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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
Frank Cappello: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Lever Time. I am producer Frank Capello, filling in for David Sirota.
On today's show, we'll be talking about the self help industry. It's an industry built around convincing people that the reason they're unhappy is due to their personal outlook and priorities, rather than the large scale. Systemic issues affecting quality of life.
Today we'll be sharing David Sirota's interview with journalist Adam Johnson about the so called happiness guru, Arthur Brooks, who spent the early part of his career advocating for economic policies that have immiserated working Americans. He also got paid a lot of money to do so.
For our paid subscribers, we're always dropping bonus episodes into our Lever Premium podcast feed. This past Monday, we shared David's interview with Allison Fisher from the watchdog group Media Matters about Rupert Murdoch's cli
[00:01:00] Spreading misinformation and climate denialism narratives.
If you want access to our premium content, head over to levernews. com and click the subscribe button in the top right to become a supporting subscriber. this gives you access to the Lever Premium Podcasts feed, exclusive live events, even more in depth reporting, And you'll be directly supporting the investigative journalism we do here at The Lever.
Alright, we're going to dive right into our main story today about the self help industry.
If you're like most Americans, you've probably lived through some difficult moments in your life. Whether your problems are rooted in economic insecurity, feelings of loneliness, or a myriad of other issues, There's an entire industry just waiting to profit off of your discontent.
As of 2021, self help has ballooned into a 10. 4 billion dollar industry. And if you've ever read a self help book, you may have noticed the trend of focusing on the problems of the individual, largely ignoring the broader societal issues that are often the root cause of so much unhappiness.
usually centered on changing individual habits or priorities [00:02:00] rather than collectively solving large scale problems.
enter the so called self help guru, Arthur Brooks. if you don't know Brooks, he's an Oprah endorsed best selling author whose new book is titled, Build the Life You Want, The Art and Science of Getting Happier. But what a lot of people don't know is that Brooks is the former head of the American Enterprise Institute, one of the country's most prominent conservative think tanks, where Brooks spent a decade advocating for economic policies that have immiserated millions of Americans, All while being paid a handsome salary of nearly three million dollars a year.
In today's interview David and Adam unpack the ideological messaging of the self help industry, The history of the American Enterprise Institute and its toxic influence on American politics, And they discuss Brooks career transition from sower of despair to peddler of happiness.
David Sirota: /hey, Adam, how you doing?
Adam Johnson: I'm doing well. How are you?
David Sirota: I'm good. Um, thanks for writing that piece with me, uh, about the self help industry and, um, America's [00:03:00] New, uh, most prominent happiness guru, an Oprah endorsed happiness guru, Arthur Brooks. Um, I, I came to this story because, uh, I'll admit something here. Somebody had recommended Arthur Brooks books to me.
Uh, and I had actually read an article that he had written. called your professional decline begins earlier than you think. And I actually found that to be an interesting revelation. And then, uh, when I read his book, uh, kind of about this, uh, I found. That the recommendations that are put forward by him specifically, but often by the self help industry generally, they're, by definition, they're very self centric.
They're very about, uh, the self, and they presume a lot of things. And, and I realized that there's a kind of political deception here. which you and I discussed, uh, in, in the writing of this piece a lot, which is to say it writes out the rest [00:04:00] of the world. I think one question I have is, do you think this is kind of a deliberate bait and switch, a deliberate sleight of hand, uh, that the entire concept of the self help industry is designed to make People believe that the problems that they face are only individually, uh, overcome, as opposed to societally overcome.
Adam Johnson: Yeah, well, we did, we did an episode on this for my podcast, um, Citations Needed back in 2019. It was about the sort of, uh, hyper atomization and capitalist ideology of most self help, vast majority of self help. Um, and it's been a criticism of self help for, for quite some time, which is to say they'll, they sort of take your.
Normal micro advice that's kind of, uh, reasonable, you know, this is what sort of, this is on the right wing end of the spectrum. You have your Jordan Peterson's who are very good at doing this too, where you sort of take very kind of, you know, brush your teeth, make up your [00:05:00] bed, uh, treat people with respect, like very kind of banal universal advice.
Um, and then, and then what happens is very quickly, that kind of micro advice becomes macrotized into a political formulation, um, where, Yes, generally the answers are not sought in political coalition building. They're not sought in mutual solidarity. They're not sought in starting, they're not, they're not found in starting a union at your workplace.
Uh, they're not found in going to a Black Lives Matter protest or trying to get a, you know, a left wing candidate elected for office or, or whatever have you. They're found simply in the self. Um, because the self is not seen as a political space and political is sort of a dirty word in most quarters. Um, and of course, this lends itself to a capitalist ideology of self improvement.
