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Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed
‘Fascinating’ Guardian‘Brilliant’ Evening Standard‘Electrifying’ Financial Times‘So interesting I literally couldn’t put it down’ Sunday TimesWe are living in an age of heightened individualism. Success is a personal responsibility. Our culture tells us that to succeed is to be slim, rich, happy, extroverted, popular – flawless.The pressure to conform to this ideal has changed who we are. We have become self-obsessed. And our expectation of perfection comes at a cost. Millions are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy.It was not always like this. To explain how we got here, Will Storr takes us on a journey across continents and centuries. Full of thrilling and unexpected connections between history, psychology, economics, neuroscience and more, Selfie is an unforgettable book that makes sense of who we have become.As featured on Russell Brand’s Under The Skin podcast.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 15, 2017
About the author
Will Storr
14 books537 followersWill Storr is a long-form journalist, novelist and reportage photographer. His features have appeared in The Guardian Weekend, The Telegraph Magazine, The Times Magazine, The Observer Magazine, The Sunday Times Style and GQ, and he is a contributing editor at Esquire. He has reported from the refugee camps of Africa, the war-torn departments of rural Colombia and the remote Aboriginal communities of Australia, and has been named New Journalist of the Year, Feature Writer of the Year and has won a National Press Club award for excellence. His critically acclaimed first book, Will Storr versus The Supernatural is published by Random House in the UK. The Hunger and the Howling of Killian Lone is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 398 reviews
October 8, 2017
Call me old-fashioned, but I miss the days when humility was regarded as a basic virtue, instead of the rampant narcissism that has invaded modern society. Ours is a generation addicted to Likes and Retweets, attempting to live up to an impossible ideal and in need of constant validation. This very site operates under such a premise - I'm as guilty as anybody in enjoying a little dopamine hit every time somebody clicks the Like button on one of my reviews.
In this engaging study, Will Storr investigates the origins of the self-obsession phenomenon. One might think it began in 2010 with the introduction of the iPhone's front-facing camera. But he believes its roots can be traced back many years ago to the time of Aristotle, who was the first to introduce the concept of selfhood. This philosophy fed into Ayn Rand's hugely influential ideas of individualism in the 20th century, he explains. He also examines the Catholic quest for perfection through self-abasement, the hippie retreats of the Esalen Institute in the 1960s, the self-esteem movement that found favour in 1980s California, before bringing us right up to the present day with the advent of social media.
Storr introduces us to a host of fascinating characters along the way. There's John, a reformed London gangster who believes his extreme aggression was a product of his own low opinion of himself. Then there's John Vasconcellos, who became a US media sensation in the late 80s with his state-funded self-esteem program. And in the present day we meet CJ, a 22-year-old woman who has terabytes full of selfies and often stays up until 4am editing photos of herself, before choosing which ones to post on Instagram.
The book is strongest on the subject of the digital self and the pressures of social media. Storr talks about the "social perfectionism" that users set out to achieve and the sudden need to stand out in such a crowded space: "You had to be more entertaining, more original, more beautiful, with more friends, have wittier lines and more righteous opinions, and you’d best be doing it looking stylish in interesting places with your breakfast healthy, delicious and beautifully lit." One can see how narcissism develops from this addiction to self-esteem. "Caring about what others think of us is thought to be one of humanity’s strongest preoccupations," he tells us. The model of the ideal self that today's culture has come up with "is an extroverted, slim, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, popular, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming individual with entrepreneurial guile." But we're not all working with the same raw materials: "We’re lumps of biology, mashed and pounded into shape by mostly chance events. Our ‘human potential’ is limited."
The consideration of the digital self is the main reason I read this book, but it only begins to be properly examined in the final chapters. The rest of Selfie is dedicated to the origins of individualism, and to be honest I could have done with less of this and much more of the social media discussion. There are also glimpses of Storr's own struggle with self-esteem which I found intriguing - there just wasn't enough of it. But overall this book is a valuable and entertaining examination of the quest for self-perfection - well-argued, well-researched and hugely insightful.
In this engaging study, Will Storr investigates the origins of the self-obsession phenomenon. One might think it began in 2010 with the introduction of the iPhone's front-facing camera. But he believes its roots can be traced back many years ago to the time of Aristotle, who was the first to introduce the concept of selfhood. This philosophy fed into Ayn Rand's hugely influential ideas of individualism in the 20th century, he explains. He also examines the Catholic quest for perfection through self-abasement, the hippie retreats of the Esalen Institute in the 1960s, the self-esteem movement that found favour in 1980s California, before bringing us right up to the present day with the advent of social media.
Storr introduces us to a host of fascinating characters along the way. There's John, a reformed London gangster who believes his extreme aggression was a product of his own low opinion of himself. Then there's John Vasconcellos, who became a US media sensation in the late 80s with his state-funded self-esteem program. And in the present day we meet CJ, a 22-year-old woman who has terabytes full of selfies and often stays up until 4am editing photos of herself, before choosing which ones to post on Instagram.
The book is strongest on the subject of the digital self and the pressures of social media. Storr talks about the "social perfectionism" that users set out to achieve and the sudden need to stand out in such a crowded space: "You had to be more entertaining, more original, more beautiful, with more friends, have wittier lines and more righteous opinions, and you’d best be doing it looking stylish in interesting places with your breakfast healthy, delicious and beautifully lit." One can see how narcissism develops from this addiction to self-esteem. "Caring about what others think of us is thought to be one of humanity’s strongest preoccupations," he tells us. The model of the ideal self that today's culture has come up with "is an extroverted, slim, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, popular, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming individual with entrepreneurial guile." But we're not all working with the same raw materials: "We’re lumps of biology, mashed and pounded into shape by mostly chance events. Our ‘human potential’ is limited."
The consideration of the digital self is the main reason I read this book, but it only begins to be properly examined in the final chapters. The rest of Selfie is dedicated to the origins of individualism, and to be honest I could have done with less of this and much more of the social media discussion. There are also glimpses of Storr's own struggle with self-esteem which I found intriguing - there just wasn't enough of it. But overall this book is a valuable and entertaining examination of the quest for self-perfection - well-argued, well-researched and hugely insightful.
July 25, 2017
Wonderful. Gorgeous writing, and the most engrossing book I've read so far this year. Much more than a look at the rise of 21st century narcissism, but about how the self has been conceptualized throughout Western history and how it links to neoliberalism.
We’re lumps of biology, mashed and pounded into shape by mostly chance events. Our ‘human potential’ is limited. But this isn’t the model of self that our culture keeps showing us. Instead, we’re presented with an individual who has total free will and an ability to become whoever they choose. And who they usually choose to be is an extraverted, slim, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, popular, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming individual with entrepreneurial guile – all characteristics Ayn Rand would’ve recognized as heroic. Because they’re Greek, these cultural heroes will be beautiful both inside and out, and moving in the direction of perfection. Because they’re Christian, they’ll have clean and goodly interior selves. Because they’re humanistic, they’ll be authentic and ‘real’ and take responsibility for everything that happens to them. Because they’re neoliberal, they’ll be self-sufficient and successful and following their dreams with a ferocious hunger. Neoliberal culture glorifies a kind of storyfied, dreamy-lensed version of this person. It creates, and then sells us, its bespoke hero.
I unreservedly recommend this.
We’re lumps of biology, mashed and pounded into shape by mostly chance events. Our ‘human potential’ is limited. But this isn’t the model of self that our culture keeps showing us. Instead, we’re presented with an individual who has total free will and an ability to become whoever they choose. And who they usually choose to be is an extraverted, slim, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, popular, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming individual with entrepreneurial guile – all characteristics Ayn Rand would’ve recognized as heroic. Because they’re Greek, these cultural heroes will be beautiful both inside and out, and moving in the direction of perfection. Because they’re Christian, they’ll have clean and goodly interior selves. Because they’re humanistic, they’ll be authentic and ‘real’ and take responsibility for everything that happens to them. Because they’re neoliberal, they’ll be self-sufficient and successful and following their dreams with a ferocious hunger. Neoliberal culture glorifies a kind of storyfied, dreamy-lensed version of this person. It creates, and then sells us, its bespoke hero.
I unreservedly recommend this.
May 9, 2023
This is quite a read, an amalgam of several genres with varying degrees of success: ancient history and investigative journalism, pop psychology and memoir. I found it compelling, with strong storytelling, some great insights, and a number of elements I (uncomfortably) relate to. On the other hand, much of the author’s analysis is highly questionable.
Storr takes the reader on a journey through the Western conception of the self, from ancient Greek heroes to medieval Christian self-abnegation to the self-esteem movement that arose in late 20th century California. But his starting point is suicides—how can creatures evolved specifically to keep ourselves alive malfunction so catastrophically?—which he interprets largely as a failure of self-image, when we can no longer sustain the heroic narratives of our own lives needed to keep going in a bleak world.
The Good Stuff
1) Storr can tell a story, and I was quickly engaged with his journey, as he visits a monastery in England and a weeklong self-awareness workshop in California. His style is smooth and engaging, and I always wanted to return to the book even when it was uncomfortable.
2) The investigative journalism bit deals with how “self-esteem” became a household word, as opposed to a niche concern, and the author’s research is impressive—he interviewed all the major players still living and uncovered some serious dirt. As it turns out, the person who brought self-esteem into pop culture was a California lawmaker named John Vasconcellos, who was convinced that raising his own self-esteem transformed his life (his colleagues and employees would say it turned him into an asshole). He managed to get the governor to sign off on funding for a task force to study self-esteem, and because he was also chair of the Ways and Means committee—in charge of the University of California budget—the university didn’t feel it could say no to “helping.” This “help” ultimately took the form of the professor who headed the study allowing himself to be misquoted: the science did not show raising self-esteem to reduce social ills; at best, high self-esteem was correlated with academic success (as it turns out, the latter leads to the former). But the media was given the idea that raising people’s self-esteem would reduce social problems from alcoholism to unemployment, and everyone just ran with it.
3) This movement is inextricably intertwined with neoliberalism—in fact, one of Ayn Rand’s acolytes was heavily involved with that California task force. Storr has some great analysis here of the ways a deregulated, free-market economy is one that demands high levels of individualism—we have to train ourselves, market ourselves, etc.—and the powers that be prefer to blame the less successful for personal failings rather than brook critique of a system that forces everyone into competition (thus inevitably producing winners and losers).
