The Cult of Self (Part Three)

From the rise of reality TV and influencer culture to the constant bombardment of advertising messages, it seems that our culture is more focused on the self than ever before. But how did we get here? In this episode, I continue the exploration of the cult of self from the perspective of how our obsession with self has shaped the advertising industry throughout the 20th and 21st century, including the rise of reality tv and the influencer economy.

Listen in as I discuss the concept of “selfie dysmorphia” and how it has become a pervasive issue, leading many to seek out extreme measures to achieve an idealized version of themselves. I also take a dive into the history of advertising and propaganda from the nephew of Freud himself, how religion has shaped our relationship with the self, and how the advent of the computer and the internet has contributed to the cult of the self . Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild ride!

And as with everything I share on the podcast, this is what I believe based on what I’ve read and researched. But please don’t take my word for it. Keep what sticks, discard the rest and for goodness sakes, go out and test drive it!

What You’ll Learn In Today’s Episode:

• How advertising has fed into our self-obsession and what it means to engineer consent.

• What contributed to the rise of reality TV and the influencer economy.

• How the smartphone has been central to the rise of influencers.

• How religion fits into our self-obsession.

• How living in a “we” space can have a significant positive impact on our lives.

What Was Mentioned:

• Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing to Us by Will Storr

• Propaganda by Edward Bernays

• The Century of the Self

• Why Is Influencer Marketing Such A Big Deal Right Now?

• Age is just a number: How to adapt influencer marketing strategies for different generations

• A Gen Z Religious revival: 250 hours of worship in Kentucky

• The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny by William Strauss and Neil Howe

Ideas Worth Sharing:

“Today we have unlimited terms to describe the same thing; disinformation, misinformation, fake news, hype, spin, state sponsored BS.” – Christina Sestan

“If you feel close to someone online, it is very likely you will trust what they tell you.” – Christina Sestan

“Reality TV has now become indispensable for making stars out of untalented or unworthy folks and birthing a whole new subset of so-called Z list celebrities.” – Christina Sestan

“Anyone with an opinion and the means to broadcast it can potentially grow into an influencer.” – Christina Sestan

“If ever there was a career most suited to the Cult of the Self, then influencer must be it.” – Christina Sestan 

“Your most sacred life stories – are they about you or we?” – Christina Sestan

Connect with me: Instagram

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• Read the Full Transcript

  Speaker 1 0:01

  Hey, it's Christina. Thanks for joining us. And welcome to The Squeeze. When considering our current online psychographic data harvesting that is accurate to the 98 percentile, it's pretty easy to miscategorize the past into a much more innocent age. Welcome back to episode three in our three part series called The Cult of the Self. It's a series where I'm exploring the impact of our cultural focus on the self, and if you haven't already listened to part one or two yet. I recommend you go back and start there, as both pieces provide context for better understanding the questions that I'm going to be exploring in this episode. But first, a quick recap. In the first episode, I took a rather lengthy journey back through time, starting with ancient Greece and the origins of the self, and then I worked towards current times, and I used the metaphor of a giant pendulum that was swinging back and forth between the periods of history that focused on the self and the periods of history that focused on the denial of the self. And episode one left off on the heels of the human potential movement at the end of the 20th century. In episode two, I picked up after the fires of the human potential movement had died down, revealing some elements of a seedy underbelly. I shared the story of a fascinating man named John Vasconcellos, who lit the fuse on a self-esteem craze that blew up through the 90s and beyond, and I deconstructed the story to reveal just how shaky many of our current day attitudes are towards self-esteem and the assumption of positive impact on mental health, but of course the actual research into self-esteem revealed that self-esteem was the result and not the cause, and that focusing too much on self-esteem actually resulted in narcissism, and then I looked at the overall health of some of our oldest and most fundamental social contracts, news, institutional information, health care, government, et cetera, and what we may have to look forward to as these continue to erode, and that brings us to episode three, where I'll be exploring advertising influencer culture, selfie dysmorphia, religion, and I'll also be looking for the fingerprints of the cult of self on all of it. Lastly, I'll land on a discussion around a healthier and perhaps more nuanced relationship with the self. So, buckle up. Okay. Back in episode one, I referenced Sigmund Freud's influence on modern day psychology, and that his most notable contribution was his introduction of psychoanalysis, and, of course, the id, the ego, and the superego. I also noted that much of his research revolved around the unconscious motivations of the self. This last part, his research into our unconscious motivations is important to remember for the story I'm about to share. So, do you remember Lucky Strikes? Even if you're not a smoker, you've probably seen someone smoking them in the movies, or perhaps you remember the distinctive red circle with a gold ring around it, and the words "Lucky Strike" in capital white letters. The American Tobacco Company, the creators of Lucky Strike, originated in 1916 in Durham, North Carolina, right next to Virginia, the oldest tobacco territory in the US. A decade into their efforts, George W. Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Company was itching for a way to take advantage of the wholly untapped female market at the time, smoking in public, or for that matter, even at all, was highly unseemly for women, and so in 1927 the company hired a public relations specialist by the name of Edward Bernays to help them surmount this challenge. Now Bernays came up with a pretty ingenious strategy that was designed to persuade women to smoke by initiating one of the earliest ideals of thinness. Bernays leveraged photographers, artists, newspapers, and even doctors to project the special beauty of thinness into the public zeitgeist, and to achieve this new ideal, women were encouraged to smoke instead of eating. Lucky Strike ads then stepped in to capitalize on the cultural shift, and they used slogans like, quote, "When tempted, reach for a lucky, or "I smoke a lucky instead of eating sweets, or my personal favorite, I know an easy way to keep from getting fat. Incredibly, some medical practitioners got on board promoting cigarettes over sweets, and women began to correlate smoking with thinness.