Um, this goes back, uh, you know, sort of self help goes back. well, you can sort of start it in many places, but probably the most famous is the kind of, uh, Christianized, psychological incorporation w within corporate America, how it [00:06:00] was sort of about, Um, if you're feeling bad at the workplace, it's not because you're being underpaid or mistreated or sexually harassed or, or racially discriminated against or underpaid or what have you.
Uh, but it's actually because you have some kind of brain problem and you need to work on that brain problem. So the self help industry naturally lends itself to a conservative, uh, formulation. And one of the things we talked about when we discussed it on our show with our guest, was what would it look like to have a more solidarity based, more left wing, more...
Um, progressive vision of self help with an understanding that it is the reason why the Jordan Petersons of the world are popular is because they do, and Arthur, and the Arthur Brooks of the world are popular, who I think is within that vein, but is maybe a little less overtly right wing, um, but certainly I think is very subtly right wing, um, what would, uh, that these people are filling a real need people have, uh, there's a real, there's a real need people have for some kind of guidance, and And within the secular realm, as people move further away from organized religion, um, [00:07:00] obviously there's much discussion about the erosion of the third place and how, and how, how, how things like, you know, societies and, and, and rec centers and, and again, union halls are less popular.
So people are seeking some kind of, Um, way to have meaning in life. And this is where people like Arthur Books found, find a market and they sneak in. Um, and of course, Arthur Books is, is more overtly sinister, uh, in, in that he, again, this is someone who, like you said, is, is the arsonist posing as the firefighter in a very overt and direct way.
This is someone who worked for, I would say, certainly the most influential, more so than the Heritage Foundation, the most influential right wing, uh, pro austerity, anti poor. Uh, anti black, anti poor white people with the, you know, with your J. D. Vance and your Charles Murray. Uh, organization in the last 20 years.
This is this, they were central to the, to the Iraq war. And then after that went south in 2008, 2009, they brought in Arthur Brooks to, to sort of rebrand themselves. They [00:08:00] brought in the Dalai Lama to give a speech in 2011. Um, they were gonna be more positive vision,
David Sirota: Yeah, we're talking about the
American Enterprise Institute.
Adam Johnson: Sorry, forgive me. I'm sorry.
The American Enterprise Institute. This is an organization that was founded, uh, in the 1930s to oppose the New Deal. It was founded explicitly to oppose the New Deal. It was, uh, shut down, as we talked about in our article in 1949, by President Truman for being a front for the railroad lobby. It shared a physical address with the railroad lobby.
It was a powerful pro industry group that was involved in many kind of... Proto fascists, uh, currents, um, anti communism, anti Roosevelt. Uh, this is an organization whose DNA is to basically, they don't disclose their funders. So to the extent to which we even know their funders, it's largely through journalistic digging or finding out on the, on the funder end, kind of accidentally.
we don't really know who their funders are, which is very frowned upon in the non profit industry. This is a black box of corporate influence peddling, uh, anti welfare, uh, climate change
denial.
David Sirota: as, as related to happiness, huge on so called entitlement cuts. I mean, [00:09:00] they really, under, under Brooks, made their
Adam Johnson: Raising retirement age. Right. And so this guy then, he reframes himself as, I'm going to help you be happy. You know, one of the first things that I think we talked about when we talked about doing this was, it's weird that this hasn't really been written before, at least not that I've seen.
And if it has, forgive me. Um, but I, I didn't, I didn't see it. This is such an obvious, um, and blatant hypocrisy, such an obvious and blatant grift. And then when you go back and you read his 2012 op ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing against, Uh, high taxes. He's arguing for lower taxes on corporations and the rich and cutting social programs, uh, using the language of happiness.
He says earned, unearned success leads to unhappiness. Um, which again, if I'm a mother of four and I, and I need to choose between feeding my toddler or buying diapers, um, these concepts are, are, are absolutely meaningless. Uh, they don't mean anything. Um, and you see that much in the happiness literature.
It's a lot of, of course, solipsism. A lot of woo woo, a lot [00:10:00] of ill defined concepts, um, a lot of banalities presented as, as originalisms or what's called kind of deepities. Uh, it has a lot of that. It's, it's not very, uh, morally interesting. It's not intellectually rigorous. It's a lot of dusting off pop psychology and pop sociology from the 20s and, or sorry, from the, from the 2010s and, and 2000s and 1990s.
