Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze with Svend Brinkmann
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- Опубликовано: 5 мар 2017
- The pace of modern life is accelerating, and the self-help shelves are groaning with advice on how to keep up. But the demands of life in the fast lane come at a price: anxiety, fatigue and depression are at an all-time high. Leading Danish philosopher and psychologist Svend Brinkmann argues that we must not be afraid to reject the self-help mantra. The secret to a happier life lies not in finding your inner self, but in coming to terms with yourself in order to coexist peacefully with others.
Watch Svend Brinkmann, philosopher and psychologist, in our latest RSA Spotlight - the edits which take you straight to the heart of the event! Loved this snippet? Watch the full edit here: • How to Resist the Self...
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It's something like this:
In order to live, you need to eat, sleep and bathe.
Since most people don't live in forests, it's necessary to pay for those services in the cities.
To pay for those services, money is imperative.
In the recently years, a craze has born: "The ideal psychologic profile". Someone has shown up with the argument that if someone has some kind of nature, then this someone can acomplish things better than the ones who doesn't. Now they hire you based on your psychologic patterns. The thing is, when you live in a country that is facing unemployment, you see yourself obligated to change your own pattern, who you are, in order to get a job and live.
To sell a better product idea, it' s said that changing your characterisctc can improve your personal life too.
Change is a good thing! It sure is, psychology already mentioned it. But when successive changes are imputed on people lives without their will, that is dangerous.
So basically companies can buy your soul. Don't be frightened, there are lots of people who sell it.
Progress is slowly eating your soul. It imposes how to manage your time, how to spend your money, and now how you should behave.
Final note: I'm not a native English speaker
Svend Brinkmann is danish and his book, have made a good deal of debate about positive thinking and the constant need for development.
Its great to see him represent his ideas to an international audience with it his sense of wit and critical thinking.
That story of wanting to go and see the city and break the promise of being on time "because he felt like it" was great :-D
He's absolutely right.
Forwago program helped me not just to build a better-looking body, but to feel healthier and to have more energy. I wanted to share this because I think more people should find out about this amazing program. Thank you, Forwago!
yup, I also made a lot of progress using it
Thank you for mentioning Forwago. I started using it and I really like it so far.
Great vid. Not convinced that reneging on obligations is a huge drawback associated with self development... even though that's the idea that gets the biggest laugh here.
This actually works. I have been using it for a while now.
Such a varied response to this short talk! Before rushing to judgement, it's worth reading some of his articles to see the broader context of his thinking.
Articles and books.
anyone needs some motivation, start right now because if u don’t, a year from now u would’ve wished u started earlier. do it so your future self will thank u!!
It was difficult to see a meaningful logical relationship between the topics discussed.
"Continual self improvement" does not seem immediately related to "honouring contractual agreements". If anything, since "improvement" entails a "direction" towards which one is improving, that "direction" could easily be seen as the source of the "constancy" said to be so crucial.
The speaker seems to be making some kind of false dichotomy, as though "self improvement" were automatically antithetical to "constancy". Or did he simply narrowly define "self improvement" to refer to some strange thing that is very different from the kinds of socially beneficial self improvement that people usually have in mind?
Or perhaps this video seems to make absolutely no sense simply because it is a snippet taken out of the necessary context required to make sense of it?
Edit: having watched the full edit, it turns out that the speaker is not against what he calls "development" (which to many people is synonymous with self improvement), but is mainly concerned with what I would describe as blind, unprincipled desire for increasing some arbitrary number (say, one's salary; perhaps even some popular ideal), without a deliberate consideration of what is truly valuable (also known as "morality").
紅莉栖牧瀬 I appreciate your edit! I understood it as self-improvement as a trend/fad without meaning can be dangerous. The title is almost click-baity, but 'craze' yields itself to be defined as a fad, so I guess it's actually not. My gut reaction at seeing the title was pure skepticism, but like you, after looking in the context I found myself agreeing.
Thanks for the friendly response :)
Did not understand even 1/2 of what you said. But I understood that you commented before watching the whole thing. Why would you try to sound intelligent when you can just watch the whole source material and actually be intelligent?
@@chronicmasterbaiter5467 my hands are knives
yup, I also made a lot of progress using it
He misunderstood personal growth, it is not the book “secret”, it is much more deep than that. It is about knowing your trueself and acting accordingly. He should at least exclude real self awareness and self improvement. We become more ethical with that because it’s in our core anyways.
Is he sort of saying, in an age where not only self help is readily available but has surpassed a fad and become a moral imperative that we don’t question, to question? To say we’ll hang on, maybe the best self help I can give to myself is to say no. I’ll decide whether the revolution is good for me or not... ahhh there’s more to it but I think that’s his point
Personally, I prefer constant change and self improvement over stagnation, it can be stressful to lift weights that are 10 pounds heavier than before, but it feels worse going to bed knowing you could have done better. You can only grow as a person from then on up
Connor O'Hare that is not the point he is making
@@nsjx what am I missing from his message?