It’s fascinating to see how deeply woven these ideas are into the modern psyche: this idea of one’s personal journey as “a contemporary tale in which men and women overcome mainly psychological obstacles to success and happiness” appears both in people’s own understanding of their lives and all over fiction (not to mention the self-help industry!), even when it flies in the face of common sense.
The Not-So-Good Stuff
1) For a book that’s sold as being about the history of selfishness, and a modern increase in it, Storr never defines his terms: what is selfishness? What is individualism? Nor does he grapple with other obvious questions: how do we measure these things? To what extent do the philosophers of a culture represent the way its ordinary people think and act? His history feels a little too simplistic and well-worn—the ancient Greeks thought this, the medieval Christians that, no space for cultural cross-pollination—overdue for reinterpretation.
Likewise, his argument that the importance of the individual is a specifically Western notion rather than a common theme of humanity is weak. His argument is based entirely on the fact that thinking is different in China, which he apparently considers to represent the human default, as if China weren’t shaped by its own unique history and philosophical traditions. He also seems to wildly overinterpret findings from psychological studies comparing Chinese and Americans. You don’t think that in a place where the entire population has just spent decades having to put their heads down and participate in terrible things to survive (most of the studies cited are from the early 1990s), that’s going to influence the extent to which people credit context rather than character for a person’s actions?
2) And that’s hardly the only study I’m side-eyeing. In another, people whose left and right brains had been surgically separated were sent messages only through the left eye, to the non-verbal right side of the brain. Because the two halves couldn’t communicate, the participants couldn’t explain their own reactions: someone given a written order to get up and walk, when asked why he’d stood up, said he was going to get a drink of water. Another person was shown a horror clip, and reported that she was afraid of the researcher. To Storr, this is evidence that we don’t really know why we feel or do anything (which he finds comforting). But I’m unconvinced that proving people with hamstrung brains don’t know something proves that people with normal brains don’t know it. And besides, the researchers can only definitively say the participants were wrong about their own feelings or reasoning if they can definitively assert that they, the researchers, were right—which itself assumes that humans can and often do in fact know the reasons for these things. If this study were performed with ordinary people, one presumes the answers would near-perfectly align. Fair to say that humans do fabricate, and we don’t always know what we don’t know, but Storr wildly oversells it.
Meanwhile, another study shows that American college students have become more narcissistic over the years, which the author takes to mean that Americans in general have become more narcissistic. No one involved seems to have considered that college students aren’t representative of the general population (personally, I’d say college is a highly narcissistic environment—and of course it is; everything you do there is to benefit yourself and prepare to market yourself competitively). And those studies have also evidently found that the differences between colleges are greater than the differences over time—given increasing competition for seats, it’s no surprise that elite colleges are more and increasingly narcissistic.
3) There’s also just a bit of get-off-my-lawn here. Like Storr, I have the sense that we in the West are becoming more selfish, but then every generation believes this as they age, and some of his points do his argument no favors. For instance:
- Participation trophies: The usual punching bag. Look, as someone who played youth sports, was bad at them, and received participation trophies, I can assure you that no one on the field or the court is confused about anyone’s skills. The symbolism of the trophy has changed from one of talent and victory to a commemorative token, but I don’t think that means anything for the self-image of anyone involved (though it was likely intended that way by people who didn’t think this through). Symbol evolution—it’s like euphemism churn!
- Parents telling their kids they’re special: I agree that parents teaching kids that they’re more important than other people, or insulating them from the ability to take risks and experience consequences, is bad for kids. But I don’t like the mental health outlook for a kid who isn’t even special to their own parents.
- Selfies: As you can guess from the title, Storr finds selfies uniquely representative of our age. I don’t think he knows that cat pictures are far more popular than selfies. Also, the young woman I expected him to use as an example of social media addiction harming people’s lives turns out to be anything but—she’s an aspiring actress who seems completely comfortable with her selfie obsession, and who displays so many narcissistic traits that the author himself suspects she’s exaggerating for effect. I didn’t see her as representative of anybody but maybe other actors. This section also made me think about the Peace Corps Volunteer who arrived in China in 1996 and was disconcerted to find his students—in a small, provincial city—showing off photo albums consisting entirely of pictures of themselves: so back to the definitions of terms, if photographing primarily oneself shows self-centeredness, and the Chinese are (supposedly) scientifically proven to be less self-centered, what to make of this extraordinary love of photographing themselves?
In the end, this isn’t a book you should take at face value; it would take a lot more erudition than it or maybe any single person has to confidently trace the importance of the individual throughout human history. Nevertheless, it’s certainly food for thought and discussion and the sections on recent history are quite good. I don’t buy a lot of it, but it made me think about some important things while also being entertaining, so I’m still glad I read it.
Storr takes the reader on a journey through the Western conception of the self, from ancient Greek heroes to medieval Christian self-abnegation to the self-esteem movement that arose in late 20th century California. But his starting point is suicides—how can creatures evolved specifically to keep ourselves alive malfunction so catastrophically?—which he interprets largely as a failure of self-image, when we can no longer sustain the heroic narratives of our own lives needed to keep going in a bleak world.
The Good Stuff
1) Storr can tell a story, and I was quickly engaged with his journey, as he visits a monastery in England and a weeklong self-awareness workshop in California. His style is smooth and engaging, and I always wanted to return to the book even when it was uncomfortable.
2) The investigative journalism bit deals with how “self-esteem” became a household word, as opposed to a niche concern, and the author’s research is impressive—he interviewed all the major players still living and uncovered some serious dirt. As it turns out, the person who brought self-esteem into pop culture was a California lawmaker named John Vasconcellos, who was convinced that raising his own self-esteem transformed his life (his colleagues and employees would say it turned him into an asshole). He managed to get the governor to sign off on funding for a task force to study self-esteem, and because he was also chair of the Ways and Means committee—in charge of the University of California budget—the university didn’t feel it could say no to “helping.” This “help” ultimately took the form of the professor who headed the study allowing himself to be misquoted: the science did not show raising self-esteem to reduce social ills; at best, high self-esteem was correlated with academic success (as it turns out, the latter leads to the former). But the media was given the idea that raising people’s self-esteem would reduce social problems from alcoholism to unemployment, and everyone just ran with it.
3) This movement is inextricably intertwined with neoliberalism—in fact, one of Ayn Rand’s acolytes was heavily involved with that California task force. Storr has some great analysis here of the ways a deregulated, free-market economy is one that demands high levels of individualism—we have to train ourselves, market ourselves, etc.—and the powers that be prefer to blame the less successful for personal failings rather than brook critique of a system that forces everyone into competition (thus inevitably producing winners and losers).
It’s fascinating to see how deeply woven these ideas are into the modern psyche: this idea of one’s personal journey as “a contemporary tale in which men and women overcome mainly psychological obstacles to success and happiness” appears both in people’s own understanding of their lives and all over fiction (not to mention the self-help industry!), even when it flies in the face of common sense.
The Not-So-Good Stuff
1) For a book that’s sold as being about the history of selfishness, and a modern increase in it, Storr never defines his terms: what is selfishness? What is individualism? Nor does he grapple with other obvious questions: how do we measure these things? To what extent do the philosophers of a culture represent the way its ordinary people think and act? His history feels a little too simplistic and well-worn—the ancient Greeks thought this, the medieval Christians that, no space for cultural cross-pollination—overdue for reinterpretation.
Likewise, his argument that the importance of the individual is a specifically Western notion rather than a common theme of humanity is weak. His argument is based entirely on the fact that thinking is different in China, which he apparently considers to represent the human default, as if China weren’t shaped by its own unique history and philosophical traditions. He also seems to wildly overinterpret findings from psychological studies comparing Chinese and Americans. You don’t think that in a place where the entire population has just spent decades having to put their heads down and participate in terrible things to survive (most of the studies cited are from the early 1990s), that’s going to influence the extent to which people credit context rather than character for a person’s actions?
2) And that’s hardly the only study I’m side-eyeing. In another, people whose left and right brains had been surgically separated were sent messages only through the left eye, to the non-verbal right side of the brain. Because the two halves couldn’t communicate, the participants couldn’t explain their own reactions: someone given a written order to get up and walk, when asked why he’d stood up, said he was going to get a drink of water. Another person was shown a horror clip, and reported that she was afraid of the researcher. To Storr, this is evidence that we don’t really know why we feel or do anything (which he finds comforting). But I’m unconvinced that proving people with hamstrung brains don’t know something proves that people with normal brains don’t know it. And besides, the researchers can only definitively say the participants were wrong about their own feelings or reasoning if they can definitively assert that they, the researchers, were right—which itself assumes that humans can and often do in fact know the reasons for these things. If this study were performed with ordinary people, one presumes the answers would near-perfectly align. Fair to say that humans do fabricate, and we don’t always know what we don’t know, but Storr wildly oversells it.
Meanwhile, another study shows that American college students have become more narcissistic over the years, which the author takes to mean that Americans in general have become more narcissistic. No one involved seems to have considered that college students aren’t representative of the general population (personally, I’d say college is a highly narcissistic environment—and of course it is; everything you do there is to benefit yourself and prepare to market yourself competitively). And those studies have also evidently found that the differences between colleges are greater than the differences over time—given increasing competition for seats, it’s no surprise that elite colleges are more and increasingly narcissistic.
3) There’s also just a bit of get-off-my-lawn here. Like Storr, I have the sense that we in the West are becoming more selfish, but then every generation believes this as they age, and some of his points do his argument no favors. For instance:
- Participation trophies: The usual punching bag. Look, as someone who played youth sports, was bad at them, and received participation trophies, I can assure you that no one on the field or the court is confused about anyone’s skills. The symbolism of the trophy has changed from one of talent and victory to a commemorative token, but I don’t think that means anything for the self-image of anyone involved (though it was likely intended that way by people who didn’t think this through). Symbol evolution—it’s like euphemism churn!
- Parents telling their kids they’re special: I agree that parents teaching kids that they’re more important than other people, or insulating them from the ability to take risks and experience consequences, is bad for kids. But I don’t like the mental health outlook for a kid who isn’t even special to their own parents.
- Selfies: As you can guess from the title, Storr finds selfies uniquely representative of our age. I don’t think he knows that cat pictures are far more popular than selfies. Also, the young woman I expected him to use as an example of social media addiction harming people’s lives turns out to be anything but—she’s an aspiring actress who seems completely comfortable with her selfie obsession, and who displays so many narcissistic traits that the author himself suspects she’s exaggerating for effect. I didn’t see her as representative of anybody but maybe other actors. This section also made me think about the Peace Corps Volunteer who arrived in China in 1996 and was disconcerted to find his students—in a small, provincial city—showing off photo albums consisting entirely of pictures of themselves: so back to the definitions of terms, if photographing primarily oneself shows self-centeredness, and the Chinese are (supposedly) scientifically proven to be less self-centered, what to make of this extraordinary love of photographing themselves?