  Speaker 1 4:52

  The online article, Digital History on Weight and Slimness in Advertising, from the University of Ottawa, I. Identified that quote women were seen as self-respecting if she improves her visual experience, since physical identity was critical to the women's success or failure in life more broadly, end quote. Result, more women started smoking, and the American Tobacco Company increased their revenues, but in spite of more women smoking, smoking in public was still very much a taboo, and George W. Hill was convinced that there was still more female market share to grab. Brunet stepped in again, and after consulting with the psychiatrist A. A. Brill, he deduced that the psychological basis for women to smoke was that cigarettes were equated with men. In other words, for women receptive to the notion of women's rights, cigarettes could represent so-called torches of freedom. Smoking could be an act of emancipation. An Easter day women's party march was organized in New York City, and 10 pleasant-looking young women were recruited to light up and join the march, passing themselves off as legitimate activists. Bertha Hunt, that was Bernays' very own secretary, she posed as a women's rights advocate to drum up support for the event, and she sent a letter to selected debutantes, and it read, quote, in the interests of equality of the sexes, and to fight another sex taboo, I and other young women will light another torch of freedom by smoking cigarettes while strolling on Fifth Avenue Easter Sunday, end quote. Smoking was by no means the explicit focus of the event, and in fact, any connection to the American Tobacco Company was entirely obscured. As expected, the media showed up in droves, and the front page of the New York Times read, quote, "group of girls puff at cigarettes as a gesture of freedom, end quote. According to the online article, Digital History on Weight and Slimness in Advertising from the University of Ottawa, quote, the message was effective and far-reaching, which resulted in increasing Lucky Strikes market share by 200% and it became the best-selling brand until the 1950s Okay, but the story doesn't end there. Even though women were smoking now more than ever, they were, believe it or not, reluctant to buy Lucky Strikes, in particular, because the original green packaging colors clashed with their preferred fashion choice, which was primarily red. So you can imagine that by now, Bernays, he's on speed dial, and his first suggestion is predictable: change the packaging, but American Tobacco Company had already outlaid significant funds to brand the package design, and they refused to budge. So, Bernays has to go back to his big bag of persuasion tricks, and he pulls out an idea called the Green Ball. It was a swanky event to be held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City on the pretext of raising funds for charity. As with past campaigns, the American Tobacco Company's involvement was nowhere in sight. An anonymous sponsor agreed to donate to the charity if certain famous women would agree to show up wearing green. Fashion designers were tipped off early enough for them to begin hyping the color green in advance, which led to newspapers and magazines getting to the act, and ta-da, green became the new black. It was a hat trick for Bernays, but what was the secret to Bernays' success from the book "Business Finds Its Voice" written in 1968 authors Walker and Sklar write, quote, "Better to implant an idea in a group leader's mind and let him spread it than to write up an idea and send it to the papers as a release in the old-fashioned way. End quote. Bottom line, Bernays was an opinion molder, rather than the old need-based approach to advertising, where advertisers would expound on the virtues of whatever product or service they were selling, trusting it would speak for itself. Bernays pioneered want-based campaigns. He, in effect, modified society to want whatever product he was representing, Bernays himself describes it best. This is from his book Propaganda, which was written in 1928 Quote, the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country.

