Americans & Self Improvement

Destiny is not a matter of chance;
It is a matter of choice:
It is not a thing to be waited for;
It is a thing to be achieved.
                   - William Jennings Bryan

         Americans are never good enough – for themselves at least.  Why?  Why attend seminars to improve study habits?  To make better grades?  Why make better grades?  Is this drive to make better grades the reason we have to attend seminars on improving our mental health?  Shouldn’t “Don’t go to any more self-improvement seminars!” be the first thing said in a seminar on stress relief?

THE AMERICAN DREAM

Today the American Dream has been formulated in terms of certain basic values and character traits.  Americans generally believe in achievement, success, and materialism.  This combination of values, in conjunction with equal opportunity, ambitiousness, and hard work and the means of attaining it, could be considered the American Dream.  Among the core beliefs underlying the ideology is to work hard in order to succeed in competition; those who work hard gain success and are rewarded with fame, power, money, and property; since there is equal opportunity, it is claimed, those who fail are guilty of either insufficient effort or character deficiencies. (DeVitis and Rich pg. 5).

Geoffrey Gorer on Success in America
         Geoffrey Gorer (1948) discusses the ideal of success in American culture:
For every right-thinking American the object of life--indeed almost the justification for living—is to be a success, to "make good." To make good things, and more of them, is the best and most concrete way of making good, and is the reason for the very high prestige and respect accorded to the successful businessman, manufacturer, and engineer.  (Pg. 172).

Gorer writes that with all the different pursuits possible in a relatively complex society and decreasing emotional involvement in one’s work, the only way to evaluate how much respect should be given to a certain occupation is by measuring the amount of income that occupation generates.
         Gorer compares income to grades in school.  Both are ways to rank individuals.  Both are relative measures.  Gorer also points out that good grades were often rewarded by parental praise and affection.  Good grades came to symbolize the promise of love.  He writes that increasing wealth is also a symbol of the promise of love.  Making money is an attempt to prove that one is worthy of love and respect.
         Gorer, like Huber, also recognizes the fact that inheriting money or having better opportunities can actually function as a handicap.  If one has a head start, he must achieve even more than his unlucky counterparts.  In other words, everyone, regardless of starting position, must strive for self-improvement.
         Gorer also points out that the need for self-improvement permeates all aspects of life.  A well-paying job is often not good enough; one wants promotions and accolades.  A well-built house is enough for only so long; soon many want a bigger house – with a pool.

HISTORY OF THE SELF-HELP MOVEMENT

Max Weber and the Protestant Ethic
In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber introduced an idea that has long since become a part of the American imagination.  He posited the idea that the American drive to become “successful” is a result of the Calvinist doctrine subscribed to by the Puritans of New England.
Calvinists believed in the doctrine of predestination – the idea that before the Creation, God had already chosen those that would be saved.  Calvinists also believed that “holy” vocations were not the only way to serve God; all work was holy as long as one endeavored to bring God into every domain of his life.  Because the mind of God could not be known, the doctrine of predestination presented an important psychological problem.  How was one to know whether he was among the saved?  His only recourse was to turn to worldly signs of grace.  This uncertainty, combined with the idea that any disciplined work was God’s work, created the idea that financial success was the greatest indicator of God’s favor.  Roy M. Anker (1999) states:
So great was the psychic burden imposed by predestination that the Puritan initiated a new rigor in labor, discipline and rational improvisation… for the getting of wealth.  Here began then, so the story goes, new and heavy emphases on punctuality, frugality, dependability, hard work, and, the farthest extreme, entrepreneurship. (Pg. 47).

