I wish I could explain it better it’s been years since I’ve read it.
This book is pushed heavily in MLM circles so that should tell you something.
I think if it was garbage it wouldn’t have lasted over the years. You even made some points in defense of it. It can’t be that bad..
For people who need bible concepts but not being the bible…this is it. Maybe
No sure why you were assigned it and I imagine it would come off strange and preachy. Maybe you don’t like your professor.
If you can focus on maybe the things that have made it a classic and rewrite to modern day language. You would be a multimillionaire. Although many of the concepts have been extracted and rewritten.
When people can make it through cancer and others can’t…The ones that do seem to miraculously make it through are usually impressively optimistic. There isn’t a way to tie science to it which puts this in a “woo woo” God or unprovable psychology.
Again. Take out of it what did leave an impression and leave the rest. Decent concepts that most aren’t taught and even hard core bible thumpers can’t translate into applicable concepts.
I’m actually glad you read it. Sorry you think it’s so bad. I hope something you read helps somehow and somewhere later with you. 🙂
It did not say the poor are poor because of their mind, it acknowledged circumstances. It said your mind is something that can be cultivated to slowly and indirectly change your circumstances, or greed can keep you poor, etc. I mean you have to give it a chance…
But yeah, even though I thought it was a good read, I wouldn’t want it pushed onto me in a classroom.
if is it indeed garbage, you are now vaccinated against a series of arguments and reasoning, and your goal should be to be able to expose how it is skewed, by what argumentative means, and how its conclusions are wrong or something. I mean, study the object, take this as an opportunity to train your critical thinking.
I get the feeling your teacher is a longtermist and/or a transhumanist. The message to treat your oppressors well vaguely fits that mindset, but I don’t know if this book is specifically talked about in those circles.
Longtermism, or effective altruism, is the idea that future people and AI are more numerous, powerful, and important than people currently living now, and that we should do everything we can to improve their lives and support their existence. It sounds reasonable at first glance, until you start realizing what it really entails, that helping future people can and should come at the cost of the people living today, and you realize it’s a rather ridiculous philosophy that terrible people use to support their egotism (“I’m doing it for future people!”). Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, Peter Thiel are supporters of this philosophy.
Some longtermists are also transhumanists and this combination leads to really ridiculous ethical propositions, like the idea that future AI might torture our computer-uploaded consciousness forever for not supporting their creation.
As a man stinketh