  Speaker 1 9:47

  We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which. Our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses, it is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. End quote. Do you imagine Bernays saw himself as one of the relatively few small number of people that he refers to. You bet he did. The whole operation must have felt like watching The Wizard of Oz pulling all those levers behind the curtain, except it wasn't like that at all. Because, unlike the Wizard, Bernays actually wielded power. So then, how did he go about cracking wide open that advertising egg? Where did he look for his inspiration and understanding of human psychology? Well, okay. Remember, at the beginning I referenced Freud, and I talked about his research into our unconscious motivations. Well, guess who Freud's nephew was. That's right, Edward Bernays. It's quite possible that Freud's nephew exerted just as much influence on advertising in the 20th century as his uncle did on psychology and psychotherapy. In an article in History Today that was called The Original Influencer, author Iris Mostigal writes, influenced by his famous uncle, with whom he corresponded regularly, Bernays got to understand the power of the unconscious, of universal longings, of emotions, and instinct. He exploited them for whatever he had to sell. Bernays' biographer was quoted as saying he generated events, the events generated news, and the news generated a demand for whatever he happened to be selling. End quote. In a quote from a highly engaging, albeit lengthy documentary that's available to you on YouTube, it's called The Century of the Self. Adam Curtis, the documentarian, is quoted as saying Bernays was the first person to take Freud's ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses. He showed organizations how they could make people want things they didn't need and mass produce goods to their unconscious desires by satisfying people's inner selfish desires. One made them happy and thus docile. It was the start of an all-consuming self, which has come to dominate our world today. End quote. And while I might dispute that the all-consuming self goes back further than the beginning of the 20th century, as I explored in the previous two episodes, I do agree that it has come to dominate the world. Bernays approach was aptly dubbed the engineering of consent, mirroring the philosophy Wall Street banker Paul Mazur wrote in a 1927 edition of the Harvard Business Review, quote, people must be trained to desire to want new things even before the old have been entirely consumed, end quote. The idea that sophisticated advertising targeting on our unconscious desires was happening at this scale 100 years ago kind of throws me. I think when considering our current online psychographic data harvesting that is accurate to the 98 percentile, it's pretty easy to mis-categorize the past into a much more innocent age. We all suffer from a bit of the quote things are so much worse now unquote bias, just like the first line in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities quote, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, end quote. But, of course, the seeds of all of this had been germinating since the 14th century. We've just been improving our technology. Do you ever wonder if we'd be better off back in the dark ages, when there wasn't so much emphasis on the self, when the threat of heresy ensured people behaved well? Of course, you don't, because then things like the Black Death and famine and the Crusades and danger every day, and probably early death, and okay, let's scrap that. I'm back.

  Speaker 1 14:23

  Part of what helped to create the conditions for Bernays to do what he did, I mean, besides his obvious unconscious desires, and of course, access to Freud's research, it was the sharp recession in the US at the time, where people had dramatically reduced their spending and were only purchasing what they needed. You have to remember that this was after World War One, where the cost of human life, not to mention resources, had been pretty high. All of this would have pretty much had serious ramifications on the manufacturing sector, and they would be itchy to get consumerism up and running again. So it was, in effect, the perfect. Condition for Bernays to experiment with his uncle's discoveries during peacetime propaganda, and isn't propaganda an interesting word? I get the feeling that Bernays very intentionally chose the term to describe his career. The dictionary defines it as the spreading of ideas, information, or rumors for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person. While the term actually dates back to the 17th century, the way we use it today was mostly shaped during World War One, when it was used both to motivate populations to fight while simultaneously weakening the enemy's will to fight in much of my research into Bernays, he seemed pretty darn psyched to apply something generally associated with wartime to peacetime endeavors. His unique spin on the word stuck, and today the concept is ubiquitous, even in spite of the much darker tenor it acquired in the services of the Nazi party during World War Two today, of course, we have unlimited terms to describe the same thing. We've got disinformation, misinformation, fake news, hype, spins, state-sponsored BS. You get the gist. Speaking of propaganda, reality TV is interesting, isn't it? Whether you watch it or not, you probably know about it, and of course we all know that, like wrestling reality TV isn't actually real. Participants are put into artificial situations, they're coached, soft scripted in order to generate certain behaviors, and then they're edited in misleading ways that sometimes alter the entire story, but we keep watching it. Okay, maybe not we, but lots of people do, and the staggering array of new combinations and permutations for show ideas seems to be limited only by the horrifyingly sadistic minds of the producers, makeovers, people with disabilities, religious subcultures, renovations, cooking, singing, take your pick. The one topic I haven't seen, which I would sign up for in a flash, is a reality TV show about the making of reality TV. I mean, can't you just see it? Oh man, she looks awful when she cries. Can we get a close up? Hey, if we splice that part with this part doesn't it make them sound like they're racist? Awesome, roll with it. I am constantly shaking my head at the fact that anyone would agree to subject themselves to something where the details of their private lives, no matter how ugly it might make them seem, are encouraged. But probably you're way smarter than me, and you already know that reality TV has become a very expedient pipeline to a successful influencing career. Of course, this wasn't always the case. Back in the 90s, participants were likely a little clueless about this new world of television, which might account for why it was a tad bit more cringy and interesting to watch early participants, they didn't possess nearly the level of image management sophistication that they do now. The real world, that was arguably one of the earliest and longest running of the most recent chapters of reality TV, because, of course, we need to account for much earlier chapters that included shows like Cops, and then way back, Candy Camera, the show The Real World featured seven or eight young adults living together in New York City. It was kind of a reality TV meets soap opera style show where every moment of their lives together was recorded. One of the original cast members was quoted online in an In Touch Weekly article as saying, quote, the whole idea that anything would really happen with real world that was just not on the radar. I was just thinking that I would have my rent paid for a while, and then I'm going to study dance, and it would be my springboard. End quote.

