Today I picked up an armload of books and thoroughly enjoyed a few chapters of "i'm dysfunctional, you're dysfunctional," Wendy Kaminer's examination of the 12-step movement and its spread in the 1990s into the general population in the form of the whole "we're all codependent" fad. I'm sure I would have been utterly outraged by this book about, oh, ten years ago. Not that it's perfect, but it's certainly interesting. I thought I'd share a few gems with y'all here.
On the ersatz intimacy of mutual confession:
"Watching strangers on television, even responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged--voyeurs collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community. Never have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little."
On the degeneration of feminism into self-help:
"Feminists did say that the personal was political, but... they didn't mean that getting to know yourself was sufficient political action. Consciousness-raising was supposed to inspire activism. Feminism is [about] women talking, but it not [about] women only talking and not [about] women talking only about themselves... "
I love this! But the best point she makes, which was why I bought the book (I've come to realize that yes, I really can learn all I need to know from many books by perusing them for ten minutes in the store), relates to the evangelical revivalist roots of the twelve-step programs, which are the same roots that produced the cult-like religious organization to which my parents (and most of their family & friends) devoted a large portion of their lives.
"The [12-step] tradition has always been covertly authoritarian and conformist, relying as it does on a mystique of expertise, encouraging people to look outside themselves for standardized instructions on how to be... Demanding self-surrender, the recovery movement is essentially religious, not psychotherapeutic...Imagine the slogan of recovery--admit that you're powerless and submit--as a political slogan, and what is wrong with this movement becomes clear. That is hardly a slogan for a participatory democracy."
This is a useful insight, to me, because my parents were essentially operating under an ideology that DID try to make this into a political slogan. The ease of coexistence between this ideology and fascism makes more sense than ever, and the uneasiness with which I hear stories of what essentially amounts to union-busting is also illuminated. But I'm getting political again, so I'll stop now. Thanks to my loyal reader for sticking by me, ;-) and I hope your cold is getting better!
* Avol's is a fabulous and relatively enormous used bookstore, for those of you who aren't lucky enough to live nearby!
** The Strand a fabulous and really, really, really enormous used bookstore, for those of you who aren't lucky enough to live nearby!
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