The main weakness
of modern self-help books, as opposed to those written in antiquity by the
likes of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, is that they begin not from truth but from
the desires and aspirations of the multitude. Far from a teacher pointing the
way toward virtue, the modern “self-help guru” is reduced to a servant, cannibalising
certain philosophical techniques in order to help people achieve money,
“success”, and heightened endorphin production more effectively. But there is
at least one modern self-help book that in its essential content harks back to
the older tradition, and that book is Radical Honesty, written by a Texan
psychotherapist named Brad Blanton who describes himself as “white trash with a
Ph.D.”.
The
self-help method of Radical Honesty and
its sequel Practicing Radical Honesty
is simple: tell the truth, about
everything, all the time, without lying or withholding anything. It is
important to emphasise that Blanton does not advocate this commitment to
honesty out of a moral opposition to lying. Rather, working back to traditional
virtues through modern utilitarianism, he sees radical honesty as the only truly effective therapeutic
path to health and happiness.
