The popularization and commercialization of self-care

Sarah Morehouse — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:49:49 +0000

I’m going to talk American culture because that’s what I know. Up through the mid-twentieth century, self-care to excess or in public was an extreme breach of propriety. Ostentatious self-denial wasn’t really trendy either, but men worked late and wore their gray flannel suits, while women put aside their own needs and wants to serve their husbands and children. Throughout this culture of subdued martyrdom was a strain of narcissism and self-indulgence. By the 20th century, the indulgences of the spa, sanitarium, and upper class study or drawing room, had become available to the middle class and the more prosperous members of the working class – the popular anti-anxiety drug Valium, domestic conveniences that saved time and effort, the notion of the family vacation, and many mass-produced little luxuries. These were all things you had to pay for.

Then the 1960s hit. Self-restraint and sacrifice were secondary casualties in the assault on the institutions that had long kept down racial minorities, women, the lower classes, and just about everybody who wasn’t a silverback with plenty of greenbacks. The cult of hard work and self-denial never disappeared; it simply switched positions with the cult of self-indulgence and narcissism.

Somewhere along the line, I think sometime in the 1970s, some genius of media and marketing realized that fortune and fame could be realized by combining the two. You must WORK HARD AT BEING WELL! You must STRIVE TO BE YOURSELF! People eat that right up, because it reconciles the two conflicting urges that our culture ingrains in us. It became so popular, so normal and normative, that people’s conversations sound like an Oprah interview – hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, feeling blue, feeling crazy, feeling bloated, feeling zen.

makeover reality TV shows
life coaches (obviously not all of them!)
motivational speakers in the business world (again, there are some gems, but I think they’d be better off as comedians or philosphers or both!)
The Secret, Name It And Claim It (hooo boy)
I’d be surprised if you couldn’t name some celebrities who make their living selling the promise of happiness and fulfillment in one form or another

It’s big business.

The politics of self-care

Sarah Morehouse — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:33:42 +0000

Throughout most of history around the world, only the elite and privileged few have had the luxury of tending to their well-being beyond satisfying their biological needs as best they could. This is still the case for a vast number of people around the world – those in developing nations, and the poor of every nation.

Self-care is politically fraught, and the way we handle self-care will be a sensitive matter, until we achieve a truly just and equitable world.

wellness without woo

The popularization and commercialization of self-care

The politics of self-care