In the end, this isn’t a book you should take at face value; it would take a lot more erudition than it or maybe any single person has to confidently trace the importance of the individual throughout human history. Nevertheless, it’s certainly food for thought and discussion and the sections on recent history are quite good. I don’t buy a lot of it, but it made me think about some important things while also being entertaining, so I’m still glad I read it.
April 12, 2019
Public service announcement: this is not, as the title suggests, a book about the impact of social media on our society or psyche. Rather, it is about the author Working Through His Issues around low self esteem, perfectionism, and depression.
I am abandoning this at 65% or so. Thus far, the author has spoken to several psychologists; visited a monastery and debated the impact of his own Catholic upbringing on his emotional development; and stayed at the cult-like Esalen Institute in California to find his “real” self through group interrogation. Honestly, the entire book felt like an extended exercise in narcissism.
Storr summarizes a number of opinions and studies about the self, from Aristotle to Freud to Ayn Rand.* Many of the theories he shares seem incredibly woolly. For example, one psychologist he finds credible posits the “ideal self” in each country is significantly influenced by its geography. Thus, the ideal self in China is more community oriented because the country was dependent on agriculture (which required large groups to cooperate in working the land) whereas the Greeks prized individualism due to their greater emphasis on trade (in which people would strike out on their own and assume greater risks for potential profit). Correlation, meet my friend causation.
The last part of the book covers social media and the rise in narcissism in the Western world over the last few generations. (I only read the beginning of this section.) Storr cites studies implying this is partially the fault of parents and schools for overemphasizing children’s self-esteem (e.g., inflated grades, participation prizes) instead of encouraging youth to have realistic expectations for their lives and to focus on the needs of others. I was going to skim this part, in the hopes of finding some actual hard science (e.g., how the brain releases dopamine in response to social media validation). But I just couldn’t face any more therapy disguised as sociology or philosophy.
*the one interesting fact that I learned is that Alan Greenspan was a devout follower of Ayn Rand (!) and part of her inner circle, which explains a lot about his policies for the Fed.
I am abandoning this at 65% or so. Thus far, the author has spoken to several psychologists; visited a monastery and debated the impact of his own Catholic upbringing on his emotional development; and stayed at the cult-like Esalen Institute in California to find his “real” self through group interrogation. Honestly, the entire book felt like an extended exercise in narcissism.
Storr summarizes a number of opinions and studies about the self, from Aristotle to Freud to Ayn Rand.* Many of the theories he shares seem incredibly woolly. For example, one psychologist he finds credible posits the “ideal self” in each country is significantly influenced by its geography. Thus, the ideal self in China is more community oriented because the country was dependent on agriculture (which required large groups to cooperate in working the land) whereas the Greeks prized individualism due to their greater emphasis on trade (in which people would strike out on their own and assume greater risks for potential profit). Correlation, meet my friend causation.
The last part of the book covers social media and the rise in narcissism in the Western world over the last few generations. (I only read the beginning of this section.) Storr cites studies implying this is partially the fault of parents and schools for overemphasizing children’s self-esteem (e.g., inflated grades, participation prizes) instead of encouraging youth to have realistic expectations for their lives and to focus on the needs of others. I was going to skim this part, in the hopes of finding some actual hard science (e.g., how the brain releases dopamine in response to social media validation). But I just couldn’t face any more therapy disguised as sociology or philosophy.
*the one interesting fact that I learned is that Alan Greenspan was a devout follower of Ayn Rand (!) and part of her inner circle, which explains a lot about his policies for the Fed.
July 1, 2018
Early in
Selfie
, Will Storr observes that the rise of social media, with its attendant “social perfectionism” (whereby we regularly compare ourselves to others via their meticulously curated online profiles), appears to have made Westerners increasingly dissatisfied with themselves. We live in an age of “heightened individualism”, Storr says, one in which success—being slim, rich, happy, extroverted, and popular—is a personal responsibility. The Western “self” appears to be growing more fragile, possibly even more suicidal. Suicide rates in the U.S., he notes, have recently hit a 30-year high.
Professor Rory O’Connor of the University of Glasgow, president of the International Academy of Suicide Research, says it’s not mental illness per se that’s behind suicide. (In fact, less than five percent of people with depression kill themselves.) There are a number of factors at play. What has caught O’Connor’s attention, however, is a more pervasive psychological phenomenon, a “style of thinking” seen across all strata of society—from the most disadvantaged to the most affluent. O’Connor’s research has shown that those plagued with this type of thinking have extremely high expectations of themselves. Though their standards for success are often unrealistic and unsustainable, these social perfectionists nevertheless pressure themselves to meet the standards and believe that family and friends have the same expectations of them. The media-saturated modern world compounds the problem, providing people with more chances to compare themselves (often unfavourably) with others and giving them more opportunities to feel like failures. O’Connor’s observations clearly resonate for Storr, who is nakedly honest about his own problematic relationship with himself: “I seem to be caught in a lifelong rhythm of expecting more from myself than my talent and character can supply.” This thought pattern coupled with a chronic, low-grade self-loathing (which he feels he is breaking taboo to even admit to) appear to have fuelled his current nonfiction offering.
Storr’s goals for his book are ambitious. He seeks to track how we (Western society) got to this place, noting from the start that the culture people are immersed in influences their personal identity, the stories they tell themselves about who they are. Culture, he says, “can be seen as a web of instructions, like computer code, that surrounds and saturates us.” Selfie is a rich and allusive work that draws on interviews with and books by psychologists, historians, neuroscientists, sociologists, and others. The author travels, not just to speak in person with experts and individuals who might offer unique perspectives, but also to undergo experiences (for instance at a Scottish monastery and a Californian human-potential retreat) that help him better understand aspects of the self.
Storr’s book is loosely chronological. He begins by exploring the tribal self, speaking with an ex-felon and considering the social organization and behaviour of chimpanzees, our closest primate cousins. (Their groups, he postulates, provide a window on the earliest human cultures of 200,000 years ago). Parts of us, notes Storr, are very old, and, in some ways humans don’t differ much from chimps, who spend much of their daily lives attempting to control fate by manipulating those around them. Preoccupied with hierarchy like humans, chimps hold grudges, have a sense of fair play (i.e., punish selfishness) and negotiate. These (social) tendencies underpin the modern human self whose “core activity” continues to be “maintaining a deep interest in and trying to control what others think of us.”
Before exploring the concept of the self through history, Storr considers the declaration by a number of contemporary psychologists and neuroscientists that the self is simply a story we build to tell ourselves who we are—a story that is, in fact, a lie. Storr references Michael Gazzaniga’s work with split-brain patients: epileptics whose cerebral hemispheres were disconnected from each other to decrease seizures. One side of the brains of these patients literally did not know what the other side had done or seen, but the patients’ “interpreter” selves (their inner voices) readily and confidently created “makes-sense narrative[s]” about actions they were told they had performed (but didn’t actually recall). Gazzaniga explains that “when we set out to explain our own actions, they are all post-hoc explanations, using post-hoc observations with no access to non-conscious processing.” Later, Storr cites the work of Bruce Hood, who says that there is no consistent, unified self. The self is an illusion. We are multiple and our self/selves is/are context-dependent. We can be quite different people depending on the situations we find ourselves in.
Storr continues his exploration of the evolution of the self (the intersection of culture and personal identity) with a consideration of Ancient Greece, a collection of independent city states whose home economies depended largely on an entrepreneurial agricultural and merchant class. According to Richard Nisbet, the very geography of Ancient Greece—the many islands and city states—led to a “concomitant view of reality as a collection of individual objects”. Men were encouraged to rely on themselves in order to survive, and they possessed “a remarkable sense of personal agency”. The culture of Ancient Greece gave rise to the idea of “the perfectible self”. Beauty (think: sculpture) and individual athleticism (think: Olympics) were prized, and there were abundant stories and myths about the adventures and exploits of individual gods and men (think: Heracles and Odysseus). Individualism, we are led to believe, first materialized on Mediterranean shores.
From Ancient Greece, Storr moves on to consider the Christian concept of the self that solidified during the European Middle Ages. Storr relates that he stayed briefly at a priory in Scotland where medieval rituals and routines are preserved and the vision of the essentially evil, sinning self continues to rule. For the Christian, the author writes, man only becomes more perfect by engaging in warfare against himself, by wrestling with his conscience, mind, and thoughts. The self-hatred, fetishization of low self-esteem, and respect for compliance, hard work, and humility that so characterized the medieval Christian mindset still linger in the Western psyche. Even Freud’s ideas about humanity, Storr writes, are not as far removed from the Christian concept of the self as one might think. The Viennese founder of psychoanalysis still believed that humans were bad, made miserable by monstrous urges that could only be fixed by engaging in a war with the inner self.
The greater part of Storr’s book is spent examining a number of American movements in the mid to late twentieth century. These include the rise of the cult around the writer Ayn Rand and her lover and acolyte Nathaniel Branden, who together proclaimed a doctrine of virtuous selfishness. Interestingly, future Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan was a member of this set. His ideas about small government, financial deregulation, and the “morality” (!) of free markets—the foundations of “neoliberalism”—were learned at the feet of his cultish mother, Rand. Through Branden, Rand’s ideas were promulgated in California. Storr traces in some detail (more than I needed or wanted) the ways in which politicians and new age figures (the founders of Esalen) were influenced (or perhaps infected) by them. Self esteem actually made its way into public policy in California, but the idea of improving the self-concept of citizens in order to cure any number of social ills spread quickly and widely to educational and other social institutions across North America. (I can attest to its influence in education, having sat through staff meetings in which teachers were chided about refraining from using red pens and failing students who had done no work all term. The self esteem of these young people was already low, and red ink and grades below 50% could be the fatal blow.)