Weber maintained that these ideas filtered down through generations of Americans to create our constant pursuit of success.
         In the years since Weber first put forth this theory, however, certain paradigm shifts have caused researchers to question Weber.  Social historians point to large holes in Weber’s construction of seventeenth-century New England.  Others point to the tendency of Weber’s time to study only the elites of a given place and time (Anker 1999).
Irvin Wyllie on Calvinism
         The first full-length book devoted solely to the subject of self-help was The Self-Made Man in America: The Myth of Rags to Riches by Irvin G. Wyllie.  In spite of the criticisms aimed at Weber, Wyllie also traces the obsession with self-improvement to Calvinist doctrines.  He writes that these doctrines caused poverty to be equated with sin; it was an evil thing that needed to be eradicated.  The point was not to improve conditions for others, but for every man to pull himself out of poverty.  To the Puritans, wealth was not a sign of good luck or opportunity; wealth was directly related to the upstanding morals of the wealthy man.  They believed that perseverance and discipline would make up for any shortcomings (Anker 1999).

Cawelti on the Influence of Franklin, Jefferson, and Alger
In Apostles of the Self-Made Man, John Cawelti explores the influence of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Horatio Alger.  Cawelti argues that there were three main threads of thought that led to the emphasis on self-improvement.  First, he discussed the Protestant Ethic, just as many had before him.  The second theme, he argues, was the quest for wealth, even though this was often contradictory to the first theme mentioned.  The last theme he identifies is the emphasis placed on “individual fulfillment and social progress” (Anker 1999:15-16).
         Cawelti begins his discuss of this last theme with the story of Benjamin Franklin.  He argues that Franklin became a new sort of hero – the self-made man.  In Poor Richard’s Almanac, Franklin used the possibility of financial success to lure common people toward a virtuous life, and self-discipline was the highest virtue of all.  Cawelti makes sure to point out that Franklin intended to encourage wisdom and virtue – not simply economic prosperity (Anker 1999:16).
         Cawelti also points out a fundamental paradox that must have affected the Puritans as well.  One should work hard within his calling, but should not “lust” after wealth or status.  Anker (1999) paraphrases Cawelti:
[O]pportunity created more opportunity, and thus the society as a whole flourished.  In spite of this heartening faith, brandished everywhere by success publishers and preachers, the public showed increased apprehension about many dimensions of the success dream, specifically about how easily the virtuous might be diverted into greed, vanity, or corruption either personal or commercial.  (Pg. 17).

Cawelti also discusses the influence of novelist Horatio Alger – arguably the most famous self-help promoter to date.  Alger’s heroes never rose above modest financial success with a steady income.  Alger endowed his characters with something much more important – middle-class respectability and virtue.  Alger’s novels embraced the idea that self-discipline was the highest of virtues.  Alger also championed the Puritan idea that wealth was bestowed upon those that deserved it, and that wealth was, therefore, a symbol of virtue (Anker 1999:18).
According to Cawelti, many felt, as they do still, a great ambivalence toward success.  After working hard to attain success, they found it did not endow them with the sense of well being that they expected.  In fact, the search for ever-greater amounts of money or success led to even greater unease.  Eventually, Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie responded to this ambivalence with the idea that the secret to well being was attitudinal adjustment.  Few, however, could imagine emotional well-being without “the sanction of material success.”