Um, and that's kind of what is the, What makes up a lot of these, these kinds of, uh, middle brow self help publications, and they're extremely popular. He's, he speaks to a market as we, as we discuss. He clearly speaks directly to a market that is upwardly mobile. Typically, you're kind of, you know, you're kind of corporate lawyer for an oil, uh, industry who feels bad about their job.
Kind of the key demographic. Obviously, there's, that's not everybody, but that's kind of the way he, he orients it. Uh, nobody's really worried about, uh, destitution. No one's really worried about homelessness. No one's really worried about. Um, any kind of meaningful economic hardship. It's just like, ah, I'm in a malaise, I don't really like my job.[00:11:00]
and, uh, he sort of goes from there. There isn't, um, there isn't really any kind of deeper or systemic or existential criticism of anything. Uh, and he's got a column in the Atlantic, and it probably traffics very well. Again, it speaks to the professional management class. It speaks to kind of disillusioned middle aged types.
Um, and I'm, you know, as someone who's knocking on the door of that myself, uh, I, I certainly appreciate that there's a market for that. Um, but, um, uh, yeah, it's all sort of not really saying much, and to the extent to which it's saying anything, it is, it is, I think, very subtly right
wing,
David Sirota: Yeah, and I, and I also think, like, baked into the assumptions of somebody like Arthur Brooks, right? There's the, as we're discussing, there's the self help industry generally. It's kind of baked in conservatism, which is about the self. Uh, and then there's this particular guy who, as, as we argue, that he sowed a lot of the despair.
Uh, that people are, uh, in a, in a mass kind of way unhappy with, right? I mean, [00:12:00] we live in a country, thanks to groups like the think tank that Arthur Brooks ran, we live in a country that has, doesn't have portable basic benefits, uh, doesn't have, you know, universal national health care, government sponsored health care, government guaranteed health care, uh, does not have a free college education, uh, does not really in any real way, uh, guarantee a basic standard of living in retirement.
Although we do have social security, which is, which is supposed to be a subsistence, uh, a very bottom and he's attacked that. So we essentially live in the world that Arthur Brooks helped create. And now he's here. to portray himself as the solution to the mass sadness that those conditions bring on. And not surprisingly, he doesn't really address the idea of changing those conditions.
Because changing those conditions would force a re [00:13:00] evaluation of the policies that he helped create. He helped AEI's Donors create. So there is that fundamental hypocrisy in there, but I actually think it goes further. And you can tell me if you think I'm wrong. I actually think that within Arthur Brooks is happiness literature specifically.
And again, this is this is The Oprah endorsed, this is not just some random guy. This is an Oprah endorsed. This is the big happiness guru in America at the top of the self help bestseller list right now with Oprah, there is a political ideology, as you allude to that actually leaks out a lot of his writing doesn't mention what he did in his previous life, uh, having run.
AEI. I think that's deliberate. He doesn't really want to want to mention that. And actually, in a politico piece, he sort of said, I've, I've made a departure from politics. But I actually think that that what he's putting out there is a form of politics. Because if you
connect it, if you connect it to what he wrote in the [00:14:00] Wall Street Journal, as an example.
Where he's saying social security benefits, benefits from the state, are unearned, uh, for essentially so called takers, uh, and that that immiserates people. The benefits themselves, the getting income you haven't quote unquote earned, immiserates you. He also talks in his book about how happiness can be gleaned through suffering and pain.
And so I think actually. The political ideology underneath his happiness writing, what's so insidious about it is, is that while he doesn't come out and say it explicitly, I think there is this idea, people's difficult circumstances wrought by The austerity policies, the kind of austerity policies that he and other conservatives champion that the pain caused by that will ultimately create a personal growth and thus a longer standing form of [00:15:00] happiness. I mean, it seems really masochistic to me, but I do think that is their ideology, don't you?
Adam Johnson: Well, yeah, because it's inherently individualistic. I mean, it's, it's the opposite of the, you know, again, I had, I had my criticisms of, of, The 2020 Sanders campaign in certain ways, but the, the, the slogan, will you fight for someone you don't even know it's kind of the opposite of that, right? It's like, there's no sense of obligation to your fellow brother and sister.
There's no sense of solidarity. There's no sense of any broader political project. It's everybody's out on an island by themselves. And, uh, I mean, the utter, the sheer lack of any sense of community or collectivization of any kind. Um, in this book, it's just, it's, even for self help, it's, it's quite extraordinary.
I mean, it's, it is every, the quest that everyone takes is their own personal journey. Um, again, the book kicks off by, by, by talking about his mother in law growing up in, in Spain in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. [00:16:00] And there's no discussion about, like, living under a fascist regime, what that was like. There's no discussion about the patriarchy.