"but it feels worse going to bed knowing you could have done better"
But why do you even feel the need to do better in the first place? You are not feeling bad because you didn't do better, you are feeling bad because you are telling yourself that it is important - but it really isn't. That is the problem with society today, it makes us value the wrong things when we should value things like the relationships in our lives, kindness, our promises, our responsibilities etc.
@@connorohare1808 I think Brinkmann would ask you why you to constantly want to better your performance in the gym in the first place? Is it just because of self-improvement?
Brinkmann would say that first and foremost the reason why you should excercise is because you enjoy it! Because you find exercise in itself to be good is the reason why you should go to the gym.
@@Nordic_Scandinavia yes
And why that feels good to do so?
Because it is my nature
I'm a heavy stoic philosophy reader, but one thing that I still feel unsettled with is that the philosophies are those written by already liberated people. It's ok for Aurelius to visualise losing all he had because he was already the leader of an empire, his ambition was already met. Epictetus was a slave, but he was freed... Some level of ambition, with Maslow in mind, is needed I believe.
Josh Smith BDEM He is not suggesting developing lack of ambition
Oh, misunderstood Self-Improvement. It doesn't mean to be a constantly changing being without a self. It means to continually grow more into your self!
Seems like he understands it the same way you do.
Ok, that's fine, but danish people should start looking into others eyes when crossing on the street. this is a way of holding human contact with each others, even with unknown people. we do this in southern countries. maybe the sun helps.
ehh how is that connected to the demand for lifelong development and postive thinking?
TFV-solar
They stare into the Great White North Sea instead.
the only thing you can develop is intelligence and consequently, love.
Rex1987 excellent question
I like your videos. Let's encourage each other?! ❤️✨
You can't improve yourself, you must accept yourself as who you are now. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
this is not true. From a Christian perspective, you should work on your character all the time to become a better person, getting closer to the ideal that is the Perfect Human. What's the point of living if 'you're just perfect they way you are' - this is a lie. By the same toke, we should control ourselves and don't get addicted to constant self-development related to our professional life.
@@karogod nah you also are lying, improving character is a lie, why? Because people are selfish they want you to behave because it triggers them. You have to stop and accept life as it is or face war your choice. Learn to suck it up like I have. Learn to let go because the devil appears as a angel of light don't be fool by the new world self improvement is a lie, Jesus taught people to be nice but not to change them. Life is hard we must accept that. You change you lose, don't fall for false prophets just like the Bible says
@@slipgate5293 I think you missed my point. As far as I understand you, you talk about changing people and the impossibility of achieving it - I agree with you. I wanted to say that I work on my personality, improve my flaws everyday, like Jesus taught us. And this is the right way for me. There is no false prophecies in it, nor lies. I don't need you to convince me or change my mind as it looks you believe in Jesus as well so you should know what I mean but maybe my English is too poor. Acceptance of who you are is great but you can't just say "oh I'm perfect the way I am" and I don't need to do anything now. This is pride. No one is perfect in this world. We all need to work on becoming loving, forgiving, accepting, baring suffering better, telling the truth, being more responsible etc.
Secondly, I contrasted it with workaholism or addiction to self-improvement related to a career.
@@karogod Why? Perfection is wishful thinking, also when force people like to change to be nice they will do it out of fear not love,
@@karogod listen self improvement is a scam to make you better slaves to system, Jesus wasn't perfect himself he also said be open minded
thanks for saying nothing :)
same to you
A missed message is not the same as no message.
Can you please summarise the message in 25 words or less?
The culturally induced exhortation of constant self-oriented teleological growth is detrimental to well-being due to its destabilising effect on self-reflective constancy.
Always focusing on self-improvement means we lose touch with where we are at in our lives. This makes us miserable and less ethical.
the dude has got it all wrong
This did not resonate with me. I think he set up the concept of continuous improvement for a straw man argument. Disappointing.
Warren Wise elaborate
Can you elaborate?
m Nielsen He framed continuous improvement in a way that made it seem inherently in conflict with his idea of self-constancy. I don't see it that way. Continuous improvement of your self would lead to better outcomes in the quality of your relationships. You would become more trusting and trustworthy. To do otherwise, in the name of improvement, is misguided from the perspective of the reality of our existence as social beings. To tell someone to do that would be bad advice, not continuous improvement.
In retrospect, I think he may be speaking to a culturally different audience than me (I am American). So maybe he's using words that are familiar, but that have a somewhat different meaning in his culture.
In any case, my experience is with working on the development of my character, striving to improve it to the point where more of my interactions with people are beneficial, purposeful and enjoyable, so I see one idea supporting the other.
But... but Melania said, “Be best!”
I’m so disillusioned. 😰