  Speaker 1 18:51

  But I think that what likely happened to change all of that was the convergence of two things. Firstly, viewers probably wanted updates about participants after they'd left the show, and secondly, participants that were maybe antsy to turn some of the lemons of their potentially cringeworthy experiences into lemonade, they may have sought a little TLC from their supportive fans, and this convergence spawned a very unique and timely feature of reality TV that went way beyond conventional television, and is such a good representation of the impact of the cult of the self. You could actually have a relationship with a person in the show, you could post on their social media, or watch their live feed, or sign up for their special subscription-based content, and maybe they would even send you a message they felt accessible, relatable. This was all incredibly apropos for a culture that venerated authenticity. Instagram became ubiquitous for anyone with designs on a reality TV launchpad, and even the most margin. National side characters today milk their reality TV association to build on their online brand, and more than a few reality TV personalities have managed to leverage their experiences into a massive following that has translated into a pretty valuable payday, which only serves to stoke the fires of the plethora of people busting down the producers' doors with their audition tapes, and if you've ever wondered how influencers make money, then you should know that, according to Nielsen's latest Global Trust in Advertising report, of 28,000 respondents in 56 countries, 92% of consumers said they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising. So think about it. If you feel close to someone online, it's very likely you're going to trust what they tell you, and you just know that some savvy marketing or advertising person, or likely many simultaneously, observed the growing follower bases online, and thought, "How can I get them to hold up a can of Coke in their Instagram live feed? This type of advertising is now valued at $15 billion annually, and is a bonafide part of every company's advertising strategy, but whoever was first to the post on this one is probably living high on the hog. Reality TV has now become indispensable for making stars out of untalented or unworthy folks and birthing a whole new subset of so-called Z list celebrities. Thirtys, hey, you're listening to the Squeeze, and if you like what you're hearing, there's a whole world of citrus couching to discover. We've got an online leadership program, it's called Citrus You, and it features those three key tools you need to be a better leader, well, to be a better human, we also have a number of mini learning bundles that you can get into, and there's plenty more. If you're interested, you can follow us on Instagram, or check out our website@www.citruscoaching.com And the show resumes now, you but of course, reality TV - it's just one pipeline to becoming an influencer. Anyone with an opinion and the means to broadcast it can potentially grow into an influencer. Couple that with the point I raised in part two about the rise of distrust in our institutional sources of information, and bam, influencers slide neatly into the vacuum. In a Forbes article entitled, Why is influence marketing such a big deal right now, author Michael Furtick wrote, quote, younger audiences, in particular, are skeptical of traditional one-way communication strategies and celebrity endorsements. He goes on, on the flip side, for many consumers, influencers epitomize authenticity. People can engage directly with influencers, many of whom respond to posts and comments and participate in two-way dialog with followers. End quote. We were clearly ripe for an influencer revolution, which is strangely reassuring. Now that I understand the larger context behind the whole thing.