Storr’s is a stimulating, wide-ranging, and detailed book. In many ways, I feel my summary hardly does it justice. I was interested in some sections more than others. I’ll admit to loathing Ayn Rand (whom I first encountered in high school when one of my friends enthused about her “novels”—if you can call them that). Reading page after page about her in Storr’s book, followed by still more pages about the California self-esteem and tech scenes that were, to some extent, fuelled by her ideas left me rather cranky. Storr does manage to achieve what he set out to do: trace the evolution of the (Western) self over time. In the end, he doesn’t offer up much in the way of solutions for how we should deal with the problem of social perfectionism (maybe that isn’t the point, anyway), but he does help us see some of the ways in which we got to where we are.
Professor Rory O’Connor of the University of Glasgow, president of the International Academy of Suicide Research, says it’s not mental illness per se that’s behind suicide. (In fact, less than five percent of people with depression kill themselves.) There are a number of factors at play. What has caught O’Connor’s attention, however, is a more pervasive psychological phenomenon, a “style of thinking” seen across all strata of society—from the most disadvantaged to the most affluent. O’Connor’s research has shown that those plagued with this type of thinking have extremely high expectations of themselves. Though their standards for success are often unrealistic and unsustainable, these social perfectionists nevertheless pressure themselves to meet the standards and believe that family and friends have the same expectations of them. The media-saturated modern world compounds the problem, providing people with more chances to compare themselves (often unfavourably) with others and giving them more opportunities to feel like failures. O’Connor’s observations clearly resonate for Storr, who is nakedly honest about his own problematic relationship with himself: “I seem to be caught in a lifelong rhythm of expecting more from myself than my talent and character can supply.” This thought pattern coupled with a chronic, low-grade self-loathing (which he feels he is breaking taboo to even admit to) appear to have fuelled his current nonfiction offering.
Storr’s goals for his book are ambitious. He seeks to track how we (Western society) got to this place, noting from the start that the culture people are immersed in influences their personal identity, the stories they tell themselves about who they are. Culture, he says, “can be seen as a web of instructions, like computer code, that surrounds and saturates us.” Selfie is a rich and allusive work that draws on interviews with and books by psychologists, historians, neuroscientists, sociologists, and others. The author travels, not just to speak in person with experts and individuals who might offer unique perspectives, but also to undergo experiences (for instance at a Scottish monastery and a Californian human-potential retreat) that help him better understand aspects of the self.
Storr’s book is loosely chronological. He begins by exploring the tribal self, speaking with an ex-felon and considering the social organization and behaviour of chimpanzees, our closest primate cousins. (Their groups, he postulates, provide a window on the earliest human cultures of 200,000 years ago). Parts of us, notes Storr, are very old, and, in some ways humans don’t differ much from chimps, who spend much of their daily lives attempting to control fate by manipulating those around them. Preoccupied with hierarchy like humans, chimps hold grudges, have a sense of fair play (i.e., punish selfishness) and negotiate. These (social) tendencies underpin the modern human self whose “core activity” continues to be “maintaining a deep interest in and trying to control what others think of us.”
Before exploring the concept of the self through history, Storr considers the declaration by a number of contemporary psychologists and neuroscientists that the self is simply a story we build to tell ourselves who we are—a story that is, in fact, a lie. Storr references Michael Gazzaniga’s work with split-brain patients: epileptics whose cerebral hemispheres were disconnected from each other to decrease seizures. One side of the brains of these patients literally did not know what the other side had done or seen, but the patients’ “interpreter” selves (their inner voices) readily and confidently created “makes-sense narrative[s]” about actions they were told they had performed (but didn’t actually recall). Gazzaniga explains that “when we set out to explain our own actions, they are all post-hoc explanations, using post-hoc observations with no access to non-conscious processing.” Later, Storr cites the work of Bruce Hood, who says that there is no consistent, unified self. The self is an illusion. We are multiple and our self/selves is/are context-dependent. We can be quite different people depending on the situations we find ourselves in.
Storr continues his exploration of the evolution of the self (the intersection of culture and personal identity) with a consideration of Ancient Greece, a collection of independent city states whose home economies depended largely on an entrepreneurial agricultural and merchant class. According to Richard Nisbet, the very geography of Ancient Greece—the many islands and city states—led to a “concomitant view of reality as a collection of individual objects”. Men were encouraged to rely on themselves in order to survive, and they possessed “a remarkable sense of personal agency”. The culture of Ancient Greece gave rise to the idea of “the perfectible self”. Beauty (think: sculpture) and individual athleticism (think: Olympics) were prized, and there were abundant stories and myths about the adventures and exploits of individual gods and men (think: Heracles and Odysseus). Individualism, we are led to believe, first materialized on Mediterranean shores.
From Ancient Greece, Storr moves on to consider the Christian concept of the self that solidified during the European Middle Ages. Storr relates that he stayed briefly at a priory in Scotland where medieval rituals and routines are preserved and the vision of the essentially evil, sinning self continues to rule. For the Christian, the author writes, man only becomes more perfect by engaging in warfare against himself, by wrestling with his conscience, mind, and thoughts. The self-hatred, fetishization of low self-esteem, and respect for compliance, hard work, and humility that so characterized the medieval Christian mindset still linger in the Western psyche. Even Freud’s ideas about humanity, Storr writes, are not as far removed from the Christian concept of the self as one might think. The Viennese founder of psychoanalysis still believed that humans were bad, made miserable by monstrous urges that could only be fixed by engaging in a war with the inner self.
The greater part of Storr’s book is spent examining a number of American movements in the mid to late twentieth century. These include the rise of the cult around the writer Ayn Rand and her lover and acolyte Nathaniel Branden, who together proclaimed a doctrine of virtuous selfishness. Interestingly, future Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan was a member of this set. His ideas about small government, financial deregulation, and the “morality” (!) of free markets—the foundations of “neoliberalism”—were learned at the feet of his cultish mother, Rand. Through Branden, Rand’s ideas were promulgated in California. Storr traces in some detail (more than I needed or wanted) the ways in which politicians and new age figures (the founders of Esalen) were influenced (or perhaps infected) by them. Self esteem actually made its way into public policy in California, but the idea of improving the self-concept of citizens in order to cure any number of social ills spread quickly and widely to educational and other social institutions across North America. (I can attest to its influence in education, having sat through staff meetings in which teachers were chided about refraining from using red pens and failing students who had done no work all term. The self esteem of these young people was already low, and red ink and grades below 50% could be the fatal blow.)
Storr’s is a stimulating, wide-ranging, and detailed book. In many ways, I feel my summary hardly does it justice. I was interested in some sections more than others. I’ll admit to loathing Ayn Rand (whom I first encountered in high school when one of my friends enthused about her “novels”—if you can call them that). Reading page after page about her in Storr’s book, followed by still more pages about the California self-esteem and tech scenes that were, to some extent, fuelled by her ideas left me rather cranky. Storr does manage to achieve what he set out to do: trace the evolution of the (Western) self over time. In the end, he doesn’t offer up much in the way of solutions for how we should deal with the problem of social perfectionism (maybe that isn’t the point, anyway), but he does help us see some of the ways in which we got to where we are.
April 30, 2018
Two stars for the effort but I thoroughly disliked the style of writing: ironically, I found the author to be self-centered and guilty of narcissism, as he gratuitously inserted himself in the story time and time again. I expected Selfie to be a different book, with more emphasis on research, shedding light on the history of narcissism and how it's been boosted by modern technology. Instead, Selfie starts with anecdotes about suicides and, chapter after chapter, uses long-winded stories about people (mostly unknown) to illustrate points the author wants to make. I ultimately found Selfie to be too light on research and too heavy on inconsequential, long-winded anecdotes.
July 13, 2018
Agreed. Need self-evaluation...rebooting.
August 25, 2017
One of the blurbs for this book mentioned that readers who liked “Sapiens” (Yuval Noah Harari) would also enjoy this book; I had and I did. There is the same sense of being in conversation with an interesting fellow inquirer, although my impression of Mr. Storr is that he isn’t as deadly serious as Mr. Harari and that he has a quiet sense of humor about the absurdity of some of his discoveries. He is a long-form journalist and novelist and seems to have combined a reporter’s tenacity in digging for facts with a novelist’s eye for the telling detail. In the first chapter, he lets us know that his own depressive tendencies and thoughts of suicide had inspired him to look into suicide and what aspects of our culture would lead to its increase. I hasten to add though that this is not a book about suicide. Rather, it is an exploration of the climate of our culture, how we came to this point in time, and the evolution of the ideas that have created an emphasis on self. He says he wishes to “track this idea of ‘Individualism’ as it evolved through the ages of Christianity, industry, science and psychology, right through to Silicon Valley and the era of hyper-individualistic and competitive neoliberalism most of us have grown up in, with all the new opportunities it’s brought to make us feel like failures.” (page 19) He first looks at our “tribal self”, that is, our innate social nature. He quotes psychologist Robert Hogan as saying that in our evolutionary past, we “wanted to get along with others, by making a good reputation, and then use that good reputation to get ahead. But how did we know how to get that good reputation in the first place? How did we learn what qualities our tribe valorized, and what it hated? We’d do it, in part, by listening to tribal gossip. It was in these moral outrage-making tales that we’d find out who we had to be if we wanted to be successful. So here we have it: ambitious selves, on the one hand, wanting to become perfect and, on the other hand, a kind of cultural group-concept of the ‘ideal self’. These are the two separate forms we’ve been chasing.” (page 35) He includes a discussion of the idea that our brains have an interpreter which makes sense of our actions after the fact (known as confabulation), leading to the question of how much free will we actually have. In the next chapter, “the perfectible self”, he quotes social scientist John Hewitt as saying that our culture makes us about 90 % of what we are. (page 55) Or, as Mr. Storr says, “It’s odd, and hard to accept, that a great deal of who we so intimately feel we are is the product of the thoughts and experiences of long-dead people.” (page 54) He says our obsession with youth has a cultural basis described in scientific studies which show that when you ask people to talk about their lives, they tell you about what they did in their twenties. If they are younger than that, they explain what they intend to do in their twenties. Our culture seems to think being twenty-something is the best of times. (I thought about that. Would I have focused on my twenties, being long past them now? I think the thing about that time in your life is that you are old enough to make your own decisions, but early enough in your journey to see endless possibilities ahead. There is that sense of potential. What do you think?) At this point, he begins an interesting discussion, to which he returns throughout the book, of how the Greeks influenced current Western cultural emphasis on the individual. He had some conversations with Richard E. Nisbett, who wrote “The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why”, a book I read some time ago and thoroughly enjoyed. Mr. Nisbett tells him how Eastern culture, which came from ancient China, is much more communal than our Greek-based Western culture. Moving to the next chapter, “the bad self”, he visited a Benedictine monastery to look at the Christian view of the self. Then, moving ahead in time, in the chapter, “the good self”, he recounts an amusing visit to the Esalen Institute in California. I just had to laugh at this: “Remember when the ‘geography of thought’ expert Professor Richard Nisbett told me, ‘the further west you go, the more individualistic, the more delusional about choice, the more the emphasis on self-esteem, the more the emphasis on self-just-about-everything, until it all falls into the Pacific’? This is where it falls into the Pacific. It was on these cliffs that the Esalen Institute helped rewrite our sense of who we are.” (page 120) Esalen put the word "self-esteem" into our vocabulary. His experiences with encounter groups there were….ahem, unusual. Moving up the coast, he stopped off in Silicon Valley, and here again, his journalist’s eye introduces us to some extremely bright, young, self-absorbed titans of entrepreneurship. The next two chapters, “the special self” and “the digital self”, include a brief look at how the ideas of Ayn Rand influenced libertarianism and led to the neoliberalism of Alan Greenspan, and on a direct course to our current fixation on individual responsibility for just about everything. He wraps up his journey in the last chapter, “how to stay alive in the age of perfectionism”, with a look at innate, unchanging aspects of personality. After talking to Professor Daniel Nettle (author of a book called “Personality”), he discovers that he is just naturally depressive and grumpy, and with a wink and a nod, decides to accept himself just as he is. For me, this book was just a whole lot of fun to read. Mr. Storr is good at drawing threads into a whole and using them to take a look at the warp and weft of our Western culture of individualism.