You know, divorce wasn't even legal in Spain until 1981. It wasn't really even legal until the 2000s, in terms of no fault. It's just, oh, she, in the middle age, she went back to school and became a teacher. And it's like, well, okay, but like, there's a context there. And aren't you at all least a bit curious about that?
It's not even like a liberal box checking. It's just, in his world, everybody is their own kind of Randian hero. You need to go home and be your own, Randy here, which again, is a key feature of virtually all self-help because what they'll tell you is that that's the thing you can control. And what he repeatedly says is, you, you can't, you cannot control the quote unquote outside world.
The outside world is this thing that exists and there's not much we can do about it. And I can't think of anything less empowering. I mean, it is, it is a, it is a, um, it is a book that is that, that, again, it fits ex if it fits precisely within a capitalist worldview where. Any time more than four or five people get together and decide to [00:17:00] collectively act in response to the forces that are shaping their life that are not good, whether it be their boss, the, you know, corporations, someone polluting the river next to them, uh, someone underfunding their schools, whatever it is, that that is a form of like authoritarian collectivism.
And that's bad. And you don't want to be involved in that. That's socialism. That's, that's disgusting. Um, and so again, how would you, how would, how, but like you said, at the very first line of the piece that you wrote, it's like, you look around though, and you see a miseration, you see suffering, you see, Poll, showing people expressing hardship.
Uh, you see massive inequality. You see poverty levels that are, uh, you know, homelessness is skyrocketing. Poverty levels are the highest they've, they've of any quote unquote, western or pure country. And you have to sort of square the circle. If our capitalist system works so well, then why are, why do we have this despair?
And the only answer for someone who needs to square that circle, and like you said, someone who's been the architecture of that system of inequality, uh, the, the answer is that people have mind problems and they need to work on their mind problems. And, like you said, self help, while it isn't overtly political in the sense that [00:18:00] it's, it's on the nose, it is very much implicitly so, because it does, it makes, it makes grand claims about the world.
It says if you follow this rule, this rule, that rule, you'll be happy. Or rather, you'll be, just to put it clear, he says you'll be happier. He kind of rejects the, the platonic happiness is a very clever kind of liberal formulation, but he says you can be happier if you follow these kind of scientific methods.
That's a political claim. That's a claim. I mean, what, what is politics supposed to offer you other than increased happiness, right? This is sort of, from utilitarian perspective, that's kind of the, that's, that's what, that's the moral claim of politics that we will maximize happiness.
David Sirota: And
I
should add, there's, there's no wrestling with the fact, obviously unmentioned in his literature, is the fact that the countries that report the widest spread happiness consistently are social democracies. I mean, I don't think that's a, I don't think that's kind of random or, or an accident,
Adam Johnson: right? And perhaps, and perhaps happiness is even a little squishy, which he, which to his credit, he kind of concedes. He says, well, a lot of it depends on how certain languages define happiness. [00:19:00] And he goes through the various
David Sirota: for sure, but like, but I do think it's kind of, it's kind of undebatable that if you're, if you're If you don't have to worry about so many things, like, Hey, if I get sick, I might, my entire family might go bankrupt or Hey, if I want my kid to go to college, they, they may be, you know, saddled with massive amounts of debt.
Hey, if I want to retire, uh, and not be worked to death, I'll be able to do that. I feel like that's, if you have protections in for that, you're creating better conditions overall for people to feel less, um, Unhappy, right?
Adam Johnson: Because I think, I think happiness is a, as a goal, which is kind of what snuck into some of my writing. Yeah. Is I think a very, uh, idealist or liberal position, which is to say, yes, obviously, the goal would be to have more happiness than less happiness. I do think, again, you, you get into a metaphysical debate about what that means, but as a materialist, I'm sort of less interested in whether or not people are happy, which is very hard to [00:20:00] define, um, and can be fudged in certain ways.
I'm very, I'm much more interested in survival. I'm more interested in healthcare and literacy, uh, in basic standards of living. I'm, I'm more interested in whether or not you can, you can afford, Uh, baby formula or for childcare, right? I mean, again, I, and then with that baseline, yes, obviously I think on average, more people will be happy.
And of course those things don't guarantee less. And we talked about this in the episode I recorded, you know, four, what is it? Four years ago. Um, that it's true. Studies show that when you have those baselines, people are, have generally answered questions that reflect a sense of happiness or contentment or whatever word that is.
Um, But it's not as if there isn't suicide in Norway, right? It's not as if there isn't depression in Denmark. But there's less of it, and there's less hardship, and there's less stress, and there's less early death. The Washington Post just had that, uh, multi day report on, on the, on the state of poverty in the United States, and the, and the, and now our, our life expectancy is, is, is comparable to what it was now in the late 90s.
