The Philosophy of Self-Improvement

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are thousands of books, podcasts, and social media posts about how to be more productive, strengthen your relationships, find your purpose, and be your all-around best self. And there are legions of programs and seminars out there designed to help you improve your life. All together, self-help represents a multi-billion dollar industry.

But despite its ubiquity and cultural influence, you may never have thought about the deeper underpinnings of self-improvement. My guest has. In fact, her research led her to add being a life coach to her academic work as a professor of cultural history, surely creating one of the most unique career combinations. Her name is Anna Schaffner and she's the author of The Art of Self-Improvement: Ten Timeless Truths. Anna and I begin our conversation with how the idea of self-improvement, far from being a recent, Western phenomenon, traces back to antiquity and can be found across cultures. We discuss how self-help reflects what a culture values, and changes based on a culture's conception of selfhood, agency, and the relationship between the individual and society. From there we turn to a few of the timeless principles of self-improvement — self-control, being virtuous, and building positive relationships — looking both at how they were tackled anciently, as well as more modern angles that can also be helpful. We discuss the downside of taking a strictly Stoic approach to life, the idea of making virtue a habit, and how Dale Carnegie can be seen as a modern Machiavelli, in a good way. We end our conversation with Anna's four favorite self-improvement books.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'll see you next time.
0:07.2	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:10.6	There are thousands of books, podcasts, and social media posts about how to be more productive,
0:15.4	strengthening your relationships, find your purpose, and be your all-around best self.
0:19.1	And there are legions of programs and seminars out there designed to help improve your life.
0:23.1	All together, self-help represents a multi-billion dollar industry.
0:26.8	But despite its ubiquity and cultural influence, you may have never thought about the
0:29.9	deeper underpinnings of self-improvement.
0:31.8	My guest has.
0:32.8	In fact, her research led her to add being a life coach to her academic work as a professor
0:37.7	of cultural history, surely creating one of the most unique career combinations.
0:41.6	Her name is Anna Schaffner, and she's the author of the Art of Self-improvement,
0:45.2	Ten Timeless Truths.
0:46.8	On and I begin our conversation with how the idea of self-improvement bar for being a recent
0:50.8	Western phenomenon traces back to antiquity and can be found across cultures.
0:54.8	We discuss how self-help reflects what a culture values and changes based on a culture's
0:58.7	conception of selfhood, agency, and the relationship between the individual and society.
1:03.8	From there, we turn to a few of the timeless principles of self-improvement, self-control,
1:07.5	being virtuous and building positive relationships, looking both at how they are tackled
1:11.3	angently, as well as more modern angles that can be helpful.
1:14.3	We discuss the downside of taking a strictly stoke approach to life, the idea of making
1:18.0	virtue a habit, and how del-carniggy can be seen as a modern Machiavelli, in a good way.
	...

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