October 17, 2018
Not quite sure what I was expecting, but this was a compilation of stories, not a scientific piece of work.
This topic could have been way more interesting if Storr took a more scientific approach instead of a sociological/anthropological approach. And I say that as a person with an anthropology degree.
Or maybe I expected something different based on the title....
I heavily skimmed the book after Book One, and I don’t think I missed much.
This topic could have been way more interesting if Storr took a more scientific approach instead of a sociological/anthropological approach. And I say that as a person with an anthropology degree.
Or maybe I expected something different based on the title....
I heavily skimmed the book after Book One, and I don’t think I missed much.
July 26, 2018
"Because of the way our brains function, our sense of ‘me’ naturally runs in narrative mode: we feel as if we’re the hero of the steadily unfolding plot of our lives, one that’s complete with allies, villains, sudden reversals of fortune, and difficult quests for happiness and prizes. Our tribal brains cast haloes around our friends and plant horns on the heads of our enemies. Our ‘episodic memory’ means we experience our lives as a sequence of scenes – a simplistic chain of cause and effect. Our ‘autobiographical memory’ helps imbue these scenes with subtextual themes and moral lessons. We’re constantly moving forward, pursuing our goals, on an active quest to make our lives, and perhaps the lives of others, somehow better.
And our biased brains ensure that the ‘invisible actor’ that is us seems like a good person – someone morally decent whose values and opinions are usually correct. The healthy, happy brain runs a gamut of sly tricks in order to help us feel this way. It ensures we’re often over-generous with our estimation of ourselves, imagining we’re better looking, kinder, wiser, more intelligent, have better judgement, are less prejudiced and more effective in our personal and working lives than is actually true."
I imagine these delusions helped "The Alchemist," with its Personal Legend notion, become a bestseller. It's popular in Silicon Valley and was a favorite of Theranos fraudster, Elizabeth Holmes.
============
One of the biggest reveals in this book is the author's expose of the fraudulent self-esteem movement that began in CA. The perpetrator, profiled in this article, knew it was a lie but pushed forward any way, rather than admit the truth. He was a tortured soul looking for answers and thought the ones he found had to be true for everyone. He was a bad-tempered dogmatist. His hippie, dippie New Age BS spawned the growth of narcissism that afflicts our society to this day. The author ties this to the popularity of Ayn Rand, a champion of egotism who disdained altruism, In fact, Rand's acolyte and lover, Nathaniel Branden (an assumed name that sounds like a Rand character), was an enabler of this esteem movement. Everyone gets a trophy, right?
This article is an excerpt from the book....
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...
And our biased brains ensure that the ‘invisible actor’ that is us seems like a good person – someone morally decent whose values and opinions are usually correct. The healthy, happy brain runs a gamut of sly tricks in order to help us feel this way. It ensures we’re often over-generous with our estimation of ourselves, imagining we’re better looking, kinder, wiser, more intelligent, have better judgement, are less prejudiced and more effective in our personal and working lives than is actually true."
I imagine these delusions helped "The Alchemist," with its Personal Legend notion, become a bestseller. It's popular in Silicon Valley and was a favorite of Theranos fraudster, Elizabeth Holmes.
============
One of the biggest reveals in this book is the author's expose of the fraudulent self-esteem movement that began in CA. The perpetrator, profiled in this article, knew it was a lie but pushed forward any way, rather than admit the truth. He was a tortured soul looking for answers and thought the ones he found had to be true for everyone. He was a bad-tempered dogmatist. His hippie, dippie New Age BS spawned the growth of narcissism that afflicts our society to this day. The author ties this to the popularity of Ayn Rand, a champion of egotism who disdained altruism, In fact, Rand's acolyte and lover, Nathaniel Branden (an assumed name that sounds like a Rand character), was an enabler of this esteem movement. Everyone gets a trophy, right?
This article is an excerpt from the book....
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...
June 21, 2019
I don't often write reviews, but felt compelled to for this one:
This honestly has to be one of the worst books I've ever read. I find it hard to believe some of the newspapers reviews that this is 'seriously eye opening' or 'electrifying'. Probably no surprise that these reviews were written from places where he worked.
The book starts off with a really crude defense of a man who enjoys violently attacking people, and then finds God. Apparently this is Storr's attempt to show us our tribal selves. This gives you an idea on how the book will unfold. (Later, you will get further insights such as that when we're emotional, we're less rational!)
He then visits an old Abbey and basically makes fun of everyone there. We are then witness to his therapy where he swears at strangers. Not really sure what we're supposed to be make of this.
I mean, I nearly threw this book across the room. His anecdotes are uninteresting and tedious, there's a tone of arrogance throughout the book where he assumes he's better than everyone else, and it's incredibly poorly planned.
This book jumps all over the place, offering generalisations every few pages that are offensive or completely ridiculous such as neurotics become paediphiles. Not to mention the interviews that are completely inane, such as when he questions a self-harmer and draws nothing of insight, only that she should say 'fuck off' to mirror.
Then, there's hundreds of pages on a pretty poor understanding of neoliberalism, endless pages on Ayn Rand, introducing dozens of uninteresting people, who he then suddenly drops without drawing any conclusions.
There's also zero mention of the way gender, race or class have shaped selfhood. Nothing.
Instead he ends depressingly by saying that all narratives of self are bad. It's all lies We're stuck as we are. Doomed by neoliberalism. He's apparently happy just being himself. A cunt (he uses this word to refer to himself many times). Little does he seem to realise that this 'normal' conclusion he has come to is a narrative also.
And what of the fact that narratives actually help people? Has he ever been to therapy?
This book is written by someone who knows nothing about the subject, and the views he does cobble together are generalised, cliched and in some cases, could even cause harm.
Lazy writing, awful structure, amateur understanding of psychology. A complete waste of my time. The worst pseudo-science book I've ever read.
Let's not even mention the typos...
This honestly has to be one of the worst books I've ever read. I find it hard to believe some of the newspapers reviews that this is 'seriously eye opening' or 'electrifying'. Probably no surprise that these reviews were written from places where he worked.
The book starts off with a really crude defense of a man who enjoys violently attacking people, and then finds God. Apparently this is Storr's attempt to show us our tribal selves. This gives you an idea on how the book will unfold. (Later, you will get further insights such as that when we're emotional, we're less rational!)
He then visits an old Abbey and basically makes fun of everyone there. We are then witness to his therapy where he swears at strangers. Not really sure what we're supposed to be make of this.
I mean, I nearly threw this book across the room. His anecdotes are uninteresting and tedious, there's a tone of arrogance throughout the book where he assumes he's better than everyone else, and it's incredibly poorly planned.
This book jumps all over the place, offering generalisations every few pages that are offensive or completely ridiculous such as neurotics become paediphiles. Not to mention the interviews that are completely inane, such as when he questions a self-harmer and draws nothing of insight, only that she should say 'fuck off' to mirror.
Then, there's hundreds of pages on a pretty poor understanding of neoliberalism, endless pages on Ayn Rand, introducing dozens of uninteresting people, who he then suddenly drops without drawing any conclusions.
There's also zero mention of the way gender, race or class have shaped selfhood. Nothing.
Instead he ends depressingly by saying that all narratives of self are bad. It's all lies We're stuck as we are. Doomed by neoliberalism. He's apparently happy just being himself. A cunt (he uses this word to refer to himself many times). Little does he seem to realise that this 'normal' conclusion he has come to is a narrative also.
And what of the fact that narratives actually help people? Has he ever been to therapy?
This book is written by someone who knows nothing about the subject, and the views he does cobble together are generalised, cliched and in some cases, could even cause harm.
Lazy writing, awful structure, amateur understanding of psychology. A complete waste of my time. The worst pseudo-science book I've ever read.
Let's not even mention the typos...
May 1, 2019
mindblowing!
исследования в сфере истории, науки, культуры. интервью с экспертами и обычными людьми. опыт и мнение автора. смесь всего этого делает книгу более чем информативной!
думаю, эту книгу необходимо прочитать всем живущим в современном мире людям.
исследования в сфере истории, науки, культуры. интервью с экспертами и обычными людьми. опыт и мнение автора. смесь всего этого делает книгу более чем информативной!
думаю, эту книгу необходимо прочитать всем живущим в современном мире людям.
January 2, 2022
Unbelievably interesting in what it covers, if a bit overly ambitious - I found myself a bit lost and scattered with all the different tracks it takes. And more than a little unsettling. Especially appreciated the frank discussions of suicide. And stuck on that mention of research that everyone, even people who haven’t yet reached them, is fixated on their twenties.
Shelved as 'maybe'
June 12, 2017
Will Storr interviews a young woman who has hundreds of thousands of selfies stored on memory cards, a hard drive and a sagging, overburdened iCloud. She frequently works through the night to edit and filter her daily quota of new images in readiness for disseminating them on social media. The unexamined life may not be worth living, but do all lives deserve to be examined in such redundant detail? Storr’s informant goes on to confess that she feels most alive when slashing her flesh with a razor blade." Source: 12.06.2017 Guardian article
September 20, 2017
This book is more than a sneer at youth culture. It is a deep exploration of how we got here and some messaging we have been soaking in all our lives. It is a deep read written in an accessible style. Frequently I'd find myself hissing 'yes' as the author articulated something so pervasive but undefined in our culture where you are the product.