It's at a 24 year low.
David Sirota: Right. And these are literally called deaths [00:21:00] of despair. I, so I think
that,
I think
this, like,
the sleight of
hand or not sleight of hand, but, but the, the, the kind of trickier is that a person like Arthur Brooks. The entire happiness industry, if you will, knows that deaths of despair, uh, and, and the sort of mass despair is a problem,
Adam Johnson: Caused by AEI, which was funded by Purdue Pharma, by the way, but
David Sirota: interesting. I forgot about that, but, but they know there's a market like despair for every crisis. There's an opportunity, right? As the old saying goes, and the opportunity here is to sell books, is to sell, you know, masterclasses to sell those kinds of things about happiness, but without actually. Talking about some of the structural conditions for unhappiness.
And I want to play a clip from Arthur Brooks that is really on the nose about this point about not focusing on what he calls circumstances. Let's play that clip.
Clip: Get more enjoyment and [00:22:00] satisfaction and purpose in your life. You really, you really need only to do four things. You need to have a portfolio of four habits. There's a lot of stuff that goes into happiness you don't need to worry about. Don't worry about your genetics. They control a lot of your mood from moment to moment, it's true.
But if you have your habits right, you manage your genetics. And don't worry about your circumstances, good and bad. Your bad luck and your good luck. That affects your happiness too, but... It comes and goes. Worry about the things that you can manage. What should you be thinking about? What's in your happiness investment plan?
What's your happiness 401k? Four things. Your faith. Your family. Your friends. And your work.
David Sirota: I mean, it's hard for me to hear that without like, I
Adam Johnson: The idea that somehow your circumstances are separate from what you can control is such a subtle ideological [00:23:00] distinction. The whole basics of... basis of politics is that our circumstances are things we should have control over, right? That is manifest. That's what democracy is supposed to be. Otherwise, he's sort of admitting we don't really live in a democracy.
If I have no control over my circumstances, which again is, is inherently political, um, then what do I, then what's the point? Then why bother? I mean, again, it's, it's, it's, it sort of reminds me of like, uh, you know, I'm, I'm a, uh, You know, it's, it's 1910 and I'm, I'm a sweatshop, uh, foreman at the Triangle Shirt, you know, waste factory and I abuse these immigrant laborers, but I'm feeling really bad about it.
So I go to a therapist and I say, Hey, I'm feeling really guilty. And he says, well, you know what? I'm going to give you some therapy tricks for this as opposed to like, Hey, why don't you not be abusing these underpaid immigrant workers? Right. Uh, it's, it's, it's about massaging guilt. It's about massaging anxieties.
Uh, without any political context for why people may be in a malaise or why they may feel bad or why they're under stress. Um, and, and again, this is [00:24:00] why you, this is why he writes the same book every two years. This is why all self help books are basically, it's like all diet books are kind of like 90 percent the same.
They have a little, they all have little twists, you know, it's like low calories, but with like a lime or like low carbs, but with fish, it's like, cause basically the science of losing weight is like pretty consistent for better or for worse, you know, not necessarily saying that's a good thing, but like the science of like,
It's like you know, keep your nose clean, pay your taxes, be nice to your wife, you know, I think of that movie, that Christian movie fireproof that came out in 2009 with, with, uh, What was it? Uh, Kurt, uh, who's the Christian
guy? I forget. Anyway, Kurt came. Thank you. Wow. Um, and it's like, it was just, it's a self help movie.
They actually have a self help seminar and DVD and book that goes along with this film. And it's like fireproof your marriage and there's like things you can do. And again, the first five are like sensible. It's like, don't be a degenerate. Don't gamble away your money. Don't, don't, you know, don't drink all the time.
And it's like, yeah, that's sensible. And then it's like. The husband's the [00:25:00] master of the wife and you're like, Ooh, that sounds bad. It's like, you know, the, you know, uh, all this Christian bullshit added onto it. And it's like, there's these basic things that are just, that are good and people should know them.
And maybe there's, there needs to be, again, I think there needs to be a secular kind of left wing version of that to some extent, because they do think people need to manage the chaos of life. But then they add on to this other ideological bullshit, which is what Arthur Brooks does where you're like, well, wait a second here, hold on.
Uh, what do you mean I need to separate my circumstances from my, from how I achieve happiness? And again, people, people find meaning. You talk to anyone who has their first, um, moments on a, on a, on a union organization effort, right? Who are, whether it's someone who works at a, at a Coke mine in Alabama or works at a, you know, car plant in Detroit.