Huber on American Success
In The American Idea of Success, Richard Huber (1971) writes, “In America, success has meant making money and translating it into status, or becoming famous” (pg. 1).  The idea of success was used to place people within a social hierarchy.  Huber, however, noticed some interesting things about success in America.  First, one was only a success if he had achieved success.  If one’s success was merely the result of luck, one was not really a success.  This idea, like many discussed thus far, championed self-discipline as a great virtue.  Second, success had to be recognized by others.
Huber, like Alger, maintained that the “rags to riches” folk tale represented a move toward respectability rather than a move toward wealth.  “The process was the translation of an economic class position derived from making money to a social class position which was partially established by the spending of it” (pg. 7).
Huber points to the religious leader Cotton Mather as a great influence on this aspect of American thought.  Mather maintained that every Christian had two callings – to serve the Lord and have “particular employment by which his usefulness in his neighborhood is distinguished” (Huber 1971:11).  The idea was to glorify God by “doing of good for others and getting of good for himself” (Huber 1971:12).
Mather was also bothered by the idea that laziness is a sin, but so is hard work motivated by greed.  To resolve this issue, he instructed his followers to not allow their personal calling (i.e., their worldly job) to eclipse their general calling (i.e., serving the Lord).  Mather also equated wealth or success with the grace of God (Huber 1971). 
Huber goes on to discuss the effect of nineteenth-century schoolbooks.  All schoolbooks for children are written to conform to adults’ prejudices.  Thus, the ideas that supposedly originated with the Puritans in New England are still passed from generation to generation via formal schooling.  Elementary school books in America often emphasize hard work, perseverance, and thrift. 
Huber theorizes that American thought relating to success underwent a dramatic shift with the emergence of “New Thought.”  New Thought blended emotional healing, religious idealism, and modern psychology.  Huber finds no merit in New Thought.  According to Roy M. Anker (1999), he “rather fully dismisses its stance and insights as fantastic strategies of infantile wish fulfillment” (pg. 23).  He believed that New Thought essentially saw wishful thinking as the road to success.  In eschewing the ideas of New Thought, Huber also reinforced the idea that self-discipline is the surest way to success.  However, New Thought, with its emphasis on attitude, also preached self-discipline in a sense.

OTHER IDEAS ON THE NATURE OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
         Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who spent much of his professional life studying (American) human motivation.  Maslow is probably best known for his theory on the “hierarchy of needs”.  This theory states that, at the most basic level, our motivations are geared toward satisfying purely physiological needs (e.g. finding food or water).  Fulfilling these needs is our top priority.  Once these basic needs are met, however, one will seek safety.  Once he feels safe, he will seek love, and then respect (Decarvalho and Krippner 1991:87). 
         Once all these needs are met, one begins seeking to attain the highest goal—self-actualization, or “the desire to become all that one is capable of becoming” (Decarvalho and Krippner 1991:88).  The process of realizing self-actualization seems to be based on self-improvement in many different areas.

Jacob Pandian on the Judeo-Christian Conception of Self
         According to Jacob Pandian (1985), deities reflect a group’s idea of the self.  In other words, the self can be understood in terms of the “true nature” of the divine being.  In the Greek pantheistic religion, the gods were not perfect; they represented all parts of human nature – greed and evil as well as virtue.  Pandian writes:
These divinities were symbols of human experience, and they brought within the Greek conception of the self the great diversity of human possibility; they represented and legitimized the complexity of the human condition. (Pg. 9).

         Judeo-Christian doctrine, however, believes in a perfect deity.  Since groups understand the self in terms of the “true nature” of the divine being, only the virtuous aspects of one’s personality are a part of the “true self.”  So this orientation “rejects the enactment of the complexity of the human condition in the representation of divinity and offers a restricted image of the human self” (Pandian 1985:9).  In other words, any imperfections can lead to anxiety or guilt.
         Thomas Eriksen writes, “In European societies, the self is usually conceived of as undivided (as in the word ‘individual’), integrated, and sovereign...” (pg. 54).  These ideas lead us to believe that individuals are responsible for every aspect of their being and that if one aspect of our personality is not exactly what it “should” be, then the personality as a whole is not what it “should” be.
Culture vs. Nature
         In their book Culture Builders, Jonas Frykman and Orvar Löfgren analyze the emphasis on self-discipline and thrift in terms of bourgeoisie ideology.  They write, “Mankind sets as the goal of his existence the mastery of nature…” (pg. 172).  People that are closer to nature are seen as subservient to those that are more “cultured.”  Thus self-discipline becomes a virtue.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY

Schema Theory
         Jean Piaget defined a schema as “a cognitive structure which has reference to a class of similar action sequences, these sequences of necessity being strong, bonded totalities in which the constituent behavioral elements are tightly interrelated” (qtd. in De Munck 2000:77).  Schemas help us make sense of the world around us.  According to Roy D’Andrade (1992) schemas make it possible to recognize objects and events based on simplified pattern recognition.
         In his article “Schemas and Motivation,” D’Andrade discusses the motivational power of schemas.  He uses the example of the achievement schema for Americans:
For many Americans such a schema is more than just a recognition process by which an achievement can be identified when it occurs; it has the potential of instigating action; that is, for some people it is a goal.  (Pg. 29).