January 13, 2024
Din păcate, conținutul nu are nicio legătură cu titlul și, dacă stau bine să mă gândesc, nu are legătură cu nimic.
Pare o carte scrisă doar pentru că cineva se plictisea și s-a gândit să pună pe hârtie tot ce îi trece prin cap.
Un mare "nu" de la mine.
Pare o carte scrisă doar pentru că cineva se plictisea și s-a gândit să pună pe hârtie tot ce îi trece prin cap.
Un mare "nu" de la mine.
September 6, 2017
I am not being overly dramatic when I say that we are living in a time of increasing levels of mental illness and challenges to emotional health, actual and attempted suicides, unhappy and unfulfilled people, over whelming pressures to be someone that we may not be internally programmed to be. These have always been issues in our communities through the centuries, but in the last fifty years or so there these issues have jumped to the fore of the lives of many many people in our world. But why? And what can we do about it?
This book takes a look at the very complex issue in two ways - how us humans have become so self-obsessed and, what exactly it is doing to us. Such a complicated subject cannot be easy to write about and the result is quite a complicated, wide ranging, energetic and fascinating exploration into what makes us, and our own individual self. On the flip side, this is a very long book, there is an enormous amount of very detailed information which at times is too much. Plus, for me, way too much space given to long-word-for-word conversations between the author and his interviewee. Some more vigorous editing would not have gone amiss. All of this does make for a book that you need to concentrate on while reading - this is one of my 'read in the daylight hours' books, rather than a 'read before going to sleep' book, because you do have to be concentrate.
The author himself is an investigative journalist, whose life and career is very, very interesting and successful. In this book, he is very open about his own suicidal thoughts, his perceived dissatisfaction with his own self. After looking at his website, with its diverse range of articles he has written, and his bio listing his achievements, you wonder why. But this is why he is perhaps the perfect person to write such a book. After all he has made it in his field, so what the hell is wrong with him? For these reasons alone this book is excellent as it is written with self interest at its heart, full of passion and that most important ingredient - curiosity.
He firstly sets the scene by looking at why people commit suicide or try, then takes us back to the beginnings of human civilisation when we lived in tribal groups, and conformity/sameness was the way the tribe survived. Then he takes us to Ancient Greece, where a beautiful and perfect physical form was such a crucial part of the philosophy of the times. The rise of Christianity /Catholicism with its rampant notions of guilt planted the seed for self doubt, inability to meet expectations. A long period of time passes till we get to mid 20th century USA with the beginnings of liberalism, the power of the individual, decline of collectivism, which have since evolved into the current latest greatest piece of economic thinking that benefits a few at the top of the money tree, and negates everyone below - neo-liberalism, epitomised in its most raw form as I see it in zero hours contracts. I still can't get my head around employing someone, but not guaranteeing them any work. Tied up with this is a hilarious and almost unbelievable chapter about the 'self esteem' industry in America. That was an absolute revelation for me! He then moves into the frightening world of Silicon Valley, start ups, venture capital, Google and the like.
Finally, the last chapter - how to stay alive in the age of perfectionism - where it is all supposed to come together, but for me doesn't! The only message I got out of this chapter, is that if you are unhappy in your life, things aren't going right, you are overwhelmed and not coping, do not try to change yourself. We are essentially programmed from birth to react to situations in a certain way - how do you explain children brought up exactly the same way reacting differently to a life changing event. Because the answer is that you can't change yourself - there goes the self help industry, cognitive therapy etc. What you have to do is change the world you live in, which translates as change your job/profession, where you live, how you live, who you live with. Easier said than done, but what this solution does is take away that you yourself are 100% responsible for your negative self-perception, and gives you the power to fix things in another way.
Well worth reading, and keeping for future forays. The ten page index is excellent, and the notes/references take up another 50 pages. Whenever you hear or read about why people self harm, you wonder if someone maybe a narcissist, what really went on in those hippie retreats in the 1960s, how Donald Trump got to be in the White House, pick this book up because it explains a lot.
This book takes a look at the very complex issue in two ways - how us humans have become so self-obsessed and, what exactly it is doing to us. Such a complicated subject cannot be easy to write about and the result is quite a complicated, wide ranging, energetic and fascinating exploration into what makes us, and our own individual self. On the flip side, this is a very long book, there is an enormous amount of very detailed information which at times is too much. Plus, for me, way too much space given to long-word-for-word conversations between the author and his interviewee. Some more vigorous editing would not have gone amiss. All of this does make for a book that you need to concentrate on while reading - this is one of my 'read in the daylight hours' books, rather than a 'read before going to sleep' book, because you do have to be concentrate.
The author himself is an investigative journalist, whose life and career is very, very interesting and successful. In this book, he is very open about his own suicidal thoughts, his perceived dissatisfaction with his own self. After looking at his website, with its diverse range of articles he has written, and his bio listing his achievements, you wonder why. But this is why he is perhaps the perfect person to write such a book. After all he has made it in his field, so what the hell is wrong with him? For these reasons alone this book is excellent as it is written with self interest at its heart, full of passion and that most important ingredient - curiosity.
He firstly sets the scene by looking at why people commit suicide or try, then takes us back to the beginnings of human civilisation when we lived in tribal groups, and conformity/sameness was the way the tribe survived. Then he takes us to Ancient Greece, where a beautiful and perfect physical form was such a crucial part of the philosophy of the times. The rise of Christianity /Catholicism with its rampant notions of guilt planted the seed for self doubt, inability to meet expectations. A long period of time passes till we get to mid 20th century USA with the beginnings of liberalism, the power of the individual, decline of collectivism, which have since evolved into the current latest greatest piece of economic thinking that benefits a few at the top of the money tree, and negates everyone below - neo-liberalism, epitomised in its most raw form as I see it in zero hours contracts. I still can't get my head around employing someone, but not guaranteeing them any work. Tied up with this is a hilarious and almost unbelievable chapter about the 'self esteem' industry in America. That was an absolute revelation for me! He then moves into the frightening world of Silicon Valley, start ups, venture capital, Google and the like.
Finally, the last chapter - how to stay alive in the age of perfectionism - where it is all supposed to come together, but for me doesn't! The only message I got out of this chapter, is that if you are unhappy in your life, things aren't going right, you are overwhelmed and not coping, do not try to change yourself. We are essentially programmed from birth to react to situations in a certain way - how do you explain children brought up exactly the same way reacting differently to a life changing event. Because the answer is that you can't change yourself - there goes the self help industry, cognitive therapy etc. What you have to do is change the world you live in, which translates as change your job/profession, where you live, how you live, who you live with. Easier said than done, but what this solution does is take away that you yourself are 100% responsible for your negative self-perception, and gives you the power to fix things in another way.
Well worth reading, and keeping for future forays. The ten page index is excellent, and the notes/references take up another 50 pages. Whenever you hear or read about why people self harm, you wonder if someone maybe a narcissist, what really went on in those hippie retreats in the 1960s, how Donald Trump got to be in the White House, pick this book up because it explains a lot.
October 31, 2020
Will Storr begins with a simple questions - why has the number of self-harm activities including suicide attempts risen in recent times? He starts out with his hunch that the perfectionist attitude is the root of all this. Is social perfectionism and have-it-all attitude causing people to have an ever increasing standards of success. We are bombarded with inspirational stories which sends out the message that we too are heroes of our own plots, and through hard work and unrelenting authenticity, we can overcome any obstacles, and become anything we want.
But then when we fail to achieve these standards of success, our heroic stories start to crack. We lacerate ourselves on these failures, on having failed to live up to these standards. Our sense of self breaks down.
Storr tries to map out where these high standards are coming from in the first place, starting out from ancient Greeks. He seeks the roots of the self esteem movements from Esalen institute, and the consequent neoliberal ideas of Ayn Rand. The chapter on the Digital Self was particularly enlightening - The coddling of self esteem of an entire generation (Gen Z), who’ve forever been told that they are special, mashes up perfectly with the introduction of front camera, which begins the era of selfies.
The ending specially was quite unsettling for me because I’d bought into this idea of being able to do (and be the best at) what I want. Storr argues that there are genetic and environmental effects which define the abilities and limitation with which you play the game of life. I found that for a long time I wished to be more social and funny— Is it ridiculous? Because I’m a hardcore and happy introvert. Am I too a culprit of the extrovert bias that Susan Cain talks about? What other bullshit exists in the ideal self I look up to?
Perhaps what Storr gives is a more accurate lens with which to view this strange concoction called Self. I still haven’t made up my mind on what the extent of these genetic and environmental limitations are (but I agree that those are present). I also agree that you're much better off knowing your your shortcomings and having more realistic standards.
A note about standards:
Standards determine how much and in what direction you put your time and effort. Just like every other idea, you imbibe the options for "what standards to have" via your environment - peer group, news, office folks etc. It's dangerous to accept someone else's standards or worse mashup all the good parts you see from your environment (including social media) to construct this wonderful multi-faceted best-at-everything standard or ideal.
You remember how you decided to "try your best" at that college assignment? It had no end point where you could say "that's it. It's done". You had to put a 100% effort, and failing that you felt like shit.
Well, this is what happens when you passively accept standards from someone else. If you are going to fail at something, at least let it be your own standards.
But then when we fail to achieve these standards of success, our heroic stories start to crack. We lacerate ourselves on these failures, on having failed to live up to these standards. Our sense of self breaks down.
Storr tries to map out where these high standards are coming from in the first place, starting out from ancient Greeks. He seeks the roots of the self esteem movements from Esalen institute, and the consequent neoliberal ideas of Ayn Rand. The chapter on the Digital Self was particularly enlightening - The coddling of self esteem of an entire generation (Gen Z), who’ve forever been told that they are special, mashes up perfectly with the introduction of front camera, which begins the era of selfies.
The ending specially was quite unsettling for me because I’d bought into this idea of being able to do (and be the best at) what I want. Storr argues that there are genetic and environmental effects which define the abilities and limitation with which you play the game of life. I found that for a long time I wished to be more social and funny— Is it ridiculous? Because I’m a hardcore and happy introvert. Am I too a culprit of the extrovert bias that Susan Cain talks about? What other bullshit exists in the ideal self I look up to?