And the first thing they'll always say was, this is the most I've ever felt connected in my life. We know that union rates correlate heavy. Uh, correlate heavily with, with reduced racial animosity, uh, and, and reduced bigotry in general. Uh, again, not perfect, but it, it does, it sort of builds [00:26:00] social bonds, uh, leads to things like bowling leads, uh, lifelong friendships.
Um, again, there are other contexts where that's true as well, but there's this idea of like, Oh, I belong for the first time. I'm part of something that's meaningful. You can find happiness in politics. You can find happiness on political campaigns, as many people do, because you feel like it's not just about your own solipsistic needs.
It's about something bigger than you. Uh, and that is, that doesn't need to be done in a kind of, Right wing context and even, even in a religioso context, um, although I know that certain religious context can be progressive left wing. I don't, I don't want to dismiss that. I know a lot of people who, when I first went to the fight for 15, uh, protests back in like 2013, 2014, there was, you know, Baptist, uh, uh, Northern Baptist and, and, and Unitarians, et cetera.
So I don't want to say that those two things are the same thing, but, um, this idea that you can find community and camaraderie and solid and bonds within the forms of solidaristic progressive movements. [00:27:00] Thank you. It's just
David Sirota: Yeah, I
can't. It's the thing that can't be mentioned at all. Now, I also think, obviously, what is never mentioned in Arthur Brooks's world also is basic economic class. I mean, the, I remember reading his His piece, um, your professional decline will begin, uh, earlier than you think. And, and there is an interesting revelation there that the human brain, it's, as it ages, loses fluid intelligence, gains crystallized intelligence.
The idea being that you should then, when you hit middle age, where this really becomes acute, you should try to shift into jobs where you're Kind of passing on wisdom, more teaching roles, managing roles, teaching roles. And you're like, Oh, that that's actually kind of an interesting, an interesting revelation.
And you would think, okay, well, the takeaway should be, how do we de risk people moving into those second careers, second job roles, right? Like, and the way you de risk that is, well, uh, maybe make, uh, [00:28:00] teaching roles, uh, better paid, um, maybe make, Benefits portable. So you can make those jumps, maybe make retirement more secure.
So you're not always worried that if I take a pay cut here, I'm going to screw my retirement over there. That's
nowhere in Arthur Brooks's world. It's, it's, it's like that,
Adam Johnson: Single, single payer healthcare system would give people so much professional
David Sirota: correct. Right. And then there's also this stuff, this stuff about, you know, you want to find hobbies, spend more time with, with family, spend more time with friends. I mean, if time is money. Then we live in a country and that's the part that actually drives me crazy. We live in a country where people
Adam Johnson: So I assume, I assume Arthur Brooks supports the UAW demand for a 32 hour
David Sirota: right? I mean, yeah
Adam Johnson: asked him?
David Sirota: Right. Somehow Arthur Brooks has been has been silent on that
Noticeably silent, but but I think that you know that the time element is the part that's that really drives me great because it's he portrays workaholism as the opponent of [00:29:00] better deployment of time not Uh, presuming that many, if not most people who are working, uh, uh, 50, 60, 70 hour
work weeks are doing that to pay the bills, right?
Adam Johnson: I'm up to my, I'm up to my eyeballs in a mortgage, that's why I'm a workaholic, you
David Sirota: Exactly. That's just like nowhere to be found. But I want to ask you this question that does come up in, in both Brooks's work and in self help in general. I mean, some of his, some of what he's talking about is the kind of stuff that you get. in, in therapy, in, in, in psychotherapy, right? I mean, like, in, in, in this sense, if you go to therapy, I've gone to therapy.
You know, a lot of what you get back are strategies to cope with the world that you're living in. Now, and or you're working through those things, and I do think, you know, it's not to say that, you know, a good therapist writes the circumstances of the world out of the therapy, but it is to say that when you go to a therapist, they're sort of focused on,
[00:30:00] you know, on, on, like, how do you deal with, like, what's going on in your specific life?
Adam Johnson: That's the scope of
David Sirota: the scope, right? I don't think there's anything wrong with that in a therapy context. So the devil's advocate argument would be, well, then what's wrong with it? In a sort of self help genre,
Adam Johnson: You see, it was the head of a right wing think tank for 10 years that gutted the, I mean, this is the thing. Like, he, you know, again, Oprah gave us Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, all of whom became right wing pundits or right wing wannabe senators. I mean, these are political actors acting politically. And it's, it's the height of, it's the height of delusion to not act like, again, a multi billionaire doesn't have some ideological...
