Cousin_Martha_Corey on Nostr: susansiens is gone! I was going to tell her I finally read the book she recommended, ...
susansiens (npub16ga…znpy) is gone! I was going to tell her I finally read the book she recommended, The Age of Oprah by Janice Peck. It was an interesting companion to Women and Madness by Phyllis Chesler, which I read earlier this year.
Actually, I finished the Oprah book a couple of weeks ago, but haven’t been on much. This is for the general Spinster population, I guess. The premise of the book is that Oprah’s focus on personal growth and responsibility encouraged Americans ignore class, sex, and race-based issues, and that her “therapeutic” approach was shared by Clinton Democrats.
The question of “locus of control” is fascinating to me because it has often been argued (for example, by Greg Lukianoff) that one of the major reasons for wokeness, especially in the form of wealthy, pink-haired youth crying in the streets because they are victims of some imaginary genocide, is the belief that one does not control one’s path in life. Chesler and Peck, in their separate books, seem to be arguing that the perception of an internal locus of control is a bigger problem.
The book didn’t make me like Oprah less; I was already lukewarm. I do see some of Peck’s points. In particular, she cites examples of guests who have had very bad luck in life, sometimes combined with bad treatment (especially from a male partner), who are falsely told that they have simply chosen badly and should just decide to make better choices.
The catch-22, I suppose, is that the answer to Oprah-ism is a well-argued, differing perspective, and yet, there is an imbalance in who can get the funding to build a platform. So, while I don’t think Oprah is inherently wrong to tell it as she sees it, it would have been nice to have a similarly platformed counterpoint.
The funny thing is that this kind of Clinton/Oprah thinking is no longer popular among elites and what it’s been replaced with seems worse.
Actually, I finished the Oprah book a couple of weeks ago, but haven’t been on much. This is for the general Spinster population, I guess. The premise of the book is that Oprah’s focus on personal growth and responsibility encouraged Americans ignore class, sex, and race-based issues, and that her “therapeutic” approach was shared by Clinton Democrats.
The question of “locus of control” is fascinating to me because it has often been argued (for example, by Greg Lukianoff) that one of the major reasons for wokeness, especially in the form of wealthy, pink-haired youth crying in the streets because they are victims of some imaginary genocide, is the belief that one does not control one’s path in life. Chesler and Peck, in their separate books, seem to be arguing that the perception of an internal locus of control is a bigger problem.
The book didn’t make me like Oprah less; I was already lukewarm. I do see some of Peck’s points. In particular, she cites examples of guests who have had very bad luck in life, sometimes combined with bad treatment (especially from a male partner), who are falsely told that they have simply chosen badly and should just decide to make better choices.
The catch-22, I suppose, is that the answer to Oprah-ism is a well-argued, differing perspective, and yet, there is an imbalance in who can get the funding to build a platform. So, while I don’t think Oprah is inherently wrong to tell it as she sees it, it would have been nice to have a similarly platformed counterpoint.
The funny thing is that this kind of Clinton/Oprah thinking is no longer popular among elites and what it’s been replaced with seems worse.