  Speaker 1 23:23

  Initially, I found the notion of influencing pretty annoying and senseless, not gonna lie, but the more I consider it, the more I think it could even be argued that influencers pick up where the more traditional information sources left off by providing advice on how to live and what to think, and of course, on the other side of the ring light are legions of would-be influencers, only too happy to tell us how to contour our foundation or fix our scraped wheel rims or lose 15 pounds or start a business, or honestly anything else you can think of under the sun, but far beyond their individual areas of specialization, which it turns out are, you know, they're pretty incidental. What many are really after is fame for its own sake. In the book Selfie, which I've referenced several times, Store introduces us to an influencer by the name of CJ. CJ wakes up every day at 4am to do her makeup and pick out her outfit for her photo shoots. None of this is for real life, of course, according to CJ. Quote, yeah, I don't really care how it looks in real life when I'm doing my makeup, I won't look in the mirror, I'll hold my phone up. End quote. CJ posts only the finest edited and filtered selfies to Facebook and Instagram with captions such as hypnotizing, mesmerizing me, CJ's life ambition, it's simple to be known, which I guess is the same thing as fame for someone like me who rarely to ever take selfies in public. CJ's complete lack of humility makes me flinch. She's just so unapologetic about it all. I probably sound like a boomer, I'm not, and whinging about the way things used to be. Okay, maybe I am, and you're gonna crucify me if I start this next sentence with "back in my day. But honestly, back in my day, no one would have just put it out there so plainly, unless they were kidding around or a bit off. If they had, they would have been branded arrogant immediately. But CJ doesn't flinch in the face of judgment. Quote, out of all the insults someone could throw at me, like, "You're a bitch, you're horrible, you're narcissistic, it means nothing. End quote. But CJ has her kryptonite, and you can probably guess what it is, in her words, quote, for someone to say there's nothing special about you, you're just ordinary, that would be the worst thing I could think of, end quote. Influencers seek and value endorsement from people they don't know, CJ explains, quote, I have my friends who say you're a beautiful person, or whatever, but for some reason I seek validation from strangers, people online. It feeds me getting good comments sets me up for the day. End quote. If ever there was a career most suited to the cult of the self, then influencers must be it. Stored as describes influencing as gamifying the self. We turn our identity into a pawn that plays competitively on digital platforms for likes, feedback, and friends, and the pressure is huge to be better, more entertaining, original, beautiful, have more friends, be funnier, have more righteous opinions, and all while looking stylish, the winners they can become extremely wealthy celebrities. The whole endeavor sounds so hopelessly hollow and unsatisfying to me, but maybe that's just because I'm not really the main demographic to influence or be influenced to. According to Adam Williams in the online article, age is just a number. How to adapt influencer marketing strategies for different generations. Quote, almost three quarters of influencers are under the age of 35 Although there has been a marked rise in influencers above the age of 55 so-called grand influencers, this is likely due to greater access to disposable income influences, on the other hand, he writes, fall mostly squarely in the 16 to 24 set. The smartphone has, of course, been central to the influencer phenomenon, rising almost predictably from within a self-focused culture. Though, of course, it wasn't predictable at all. In fact, it has been one of the bigger technological innovations in my lifetime. Anyway, if you know much about the early smartphone design strategies, you may know that design engineers were pretty unprepared for the massive adoption of the camera technology.

  Speaker 1 27:52

  While it took some time for conventional camera sales to decrease in response to the fact that everyone now had a camera in their pocket, what really took the wind out of conventional camera sales was the smartphones front-facing camera almost right out of the gate. The images taken with the front camera were as important, if not more so, than those taken with the main camera in the back. The year was 2012 and the world was just beginning to wrap its head around something called the selfie phenomenon. I remember a meme. It had a picture of Neil Armstrong, and it was captioned, "Went to the moon, took five pictures. Below was a picture of a teenage girl. Her caption read, "Went to the bathroom, took 30 pictures. Professor Campbell, who co-authored Twenge's research into the narcissism epidemic writes, quote, people could have done all sorts of things with that technology. She said, we could have filled the internet with pictures of flowers and architecture and mummies taking pictures of our mom every day and saying how great our mom is, but we didn't do that. Well, we did it a little bit, but selfies are what boomed, mostly by kids of the self-esteem generation, end quote. According to multiple sources, there are between 92 and 93 million selfies taken per day. 18 to 24 year olds reported that one out of every three photos that they take is a selfie, and millennials, of course, are the demographic most likely to publish said selfie. There's even a term to describe someone who takes too many selfies: self-itas. We have become so thoroughly engrossed in our own image, and now, with technology's help, we are able to curate the perfect picture using special filters, lighting, and editing. Body consciousness, nothing new, but with the ubiquitous smartphone poised in everyone's hands, it turns out that you're no longer sitting around the pool with just a few friends, you're sitting around with well, potentially anyone on social media. Uploading or tagging a photo of someone else is, of course, greeted with swift castigation, but it is impossible to blame. Release everyone all the time, which just makes more content for those sites where you can look at posted photos versus tagged photos and marvel at the difference. At least I do, anyway. Selfie dysmorphia, also known as Snapchat dysmorphia, it's a term that has emerged to describe a particular type of body dysmorphia amplified by the rise of social media, it's a disconnection that is experienced between how one looks online and how one actually looks in real life. Predictably, this is a gateway to cosmetic surgery. In fact, in my research, I came across an app called Face Touch Up for visualizing plastic surgery results. The site extols the benefits of the digital imaging technology that surgeons use to visualize plastic surgery results. There's a subreddit that I follow called Instagram Reality that posts pictures of people with and without filters. Of course, the technology is getting so good so quickly that it's harder and harder to spot, which is of course the point. Bottom line, we're obsessed with our image. Move over, Narcissus. Okay, by the way, what has become of God in all of this? Does God have a place in our self-saturated culture? Has our self-obsession managed to infiltrate our houses of prayer. I think it's actually less a case of infiltration and more a case of overshadowing from Barry Weiss's Honestly podcast episode, entitled A Gen Z religious revival, 250 hours of worship in Kentucky. A fascinating listen, by the way, she reports that quote, religion has been on the decline in America for years, but last year, for the first time in American history, house of worship membership dropped below 50% For a little bit of context, that number was 70% in 1999 and nowhere is the decline in religion and faith more dramatic than when you look at our youngest generation to explain the decline. She goes on, Zoomers are a generation riddled with anxiety and depression and inundated with nihilistic and fatalistic images, TV shows, movies, pop songs throughout the culture. In poll after poll, they are the generation with the least positive outlook on life. She also shares that young adults under 23 are the most likely Americans yet to say they don't believe in God. They are the least religiously affiliated and least likely to go to church.