Perhaps what Storr gives is a more accurate lens with which to view this strange concoction called Self. I still haven’t made up my mind on what the extent of these genetic and environmental limitations are (but I agree that those are present). I also agree that you're much better off knowing your your shortcomings and having more realistic standards.
A note about standards:
Standards determine how much and in what direction you put your time and effort. Just like every other idea, you imbibe the options for "what standards to have" via your environment - peer group, news, office folks etc. It's dangerous to accept someone else's standards or worse mashup all the good parts you see from your environment (including social media) to construct this wonderful multi-faceted best-at-everything standard or ideal.
You remember how you decided to "try your best" at that college assignment? It had no end point where you could say "that's it. It's done". You had to put a 100% effort, and failing that you felt like shit.
Well, this is what happens when you passively accept standards from someone else. If you are going to fail at something, at least let it be your own standards.
Read
August 30, 2022Am citit cartea pentru un club de carte. Dacă o vedeam prin librării, probabil mă feream de ea.
Nu am citit-o cu sufletul la gură, I do not care about this stuff.
Dacă ar fi să descriu cartea din perspectiva unui overall enjoyment, ar fi ca un roller-coaster. Am fost interesată (pentru scurt timp), apoi m-am plictisit de nu mai îmi venea să citesc, apoi revenea la prezent și avea o continuitate mai frumoasă, iarăși eram acolo pentru carte (din nou, pentru scurt timp). In the end tot reușea să mă facă să îmi pierd interesul.
Pentru un asemenea titlu Selfie. Cum am devenit atât de obsedați de sine și ce efect are acest lucru asupra noastră, mă așteptam să citesc cu totul altceva. Dar scriitorul merge prea departe în trecut, dă o mie de exemple fără rost, explică lucruri care nu au de-a face cu subiectul principal și la urmă mă pierde.
Chiar când am început-o credeam că am dat de o non-ficțiune care merită citită și am fost surprins plăcută. Dar după vreo 50 de pagini și-a arătat adevărata față, cum o fac toate cărțile astea până la urmă (pentru mine). Încep să mă satur.
Nup, nu a fost pentru mine. Citiți-o dacă vă interesează subiectul din titlu dar defapt căutați cu totul altceva decât ce zice titlul. Altfel, skip this one.
Nu am citit-o cu sufletul la gură, I do not care about this stuff.
Dacă ar fi să descriu cartea din perspectiva unui overall enjoyment, ar fi ca un roller-coaster. Am fost interesată (pentru scurt timp), apoi m-am plictisit de nu mai îmi venea să citesc, apoi revenea la prezent și avea o continuitate mai frumoasă, iarăși eram acolo pentru carte (din nou, pentru scurt timp). In the end tot reușea să mă facă să îmi pierd interesul.
Pentru un asemenea titlu Selfie. Cum am devenit atât de obsedați de sine și ce efect are acest lucru asupra noastră, mă așteptam să citesc cu totul altceva. Dar scriitorul merge prea departe în trecut, dă o mie de exemple fără rost, explică lucruri care nu au de-a face cu subiectul principal și la urmă mă pierde.
Chiar când am început-o credeam că am dat de o non-ficțiune care merită citită și am fost surprins plăcută. Dar după vreo 50 de pagini și-a arătat adevărata față, cum o fac toate cărțile astea până la urmă (pentru mine). Încep să mă satur.
Nup, nu a fost pentru mine. Citiți-o dacă vă interesează subiectul din titlu dar defapt căutați cu totul altceva decât ce zice titlul. Altfel, skip this one.
December 31, 2017
A fascinating book that will help you understand the world we live in today.
February 28, 2021
Will Storr succeeded in exploring the roots of 'the age of perfectionism' we now live in. More precisely, he elucidated how our selves have changed - influenced by neoliberalism, social media, the environment around us...
I have to admit that I felt lost reading 'Book Four'. Even though the journalist Will Storr added interviews and personal experience in between the thoroughly researched materials, I found myself wondering if what he had undergone was actually true. It sounded absurd and the fact that it was true made me shiver a bit.
I find it very difficult to properly review this work of non-fiction so I decided to conclude this rating with some quotes from this work:
'So the brain is a storyteller and it's also a hero-maker - and the hero it makes is you. But the hero it makes and the plot it creates your life around are not created in a void. The brain is a plagiarist, stealing ideas from the stories that surround it, then incorporating them into its self. Like John Pridmore and the ancient biblical tales he adopted, we absorb the stories that flow around our culture and use them to make sense of who we want to be. We use them to construct our 'narrative identity'.'
'Adolescence is the break between the delusions of childhood and the delusions of adulthood, a time when the projects of one phase of life have broken down and the next have yet to emerge. And in that gap we glimpse the horrors that our storytelling brains work so hard to keep from us. I wish my storytelling brain worked better. I want some more of that delusion.'
'Professor Gordon Flett, the expert in the dangers of perfectionism, had told me. [...] 'When a public figure makes a mistake there seems to be a much stronger, more intense and quicker backlash. So kids growing up now see what happens to people who make a mistake and they're fearful for it.'
'Behaviour is a result of a combination of situation and genes. The social world is a maze of circus mirrors, each exaggerating one facet of ourself and diminishing another, while the essential core remains.'
'But this isn't the model of self that our culture keeps showing us. Instead, we're presented with an individual who has total free will and an ability to become whoever they choose. And who they usually choose to be is an extraverted, slim, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, popular, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming individual with entrepreneurial guile - all characteristics Ayn Rand would've recognized as heroic.'
I rate this book a well-meant 4/5 ✨
I have to admit that I felt lost reading 'Book Four'. Even though the journalist Will Storr added interviews and personal experience in between the thoroughly researched materials, I found myself wondering if what he had undergone was actually true. It sounded absurd and the fact that it was true made me shiver a bit.
I find it very difficult to properly review this work of non-fiction so I decided to conclude this rating with some quotes from this work:
'So the brain is a storyteller and it's also a hero-maker - and the hero it makes is you. But the hero it makes and the plot it creates your life around are not created in a void. The brain is a plagiarist, stealing ideas from the stories that surround it, then incorporating them into its self. Like John Pridmore and the ancient biblical tales he adopted, we absorb the stories that flow around our culture and use them to make sense of who we want to be. We use them to construct our 'narrative identity'.'
'Adolescence is the break between the delusions of childhood and the delusions of adulthood, a time when the projects of one phase of life have broken down and the next have yet to emerge. And in that gap we glimpse the horrors that our storytelling brains work so hard to keep from us. I wish my storytelling brain worked better. I want some more of that delusion.'
'Professor Gordon Flett, the expert in the dangers of perfectionism, had told me. [...] 'When a public figure makes a mistake there seems to be a much stronger, more intense and quicker backlash. So kids growing up now see what happens to people who make a mistake and they're fearful for it.'
'Behaviour is a result of a combination of situation and genes. The social world is a maze of circus mirrors, each exaggerating one facet of ourself and diminishing another, while the essential core remains.'
'But this isn't the model of self that our culture keeps showing us. Instead, we're presented with an individual who has total free will and an ability to become whoever they choose. And who they usually choose to be is an extraverted, slim, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, popular, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming individual with entrepreneurial guile - all characteristics Ayn Rand would've recognized as heroic.'
I rate this book a well-meant 4/5 ✨
September 23, 2018
I was interested in how humans have evolved to taking selfies and was pleasantly surprised that this book delivered much more than a superficial take on it. It reminded me of books by Thomas Friedman and Yuval Noah Harari-yes, it’s about narcissism and social media, but it also talks about personality traits and the quest for perfection and ultimately, happiness. I found this book to be a good surprise in that it is much more than what it advertises to be.
Read
August 13, 2018How we like to think of ourselves is heavily influenced by the prevailing culture. While in the western world today, we like to be slim (rooted from the Ancient Greek sculptures), the Tanzanians liked to be fat. As a social animal, we are prone to mimicking the popular/dominant person, including their voice, their likings, etc. The technological changes free us from our environment and make self-determination a new ideal. Thus born the self-help book genre. With it a notion of the importance of high self-esteem. In fact, the scientific study commissioned by politicians did not find evidence to support the notion that low self-esteem is the root of all social evil (drugs, crime, etc.). What did the politicians do then? According to the book, they did the stereotypical politician thing of whitewashing the findings to support the view they already have. And after that programs to boost self-esteem were launched (in 86% of school districts in CA) and we get a cohort of narcissistic kids. The current internet platforms plus the narratives behind the platforms gave us an incentive to build a brand of self. Put the two together, we get zillions of selfies with photogenic brunches on instagram. (That is the author's interpretation of how we get here. In other words, it's a hypothesis.) Unfortunately, selfies are not just harmless fun. If you did something wrong, you can get crucified by the internet mob. Some people can't handle it and took their own life.
March 7, 2021
تشير الأبحاث إلى أننا منذ عمر أربعة عشر شهرًا تقريبًا ، نبدأ في محاكاة الأشخاص الذين نراهم يظهرون الكفاءة عندما يكملون المهام . مع تقدمنا في النمو ، تبدأ "إشارات المهارات" في اتخاذ شكل رمزي أكثر ، مثل "إشارات النجاح".
في ماضينا (الصيد والجمع) ، كان من المنطقي تقليد تصرفات الصياد الذي يرتدي العديد من قلائد الأسنان التي حصل عليها من عمليات القتل ، أي حيث أظهر نجاحه بكفاءة عالية.
يبدو من المرجح أن ملابس المصممين وعمليات تجميل الأظافر باهظة الثمن والسيارات السريعة هي كفاءات اليوم التي تجذب الانتباه. تثير إشارات النجاح إعجابك بسبب كيفية تطور أدمغتنا. قد تجادل بأن الفيراري التي يمتلكها أحد المصرفيين الاستثماريين لا تشير إلى أي نوع من التميز الذي تهتم به - أو ، في الواقع ، أي نوع من التميز على الإطلاق.
هذا ، للأسف ، لا يهم ، لأن السلوك تلقائي وغير واعي. إنه يحدث فقط : وإذا كنت محصنًا بطريقة ما تجاه الإشارات التي تأتي مع الثروة ، فستكون هناك بالتأكيد مجموعة أخرى من إشارات النجاح التي لها نفس التأثير القوي والمخفي عليك.
.
