Critic of personal development and coaching, the philosopher Julia de Funès dismantled the impostures and the mechanisms of these very popular practices in a fascinating essay (1). Always anxious to contribute to “freeing the mind from certain regiments”, today she observes with concern the rise of the woke wave. Explanations.
L’Express: Why was a philosopher like you interested in the field of personal development and coaching?
Julia de Funes: I did my philosophy thesis on the theme of personal identity and authenticity, and could not ignore the topicality of these themes, which are now monopolized by the actors of personal development. I also worked in human resources for ten years and observed coaches at work. Some people came out more prisoners than liberated from the (very questionable) precepts developed by their stereotyped coaches with uncertain training. A feeling of imposture mixed with the desire to free the mind from these bogus behavioral recipes made me want to write this book.
For you, coaching and personal development come under the same logic, the same whole?
Many coaches were offended by this connection, claiming in a learned tone that the two should absolutely not be confused. But if you stick to the reality of the facts, it turns out that most personal development authors are coaches, and that the majority of coaches create their postural kit from these books.
With books, the risk of influence is still much lower…
Not to mention influence, a book can have a great influence. If we look closely at the personal development bestsellers, all the ingredients are there to create it. A familiar tone, a friendly if not affective complicity – Lise Bourbeau (the author of The five wounds that prevent you from being yourself sold a million copies in France, Ed) for example signs all his prefaces “with love” – an osmotic and flattering understanding, which Freud called “the narcissism of the small difference” (You are like everyone else but you have something more anyway). This type of statement certainly seduces the reader who says to himself “finally someone who understands who I am”. Once the seduction has been recorded, the influence can begin.
However, readers of Natacha Calestrémé or other authors often speak of it with stars in their eyes, emphasizing the benefits it brings them…
This is quite understandable. But the good is never a sufficient argument in philosophy. “It is not because a thing is good that we desire it but because we desire it that it is good” said Spinoza. A cigarette can do me good, but it’s not a good thing! It is not a question of denigrating the effects of these works, but of understanding their workings.
What do you say to these people who, basically, are not doing very well, and find help with these books?
I’m not criticizing buying personal development books. Many buyers find themselves in a fragile state, and I fully understand their expectations and their needs. It is the supply and not the demand that I criticize. We sometimes have less consideration for our mind than for our body. If I have a physical problem, I prefer to see directly a specialist who has studied for ten years. In the event of psychological distress, it is better to consult specialists than to read recipes or go to see show-offs who have taken (online) training for a few weeks!
We can draw a parallel with alternative medicine, there is also a form of quackery with personal development…
Of course, and if coaching and personal development have no state academic recognition, it is because the training is still too muddy and far too lax. There are only certified titles or DUs (university diplomas), which are very far from state academic diplomas. Personal development is to psychology what homeopathy and other treats are to medicine. We are dealing here again with something which “does no harm” but which does not really do any good either. If you answer me “yes but it works”! But the placebo effect also works! Once again it is not the effects but the quality of the causes that I am questioning, because they seem to me more liberticidal than liberating and more impersonal than personal.
Can philosophy be an alternative?
No, philosophy is not a recipe for happiness or existential coaching! It remains a rigorous and intellectual discipline. She learns to sharpen her reasoning, to clarify her words, to expand her thinking. And it is better to be well to immerse yourself in the philosophy that prefers painful realities to comforting illusions. Unfortunately, we see more and more philosophers who are surfing the wave of personal development, which is much more sold…
Are you worried that personal development will continue to grow, thanks to the health crisis and economic difficulties in particular?
In the United States, after ten or fifteen years of hindsight on the effects of this fashion, the public is coming back. It will be the same in France, as always. Many critical works are also starting to come out. I unfailingly believe in the intelligence of the public who always know, once the fashion effect has passed, whether what they are consuming is valid or not.
At the same time, sales of well-being departments in bookstores have never been so good…
People buy station novels knowing that it’s not great literature. For personal development, it’s pretty much the same. Audiences feel that self-development is hollow, but it’s easy to read, comforts reading time, and is good for the beach. What worries me more are the much stronger identity ideologies that are spreading (woke), taking over from personal development (it’s always about “me”) but in an incomparably more dogmatic, ideological and sectarian way.
For what reasons ?
Identity ideologies enhance the “me” much more effectively than personal development, which struggles to measure its effects. With the woke, the individual feels valued in his identity. This quest for identity is the common point between personal development and the woke. Initially, there is the same lack of identity, but the response of personal development is light, that of the woke much stronger. Note that I am not against the insights that the woke brings, some have been very useful, but the concept of identity seems to me one of the most formidable, it is the whole subject of my next book, The century of the lost (which is scheduled for release in September, editor’s note).
Isn’t the woke above all the recognition of belonging to a community? On the contrary, doesn’t this make it possible to get out of the frenzied individualism that goes with personal development?
I don’t think so at all. The community to which the individual joins is there to enhance him, one enters this group to feel better about oneself: more proud, more recognized, less unfairly treated, etc. In woke, the community serves the self, not the other way around.
What is the problem?
Once again and as always, my only goal is to free the mind from certain regiments. Personal development could be one, the woke is another. But beyond the woke it is the identity which seems to me a more liberticidal concept than a liberating one. Collectively, identity turns into ideology (we see it today with the woke). Individually, identity freezes in roles and disguises as much as it formats. How many people have lost their lives to correspond to an identity that was basically not theirs? And finally, conceptually, identity is a very badly constructed notion meaning both the same (being identical) and the different (being specific). For all these reasons I show that the feeling of oneself, of us and of others, can never come from a quest for identity but from the courage of one’s freedom.
(1) (Im)personal development, the success of a shamEditions de l’Observatoire, 160 pages, 16 euros.