  Speaker 1 32:30

  In the podcast, Weiss interviews journalist Olivia Reingold about her experience covering a Christian revival event that took place in a small chapel at Ashbury University in Kentucky. Earlier this year, the event began on the heels of a hastily organized sermon about authentic and sincere love. And after the service, students were invited up onto stage for prayer if they hadn't felt sincere love for a while. After the service was over, 18 students remained and continued singing and praying and worshiping students who had already left the chapel received texts with messages like you need to come back here, something is happening, and what ensued was 250 hours of nonstop prayer and worship that got bigger and bigger, attracting 10s of 1000s of visitors from across the country, and even outside the US, people lined up for hours to experience what was happening inside the chapel. The word revival, which is defined as a spontaneous resurgence of faith and is very reminiscent of 18th century farm field revival tense, was how the event was being described, but no matter what you call it, it's curious to consider how this event, and perhaps others like it to lesser degrees, are related to the fallout of going too far in our focus on the self. Rheingold referred to kids 11 and 12 years old, sharing how they were struggling with anxiety and mental health issues, and how often they encountered distressing news that they felt powerless over some of the students interviewed reported struggling with anxiety and depression, and that they were sick of crying after seeing disturbing images on social media. They reported being tired of the distraction of meaningless things like online fame. They talked about how COVID just added another level of online intensity to their lives, Weiss referenced our current culture as quote such an epidemic of loneliness and alienation, and a crisis of meaning, where people are yearning for something bigger than themselves, yearning for the ancient needs of community and belonging and meaning, end quote. What happened in that university chapel seems to have acted like a profound kind of antidote to legions of disaffected and disconnected youth, good old-fashioned human connection and community. Sometimes the past really was like the halcyon days. Surely this event revealed just the tiniest sliver of a big gaping hole. People that I think many people in our Western world can relate to and feel, and that leads me to the final chapter in this otherwise meandering series on the cult of the self. How do we slow the swing of that big old pendulum and push, push it back even just a little bit in the other direction, but of course embedded in the question is a binary assumption. I actually don't think our reality is that black and white, that self-focused or self-denying, and so our way forward won't be either. I'm going to do something a little bit unorthodox here. I'm going to create a scene in my imagination where I'm sitting around with a group of philosophers and psychoanalysts and deep thinkers who you've already met on this three part podcast journey thus far, and together we're just going to sit around and have a good old yak session. So I'm sitting here next to a couple of researchers, Burr and Christensen, and they wrote this American Psychological Association paper, and it was entitled Undesirable Side Effects of Enhancing Self-Esteem, and as I look over at them, they look like they've probably got something interesting to say. So, I think, why not start with them? What do you guys think about all of this? I mean, do you think we've swung too far? They both consider my question for a moment, and then Christensen replies, authentic selfhood is only possible in the context of shared traditions and ways of life with others. Hm, I respond. There are a few nods of approval from others in the room, so I continue. Are you promoting a kind of cooperative development process between self and society simultaneously, and that, like social change and individual change are inextricably linked. The pair nod vigorously, clearly delighted that I've actually read their paper, but I'm not just trying to flatter them. This actually makes a lot of sense to me. If this is true, I continue, then aren't we at a bit of a crossroads here?