Uh, commitments to giving people the impression that they're all individualistic entrepreneurs and waiting, ready, ready to be their own Ayn Randian heroes. Um, there is a ideology there, acknowledged or not acknowledged, conscious or subconscious. But there is, this whole thing just reeks of ideology. And to act like there isn't an inherent ideology in this, in this kind of pop self help.
[00:31:00] Um, I mean, again, the Atlantic Council, as you, as you've noted, or the Atlantic Magazine, rather. A is a, uh, retirement home for, for right-wing GULs who were discredited by the butch administration, whether it be Jeffrey Goldberg who lied about Saddam Hussein, uh, having Connectionist to Al-Qaeda, who's now the editor-in-Chief of the Atlantic.
Whether it's David Fromm, who coined the term Axis of Evil, is now one of their premier resistance columnists. Uh, you know, and Applebaum, who was one of the biggest cheerleaders of the, of the Iraq war. Um, and most, most public defender of Roman Polanski wrote two different op eds in the Washington Post defending Roman Polanski from arrest.
The, the, they're, one of her, one of their top columnists, this is where you sort of go when you're a kind of right wing. to liberal, uh, or liberal adjacent, uh, ideological, uh, staple. And so, you know, Arthur Brooks is in a political magazine. He's a, it's a political magazine that writes about politics. That is what the Atlantic has been doing for 150 years.
Uh, so this is all political and anyone sort of doing the, Oh, what was me? I'm a conservative routine. No, [00:32:00] I'm sorry. Not when you, not when you look at A, his, his, his pedigree is what he did like 10 minutes ago. It's not like he left in the eighties. He left five, five years ago. But be the fact that he's recycling arguments he used while he was at AEI.
He, he promoted this happiness schlock while he was at AEI in the Wall Street Journal. He did it in the pages of AEI. Um, this is a, this is part of a political project. Um, again, whether it be purely ideological or venal in nature, I don't know the details. Uh, but again, he, he gets whatever, a couple, you know, 100, 000 per, per, uh, speech to go to, to go to Goldman Sachs and tell him this schlock.
I mean, it's, it's, it's middle brow capitalist. Ideology.
David Sirota: Why do you think it seems to sell so well among liberals?
Adam Johnson: well, I think it's shoved down their throats. I don't think it's entirely organic. Um, but I think the need is organic. I think it's the same reason that Jordan Peterson sells. It fills a market. And self help that is going to be more left wing or progressive in nature is necessarily going to have to involve political [00:33:00] formulations and political theory.
Um, and a lot of people don't want that, that's sort of too complicated, it sounds too, it sounds too onerous, too, too beyond the scope of their, of their well being. Um, especially again, I think in a, what's the old, the old cliche, we can envision the end of the world before we can envision the end of capitalism, these things sort of seem too big.
Whereas like, helping yourself is something you can control, it's more bite off able. Um, and I understand that, and this is why self help is such a multi billion dollar industry, because people are lost, they're alienated, they don't like their jobs. And again, I think a lot of this sort of baseline advice is perfectly reasonable.
Um, that's what makes it effective. It's, it's reasonable when Jordan Peterson says it. It's reasonable when Arthur Brooks says it. It's reasonable when maybe even a more kind of, because to the extent there's like a, a liberal or left wing of, of the self help industry, it's mostly kind of woo woo, right?
It's the sort of more, uh, you know, crystals and pyramids type. Um, but, uh, and I think people are, are lost and they're looking for answers. Uh, I think we're, we're a terribly atomized [00:34:00] society, I think by design. People feel like they don't have a lot in common with their neighbors. Uh, again, I could show you tons of studies, you know, the balding alone, uh, uh, hand wringing we see all the time.
I think mostly that's true. And I think there's an, uh, there's an appeal for that. Um, because again, I think without all the audiological baggage, some of the kind of micro advice is, is perfectly sensible, albeit very banal. Um, what I find, and, and this is why Arthur Brooks of the world have to avoid the real stakes of people's jobs.
Again, he's, he's obsessed with careers, but has nothing to say about jobs, because The vast majority of people, uh, who are not in his class, they have jobs they fucking hate. Uh, it's a drudgery, you know, they, they manage an auto zone, or they, or they work as a pencil pusher somewhere, or they work at Starbucks.
Uh, and again, they're worried about being able to pay the rent, they're worried about, uh, their boss being a bully and an asshole and sexually harassing them. Uh, they're worried about, uh, being able to afford basic necessities. Uh, they're worried about being able to get paid leave so they can go to their hospital when their father's sick.