Will Storr
Selfie
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
في ماضينا (الصيد والجمع) ، كان من المنطقي تقليد تصرفات الصياد الذي يرتدي العديد من قلائد الأسنان التي حصل عليها من عمليات القتل ، أي حيث أظهر نجاحه بكفاءة عالية.
يبدو من المرجح أن ملابس المصممين وعمليات تجميل الأظافر باهظة الثمن والسيارات السريعة هي كفاءات اليوم التي تجذب الانتباه. تثير إشارات النجاح إعجابك بسبب كيفية تطور أدمغتنا. قد تجادل بأن الفيراري التي يمتلكها أحد المصرفيين الاستثماريين لا تشير إلى أي نوع من التميز الذي تهتم به - أو ، في الواقع ، أي نوع من التميز على الإطلاق.
هذا ، للأسف ، لا يهم ، لأن السلوك تلقائي وغير واعي. إنه يحدث فقط : وإذا كنت محصنًا بطريقة ما تجاه الإشارات التي تأتي مع الثروة ، فستكون هناك بالتأكيد مجموعة أخرى من إشارات النجاح التي لها نفس التأثير القوي والمخفي عليك.
.
Will Storr
Selfie
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
June 14, 2018
personisks un humāns ceļojums laikā no brīža, kad cilvēku individuālisms sāka nomākt kolektīvisma garu, līdz mūsdienām, kur paštīksmināšanās par sevi ir sasniegusi augstāko apokalipses stadiju. autors iezīmē, viņaprāt, nozīmīgākos vēstures pagrieziena punktus, kas mūsdienu sabiedrību ir padarījusi par sevī iemīlējušos, ar narcisismu sirgstošu ļaužu baru. tāpat viņš dekonstruē mītus, ko nemitīgi projicē personības psihologi un pozitīvās domāšanas entuziasti: mēs katrs nevaram būt kaut kas no tā vien, ka mēs esam. dzīvošanai ir mazliet cits algoritms.
September 23, 2018
Will Storr's Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us is less about social media than I worried it would be. Instead, it's more about, well, the self, I suppose. The book, at first glance, is really wide ranging. Jonathan Haidt, Susan Cain, Abraham Maslow, Stewart Brand, Ayn Rand, Margaret Thatcher, Alan Greenspan. Self-esteem, self-discovery, narcissism, personality retreats, Instafame... To some extent, even when a chapter drags, I felt confident that I'd soon find another interesting idea. The book is not random, however, and the through line is confabulation and how social changes have changed the way confabulation works.
I'm not a psychologist, but here is my attempt to summarize confabulation. The famous story is about a guy whose brain halves are severed from each other. A psychologist learned he could command one side of this guy's brain to go for a walk. The guy, as ordered, would stand up and walk, but, interestingly, the other side of his brain, isolated from the command, would create a story that explained the decision to walk. Confabulation! Our sense of self seems to be more illusory than we realize, and we're often attempting to explain who we are to ourselves. Here's my own observation of this mental exercise. When people divorce, they lose all or almost all sense of who they are. When you talk to them, they just go in circles as they try to come to grips with what happened. What "come to grips with" means here, however, is an attempt to close the gap between one's reality and one's story of the self--in this case, the latter no longer works and the mind becomes a spinning pinwheel until a new and enduring confabulation emerges.
Storr's exploration of the self starts with a gangster who abandons violence when he finds Jesus. Storr suggests his gangster found Jesus, not miraculously, but rather because the gangster needed a story of redemption, one that could carry him through the change and the guilt. Because his culture primed his mind for a finding-Jesus-narrative of redemption, he found Jesus. In other words, this is the culture's story of redemption, so the gangster, needing a new self, latched on to it.
The second half of the book explores neoliberalism, which, at first glance, feels like quite a jump.
Storr argues the neoliberalism offers a story of the self that is now dominant in western culture. In some respects, however, its depiction of people can be brutal in its categorization. There are successful creators and everyone else is either a failure or a parasite. As someone who lives in this culture and often feels like defending or at least not outright dismissing it, this feels like an exaggeration. Here is Alan Greenspan defending Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as "a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfilment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should." (Italics added for emphasis.) I suppose the beauty of Greenspan's statement is either its clarity or else the confidence it grants people who succeed. But Storr notes that the neoliberal culture seems to be allowing the rich to get richer, while the rest work but don't rise in status or even in wealth. Those who don't find themselves among the Elect realize the culture has left them behind. Like the divorced person mentioned earlier, they need to find new stories to tell themselves. Storr speculates that this may help to explain the emergence of the "alt right."
There's more to be learned, such as a great deal about the self-esteem movement, but I view the confabulation/ neoliberalism dynamic as the main insight offered.
I'm not a psychologist, but here is my attempt to summarize confabulation. The famous story is about a guy whose brain halves are severed from each other. A psychologist learned he could command one side of this guy's brain to go for a walk. The guy, as ordered, would stand up and walk, but, interestingly, the other side of his brain, isolated from the command, would create a story that explained the decision to walk. Confabulation! Our sense of self seems to be more illusory than we realize, and we're often attempting to explain who we are to ourselves. Here's my own observation of this mental exercise. When people divorce, they lose all or almost all sense of who they are. When you talk to them, they just go in circles as they try to come to grips with what happened. What "come to grips with" means here, however, is an attempt to close the gap between one's reality and one's story of the self--in this case, the latter no longer works and the mind becomes a spinning pinwheel until a new and enduring confabulation emerges.
Storr's exploration of the self starts with a gangster who abandons violence when he finds Jesus. Storr suggests his gangster found Jesus, not miraculously, but rather because the gangster needed a story of redemption, one that could carry him through the change and the guilt. Because his culture primed his mind for a finding-Jesus-narrative of redemption, he found Jesus. In other words, this is the culture's story of redemption, so the gangster, needing a new self, latched on to it.
The second half of the book explores neoliberalism, which, at first glance, feels like quite a jump.
Storr argues the neoliberalism offers a story of the self that is now dominant in western culture. In some respects, however, its depiction of people can be brutal in its categorization. There are successful creators and everyone else is either a failure or a parasite. As someone who lives in this culture and often feels like defending or at least not outright dismissing it, this feels like an exaggeration. Here is Alan Greenspan defending Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as "a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfilment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should." (Italics added for emphasis.) I suppose the beauty of Greenspan's statement is either its clarity or else the confidence it grants people who succeed. But Storr notes that the neoliberal culture seems to be allowing the rich to get richer, while the rest work but don't rise in status or even in wealth. Those who don't find themselves among the Elect realize the culture has left them behind. Like the divorced person mentioned earlier, they need to find new stories to tell themselves. Storr speculates that this may help to explain the emergence of the "alt right."
There's more to be learned, such as a great deal about the self-esteem movement, but I view the confabulation/ neoliberalism dynamic as the main insight offered.
July 25, 2021
I’ve heard a lot of great things about the books from Will Storr, so I finally decided to give one of his books a try. After finishing this book, I can honestly say that I completely understand what all of the hype is about. Storr is an excellent writer, researcher, and storyteller, and this book really kept me engaged from start to finish. Before grabbing this book, I was concerned that it was just going to be another one of those “social media bad” books, but Will Storr does an incredible job telling the story of how humans evolved for social connection. He then goes on to explain how modern cultural shifts, such as the self-help craze and social media, have disrupted the way we view ourselves and our relationships with others.
This book has a great combination of stories, interviews, and scientific research. There was only one chapter that I wasn’t a huge fan of because it was basically just the story of a self-obsessed young woman, but this is just my personal taste because I’m more of a fan of study-based writing. But for people who really enjoy stories that paint a picture and support the arguments and opinions of the writer, I’m sure you’ll love that chapter. At the end of the day, I feel this is an extremely important book for anyone trying to better understand our relationship to social media, ourselves, and others. You may begin to understand why you’re so self-critical, and maybe you’ll learn to cut yourself some slack. And if you’re a parent or teacher, you’ll have a better idea of what younger generations are dealing with, so you can provide better support.
This was an excellent book, and I really appreciate Will Storr’s curiosity about various subjects. I can’t wait to dive into some more of his books.
This book has a great combination of stories, interviews, and scientific research. There was only one chapter that I wasn’t a huge fan of because it was basically just the story of a self-obsessed young woman, but this is just my personal taste because I’m more of a fan of study-based writing. But for people who really enjoy stories that paint a picture and support the arguments and opinions of the writer, I’m sure you’ll love that chapter. At the end of the day, I feel this is an extremely important book for anyone trying to better understand our relationship to social media, ourselves, and others. You may begin to understand why you’re so self-critical, and maybe you’ll learn to cut yourself some slack. And if you’re a parent or teacher, you’ll have a better idea of what younger generations are dealing with, so you can provide better support.
This was an excellent book, and I really appreciate Will Storr’s curiosity about various subjects. I can’t wait to dive into some more of his books.
July 30, 2020
This book was definitely interesting to read. It is no shock that we now live in a society where social pressures cause so many issues; mental health issues and suicide are just some examples.
I liked that Storr openly discussed the topic of suicide; he didn't shy away from it like a lot of people would. Suicide is one of those subjects that is difficult to talk about but needs to be talked about.
Storr definitely had a lot of interesting points within the book but there were moments where I found it a little difficult to follow because it seemed to be jumpy and slightly complicated.
Overall 3 stars
I liked that Storr openly discussed the topic of suicide; he didn't shy away from it like a lot of people would. Suicide is one of those subjects that is difficult to talk about but needs to be talked about.
Storr definitely had a lot of interesting points within the book but there were moments where I found it a little difficult to follow because it seemed to be jumpy and slightly complicated.
Overall 3 stars
May 8, 2018
Superb one to read coz it switches direction and make a bit interesting to read.
First few chapter more like a psychology book, it helps you understand about self which carve for perfection in order to compete with this world. Some commit suicide coz of not matching it. And interesting chapter like Tribal Self and Perfectible Self
Introduction of Ayn Rand and her team about Self Esteem and Neoliberalism occupy the most of the pages and more like economics and business book
finally Digital Self and about how to be alive from the concept of Perfection
An interesting Read..
First few chapter more like a psychology book, it helps you understand about self which carve for perfection in order to compete with this world. Some commit suicide coz of not matching it. And interesting chapter like Tribal Self and Perfectible Self
Introduction of Ayn Rand and her team about Self Esteem and Neoliberalism occupy the most of the pages and more like economics and business book
finally Digital Self and about how to be alive from the concept of Perfection
An interesting Read..
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