He points out, however, that schemas are hierarchically organized.  Thus, different schemas have differing amounts of motivational power.  Some schemas are goals in and of themselves; others only become goals if other “goal-schemas” are activated.  D’Andrade writes, “interpretations provided by one schema are ‘passed on’ to higher-level schemas in order to make more and more general interpretations” (D’Andrade 1992:30).  Schemas at the top of the hierarchy tend to function as goals – that is, one’s most general interpretations of what is happening will function as an important goal.
         D’Andrade points out that of all the schemas a person internalizes, most are based on culture.  Again, D’Andrade turns to the American conception of achievement for an example.  “Achievement” only exists because we say it does.  Certain things constitute achievement only because we say they do.  This also affects the motivational force of schemas.  Different people internalize different schemas to differing degrees (D’Andrade 1992).
         Strauss (1992) disagrees with D’Andrade about the motivational force of high-level schemas.  She theorizes that these schemas do not necessarily function as goals.  The motivational force of schemas “depends on other features of its cognitive representation” (pg. 199).  She puts forth the idea of “Personal Semantic Networks.”  These networks refer to the diversity of experiences related to widely shared schemas.  She writes:
Consider first the widely shared, easily verbalized values that underpin the “American Dream”: with hard work anyone in America can get ahead, and everyone should strive to do so.  Although my interviewees voiced this success model, they appear to hold it in a bounded way.  By “bounded” I mean these ideas are only weakly linked to the rest of the belief-holder’s knowledge structure.  Furthermore, my interviewees were able to see these values as values.  Their discourse shows not only an acceptance of success values, but also an awareness that these values are dominant ones in our society.  (Pg. 199).

Success values would be a part of what D’Andrade calls a person’s most general interpretations of what is going on.  As such, these values should carry a lot of motivational force.  However, this theory was inconsistent with what Strauss found in interviewing employees of the Cranston, Rhode Island Ciba-Geigy plant.  The men she interviewed were more likely to be motivated by a breadwinner type of schema (Strauss 1992).  Such schemas are not viewed as values but as reality itself.  These schemas can be called “transparent” schemas.
         Jerome Bruner and Bradd Shore (1996) distinguish between conventional models and personal models.  Conventional models are culturally based models that are internalized during the socialization process.  These models are internalized by individuals then externalized as shared cultural institutions.  This ensures that these models will be reproduced in the next generation.  Personal models are more idiosyncratic.  These models are based on salient emotional experiences.  Conventional models sometimes conflict with personal models, causing anxiety.
         Bruner and Shore present and define many different types of models – both personal and conventional.  The two most relevant to this particular study are the conceptual models they call person exemplars and dramatic models.  Exemplars are “culturally salient instances of objects, people, or events” (pg. 64).  Exemplars help individuals make sense of their social worlds; they help one define “success” by providing a model of the “successful” person.  Dramatic models include all forms of dramatic performance through which communities externalize their values so they can be internalized repeatedly by individuals.
The Self as Modular Commodity
         Bruner and Shore (1996) write that:
Of all the effects of modularization on the modern mind, none has been more far-reaching than its impact on our conceptions of what constitutes a person.  The logic of recombinant technology has produced a conception of identity engineering that seeks to reconfigure both the psyche and one’s social identity. (Pg. 148).

This modularization has given rise to the idea that one can reconfigure one’s personality.  Any “bad” part can be (and should be) cast out and replaced by a “good” part.  This implies that we can (and should) take control of our lives by using “personality enhancement techniques.”  Thus the self-help aisle of any bookstore is usually the largest nonfiction section.