None of [00:35:00] that's in this book. It's all kind of like, you know, I'm a, I'm a lawyer and I'm bored and I need to find meaning. It's all this like wishy washy California bullshit. And like he has, it's, it's, it reminds me a lot of the, of the world of, I love the show, but the, I, I made the joke that in Arthur Brooks universe is kind of like Modern Family.
You ever notice that? Like no one in that show ever has any real problems, which is like why you watch it. It, it, it, I love the show, but I call it Adult Cocoa Melon. It's kind of just, Kind of numbs your brain. It's like, you know, they, they, they have birth, they have a surprise birthday party and it's been like 10 grand on it.
And you're like, where did this money come from? And it's kind of, that's the kind of world in which Arthur Brooks operates. He operates in the modern family universe where no one, like everyone's kind of upper middle class or
David Sirota: Yeah. It's like, It's like, affluent on we, right? It's like, that's who it's for. It's, it's for people who are,
Adam Johnson: And, um, or people who want to believe they're that person to, uh, kind of affluent educated, um, types.
And so like, you know, there, there's a market for that as an, as part of a, I do think that kind of ideology flows from that because again, once you start to have to. Once you start to have to compete with [00:36:00] like, again, he makes these two, as we note in the piece, he makes these two, Uh, uh, roundabout references to hating your job.
He says the two things that coordinate, correlate most with people being sad. When he talks about how people are actually good at identifying what makes them happy and sad. He says the two that are the most are spending time in traffic or being, to talking to their boss. And it's like, well, Spending time in traffic is obviously when you commute to your shitty job and spending time with your boss.
That's self evident. It's like, well, okay, there's something there about people hating their jobs. So like, what's the, and then he just kind of moves on and it's like, well, obviously part of people's depression is because they're, they're involved. A lot of people, again, not the people who are maybe his target demographic, but a lot of people in this country have Fucking drudgery.
They, they don't like their jobs. They make their job makes them miserable. It humiliates them. They have to do something evil or shitty or, or boring. And he's just totally not interested in
David Sirota: Right. And, and, and his previous life, as you said, 10 minutes ago was being, uh, leading a think [00:37:00] tank essentially, uh, supports the policies that keep people locked into their jobs, right? Like if you don't have portable benefits, if you don't have government guaranteed healthcare,
Adam Johnson: It's the number one reason people stay in shitty jobs
when you ask
David Sirota: Job lock. Right. It's, it's, it's known as job lock. And, and, and that, so if, if you're going to stipulate that there has to be job lock, that people are stuck, that we've made it actually more difficult than it needs to be, uh, to leave your job for another job, then you're, you're, if you're going to stipulate that, that's the.
the status quo that can never change, then you're left with, well, how can I try to be a little bit more content, uh, in this? And I think that to me is the most disempowering part of, uh, this genre generally and Arthur Brooks specifically, which is that stipulating that the conditions can and should never change leaves you with a very limited, narrow, uh, in, in, in a lot of ways, non existent.
Uh, lane [00:38:00] to find the kind of so called happiness that he talks about. And we, we, I'm, I'm so glad that we wrote this piece together. Uh, I thought it was really important. I want to thank you for, for writing it with me. Thank you for contributing, uh, to The Lever. And, um, and I just want to remind people that Adam is a journalist.
He contributes to The Lever. He's written for places like The Nation, the Los Angeles Times. Uh, he is co host of a great podcast called Citations Needed. And you should go subscribe right now to his. Substack, which you can find at ColumnBlog. com. That's ColumnBlog. com. Adam, thanks so much, man.
Adam Johnson: Thank you. That was a lot of fun. I'm real glad we wrote it. Thank you.
Frank Cappello: that's it for today's show. As a reminder, our paid subscribers who get LeverTime Premium get to hear this past Monday's bonus episode. David Sirota's interview with Allison Fisher from the watchdog group Media Matters about Rupert Murdoch's lasting impact on the issue of climate change.
To listen to LeverTime Premium, head over to LeverNews. com to become a supporting subscriber. When you do, you also [00:39:00] get access to all of the Lever's premium content, including our weekly newsletters and live events. And that is all for just 8 a month or 70 for the year. Also make sure to like, subscribe, and write a review for LeverTime on your favorite podcast app.
Make sure to check out our other podcasts, The Audit and Movies vs. Capitalism. And check out all of the incredible reporting our team has been doing over at LeverNews. com. Until next time, I am Lever Time producer Frank Capello. Rock the boat. The Lever Time Podcast is a production of the Lever and the Lever Podcast Network.
It's hosted by David Sirota. Our producer is me, Frank Capello, with help from Lever producer Jared Jacangmayor.