Читать книгу Lifestyle Gurus - Chris Rojek - Страница 7

How to be among, and what to expect from, and rely upon, Others? These questions occur to every child, and are repeated, over and over again, in countless different settings, by every adult, for a lifetime. In part, the rise of today’s lifestyle gurus may be conceived as a response to these imperatives in the digital age. In this book, we use the term ‘lifestyle guru’ to refer to unlicensed native agents of awareness, positioned in conventional and social media, to offer emotional support, an identity matrix and pedagogy for self-discovery and well-being. By the term ‘unlicensed native’ we aim to highlight that lifestyle gurus are ordinary members of society, who possess limited, or no certified qualifications, and hence, no professional standing to claim expertise in emotional management, health, constitutional law and licensing matters. Lifestyle gurus employ a mixture of selective scientific knowledge, folk tradition and personal experience to offer alternative advice and guidance on medical, psychological and social problems afflicting others. The stance that they adopt is often dismissive of professional, elite knowledge and practice on the grounds that it under-values lay traditions and ordinary experience. While lifestyle gurus typically present themselves as anti-establishment, it would be an overstatement to propose that they are part of an anti-scientific movement. A sounder way of looking at things would be to describe them as generally adopting a selective, instrumental approach to science. Given that much scientific knowledge about lifestyle issues is conflicted, and often turns out on inspection to be tainted, lifestyle gurus cherry pick information to advance the profile and appeal of their own views. The media often collude in making these views newsworthy in an attempt to capture public attention. Lifestyle gurus embrace a broad range of editorial newsroom concerns from health to beauty, fitness, fashion, food, wealth, relationships and travel. They provide practical advice that people can apply in order to function more optimally and effectively under the guise of well-being. Against the implied remoteness of scientific and professional authority, with its lofty jargon that bespeaks insinuated superiority, and the uncomfortable rituals of privilege that distinguish it from habitual, mundane experience, lifestyle gurus propagate knowledge and applications that are a mixture of science, ordinary life experience, plain speaking and marginalised, discarded, or forgotten, ways and means of coping and wellness.

Lifestyle gurus typically portray themselves as offering practical, no-nonsense advice on life issues. Using psychological concepts, they propagate a cult of perfectionism that mostly celebrates and affirms middle-class values. Although there are manifold inflections of this cult, at its core are four life goals:

1 AcceptanceThe attainment of recognition and access in social groups and society at large.

2 ApprovalThe achievement of positive reactions from individuals, groups and society that reinforce a sense of self worth.

3 Social impactThe acknowledgement by individuals, groups and society of bearing markers of elevated status associated with achievement, significance and attention value.

4 Self-validationThe affirmation by individuals and groups of valued personal characteristics of the self that contribute to a sense of positive self-worth.

The cult of perfection is part of the wider culture of achievement and high-status differentiation. It treats the goals of acceptance, approval, social impact and self-validation as universally desirable. This is manifest in the exceptionally high number of lifestyle platforms dedicated to techniques of self-improvement and self-transformation, covering the topics of beauty, fitness, fashion, relationships, wellness, wealth and business success. It might be thought that questions of improving lifestyle immediately raise related social and economic questions of inclusion, equality, justice and social engineering. Be that as it may, the vast majority of lifestyle guru sites pass over these questions in seraphic silence. Instead, their typical approach is determinedly person-centred. They address an audience for whom the complexities of life have proved challenging with practical, plain speaking, oracular, non-hierarchical remedies. Gaining practical, positive self-knowledge is the bugle call rallying audiences to lifestyle communicators. Although most lifestyle gurus regularly participate in conferences, symposia and teach-ins, digital communication is the overwhelming and decisive point of exchange.

Despite the strong ethos of non-hierarchy, and the deliberate emphasis upon empathy (co-partnership), accessibility (friendship) and complicity (against ‘the system’) between Communicators (gurus) and Communicants (audiences), the latent power dynamics typically privilege the former over the latter. The paradox of these lifestyle sites is that they generally claim to solve various challenges of complexity in life with simplicity. This is communicated to followers in three main ways:

1 Lifestyle gurus present themselves as having faced, and vanquished, the same or analogous life traumas that their audience encounters. Among the most common traumas are serious physical illness, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, career disappointment, relationship troubles and chronic self-dislike. Emotional disturbance may derive from continuing concrete health issues and their consequences, or more general anxieties about not possessing desired levels of acceptance, attraction and approval, or just not ‘fitting in’ with others. The persuasive power of lifestyle gurus is directly related to their apparent ordinariness and receptivity. The first rule of effective on-site contact is to create a culture of exchange in which audiences trust that communicators genuinely understand, and feel, their pain. A compelling narrative of self-transformation, articulated by those who have already successfully made the journey, is key.

2 They advance a step-by-step programme to enable people to improve themselves and, in doing so, to extract themselves from the negative thinking that prevents them from optimal conduct and reaching their full potential. This programme is typically supported by products and services of commercial benefit to the lifestyle guru in question. From a psychological standpoint, positive thinking, celebrating inner strength and the need to love oneself are the most common remedies.

3 Programmes of intervention may draw on selected strands of scientific knowledge to appear credible and true. However, although lifestyle gurus commonly appeal to scientific knowledge, they are generally defined in antithesis to professional expertise and elite diagnosis and treatment. While lacking any objectively adequate certification of probity, and with surprisingly low responsibilities to subject themselves to independent regulatory discipline, the lifestyle solutions and motivational programmes advanced by lifestyle gurus carry the enamel ring of common-sense. Virtue signalling is the means to achieve the end of life satisfaction. The power of positive thinking, self-knowledge and level-headed acceptance of one’s limits along with consciousness of one’s potential, prevail over all other proposed solutions to lifestyle dilemmas and problems. Although much online advice wears its ‘alternative’ credentials with pride, solutions to life’s problems are generally exclusively focused on the individual. Testimonials to the value of collective mobilisation, organisation and protest are thin on the ground. Complicity against the domination and power of professionals is a crucial resource in social bonding and trust building. Lifestyle gurus offer lifestyle solutions that are crucially, outside of the system. Remedies are usually presented in a ludic way, involving escapism and fun. In the country of wounded amour propre, the smiley solution set by the lifestyle guru is king.