  Speaker 1 36:58

  It seems pretty obvious that we're going to have to own up to the fact that, as a highly social species, everything we do impacts others. I feel like what I'm saying is probably corroborated within this group, but I'm curious, how they'll respond. Freud, sitting to my right, leans forward abruptly. This blindness will leave us with little compassion for people that fall outside of our individual circles. Everyone nods and says, so for that blindness to remain intact, I say, I guess we have to continually distract ourselves from the truth of our situation, right? And what's the truth? Johan Hari asks from across the room. I take a deep breath, thinking I should probably insert a trigger warning here, but I don't. The truth, I start is that none of us have our shit together. Our lives are ultimately pointless. We live in a world of turmoil and inequality, and ultimately we're all going to die. I'm met with silence. Oh, have I harshed the buzz? But no, Rousseau clears his throat, and everyone looks at him. Natural love, he says, is corrupted by societal demands and expectations for individuals to compete with one another over resources and prestige. Society thus breeds a kind of vanity and self-importance. Everyone nods again. I think this is wise, even for Rousseau, and I'm starting to feel like we're getting somewhere. But these are not easy pills to swallow. I say, I think it's probably going to take a bit of a battering ram to disavow some people of the sacredness of their individuality. Storr shifts in his seat. There's no authentic self. We are a collection of selves. Different versions become dominant in different settings. The self warps and morphs depending upon what it believes is expected of it. We're unaware of the constant state of flux that the self is in. The environments do the shifting, not us. Someone says, "Amen. Can I share a little homegrown wisdom? Johann Hari asks. We all nod. I started to think one of the most banal, obvious cliches we have: be you, be yourself. We say to one another all the time, we share memes about it. We say it to encourage people when they're lost or down. Even our shampoo bottles tell us, because you're worth it. But what I was being taught is, if you want to stop being depressed, don't be you, don't be yourself, don't fixate on how you're worth it. It's thinking about you, you, you that's helped to make you feel so lousy. Don't be you, be us, be we, be part of the group, make the group worth it. The real path to happiness, they were telling me, comes from dismantling our ego walls, from letting yourself flow into other people's stories and letting their stories flow into yours, from pooling your identity, from realizing that you were never you alone, heroic, sad all along everyone nods again, and William Strauss and Neil Howe glance quickly at one another. Do you guys have something to add? I ask. Neil nods and says, Where we once thought ourselves collectively strong, we now regard ourselves as individually entitled, yet even while we exalt our own personal growth, we realize that millions of. Self-actualized persons don't add up to an actualized society. This is met with deep consideration. I can't help myself. So, what then must we do? I ask. Everyone looks at everyone else for a few moments, and then I hear a quiet but powerful voice from the back of the room. You tell us. I glance around. It's Socrates. I haven't even noticed him before, which is funny, because he's the only one wearing a toga. Of course, I'd noticed Rousseau's powdered wig right away. Socrates is leaning against a window ledge, looking outside. Are you referencing the Oracle of Delphi? I ask, are you telling me I should know myself enough that I can answer this? It's corny, and I thought we were just agreeing that we'd gone too far in the direction of the self. I mean, sure, it's his calling card and everything, but it's not like Rousseau just launched into his man is born free speech. Still, I do have some ideas. I think I can tap my own experience and offer something here. And right then, Socrates looks right at me and winks, and I think, right, Greek, it is so.

  Speaker 1 41:05

  For the last 20 years or so, I've been starting every workshop or facilitated session with something I've just called context setting. My experience has shown me that unless participants believe the day will be personally relevant, directly relatable, and somewhat urgently needed, they will have an automatic tendency to hold the experience at arm's length, ebbing and flowing in their engagement based on numerous factors that don't have much to do with them, such as how interesting I am or how good the lunch is, and unless I had this tendency off at the pass, I will likely be confronted with a bunch of spectators. This, of course, is not a good learning attitude, and will vastly reduce any potential transformative outcomes. It is also boring as hell, and a waste of my time. So I introduced the concept by asking people to identify where they see themselves on a simple continuum model with the word me on one end and we on the other to help them clarify, I ask if they are mostly considering their current experience through a lens of what they think about it and what it means to them, and how it is affecting them, which is of course more towards the me end of the continuum. This is an exceedingly common place to find people, and it tends to look a lot like wait and see kind of posture. It's actually quite normal for people coming into learning or development experience, which is problematic, because if not challenged, it pretty much shuts out learning. Essentially, what I'm doing with the continuum is holding up a mirror and asking them if this is really the way they want to go through the rest of the day, and of course, it's not. Waiting and seeing is bloody boring, not to mention a waste of time, but until it gets unpacked they're unable to see how they are driving the bus, but now they can see themselves half-assing their experience in real time, and then I ask them to imagine standing closer to the wee end of the spectrum. It often takes a bit to get to this part and get it going, but once people find their wee footing, I usually hear things like curiosity in the other participants, or how they've actually been longing for some time to connect with their peers and to step back from the immediacy of work and reflect. I admit this is far from rocket science. It's a simple exercise that gently creates conditions for people to be a bit more conscious about the agency they have in their decision about how they're going to go through an experience, and people generally find their way into more of a we space with one another, and predictably the engagement goes up, and the day usually passes swiftly when time is kind of lost because the experience itself is so present centered for people who habitually cleave to their beloved individualism, it can be a bit jarring at first, but the funny thing is that back when I used to evaluate my programs, participants often referred to the context setting exercise as their biggest takeaway. To me, this is just further evidence that people only need the gentlest of nudges to explore the land towards the wee space. Are you up for a little exercise? Try this. Imagine yourself stuck in unexpectedly bad traffic. Okay, I'm talking unprecedented bridge lane closures, stuck in the tunnel kind of thing, something you never could have anticipated. It's moving, but barely now. Imagine that you are prevented from going somewhere to do something really, really important. Perhaps someone you love is waiting at the airport, or your child just broke their arm at soccer practice, and they need to go to the ER, or your best friend just got the worst news of their life, and you're going to rush over to console them now. Observe yourself in this imaginary visualization. What would you be thinking and feeling and doing? Is your mind going 100 miles an hour? Are you scrolling your phone frantically searching for information about what's going on and when it will get cleared up? Are you desperately trying to reach friends or family for help? Is your blood pressure and heart rate increasing? Are you sweating, banging your hand or head on the steering wheel, and swearing?

  Speaker 1 45:08

  If Morgan Freeman were narrating your experience right now for a movie trailer, what would he say, and what would it sound like now? Same situation, but very intentionally try to see your experience through more of a we lens. What does this mean to us, as in the other people stuck in traffic, and your friends, and your family, and everyone else? Likely you're still going to scroll your phone looking for information, and you'll still call friends and family for backup, but perhaps you'll also look around, and you'll notice the other drivers around you wondering who they are, where they're going, that older person in the car behind you. Maybe they live alone, they look concerned, maybe they don't have anyone to call, maybe they don't have a phone, maybe that couple over there are having a heck of a time consoling their infant, who is visibly melting down in the backseat car carrier. Maybe someone is barely hanging on to life as the ambulance tries to pick its way through to them. Maybe you think of all the people you love and care about. How would things feel different in this scenario? Maybe after taking the time to make a few calls or send some texts, you actually feel a kind of resolve or release as you acknowledge your lack of control. Perhaps, as you look around, you recognize that everyone is facing the same situation. In effect, you're all in it together, and maybe you catch the eye of the person in the car right beside you, and you give them one of those "I know, right? Can you believe it? Looks, and then smile. Maybe you take some deep breaths, and you feel your body relax. Maybe you turn on some music and look around you, wondering what kind of birds are those on the lamp post. Okay, Morgan is back. He's gonna narrate your new movie trailer. What's he saying this time? It's a simple parlor trick, admittedly, but it's not a bad way to help people face the universal truth that shit happens. Yes, it does, and no one cuts the line on that one, but it's also true that we're not without some agency in what we tell ourselves about said shit, because the story we make up, that's the thing we tend to tote along with us through life, that's our proverbial baggage, and for most people that I've worked with over the last couple of decades, the stories that give us more fulfillment, the ones we actually enjoy carrying forward, the ones that don't actually weigh anything at all. Oh, and quick spoiler alert here, these stories are, of course, in no way, shape, or form any more or less true, because experience is just experience, and the story is what we make up to codify said experience. Well, these valuable stories are the ones we tell ourselves when we live from a we space. Test drive it for yourself. Your most sacred life stories, are they about you or are they about we? It's such a little thing, when I reflect on all the enormous impacts I've encountered in this research journey into the cult of the self. How will we ever right that ship all the same? Isn't it about finding the difference that will make the biggest difference? In which case, I'm going to plant a little flag here with this approach: choose to look at life from we and tell me what you notice. All right, I'm going to leave you with a quote from the authors Strauss and Howe from their book, The Fourth Turning, because I think it beautifully sums up my experience of preparing for this series. Quote, the reward of the historian is to locate patterns that recur over time, and to discover the natural rhythms of social experience. End quote. And I have seen those patterns, and I have reflected deeply, and I continue to reflect deeply. And damn it, if the more I know, the more I don't know. And so it goes, because isn't life itself the question? It's been fun.

  Speaker 1 49:01

  Thanks for coming along for the ride, and stay tuned for upcoming podcasts that deep dive into our inner critic, our use of power, and online trolling. Until next time, stay curious. So you've been listening to The Squeeze. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to continue tuning in, don't forget to click subscribe. And, as always, we want to hear your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, and challenges. If there's anything you don't agree with, thanks for joining us. And see you next time.

  Unknown Speaker 49:39

  Bye.