Book of The Month Recommendation
'Affluenza' by Oliver James
In my opinion, this book has a great creative title but it is based on a flawed premise. The reader is asked to assume that we can be infected by a disease called the ‘Affluenza Virus – the placing of high importance on money, material possessions appearances (physical and social) and fame. The author travelled to seven countries and spent three weeks in each country interviewing people in his research into the subject.
I was concerned from the outset when I found two of the people praising the book were Jeremy Vine and Will Self – no prejudice there then!
The first part of the book consists of chronicling the aforementioned interviews and what a sorry bunch most of them are. What I found frustrating is that these people suffer from what James calls emotional distress, in other words, a feeling of depression based on not living a life that feels fulfilled unless it is filled with ‘stuff’ and recognition from others.
James will have no argument from me that far too many people seem to judge their self-worth by what they own and their appearance and status, what I do find irritating is his argument that it is the pressure to have the possessions and fame that causes us the distress, not our desire to have them.
Yes, perhaps vulnerable people are exposed to the pressure to conform but they ultimately have the choice to do so; if not everyone gives in to the pressure, it can’t be the pressure causing the problem. This one of the reasons that Mancroft want to work more with young people so that they are armed early on with the kind of personal responsibility that means they know they will consciously be choosing to be or to buy, not being ‘forced’ to by some external force.
The author seems to be rabidly anti-American and has an abhorrence for what he calls ‘pop psychology’ books, as have I but I think we may not mean the same kind of books.
I found more sympathy with the latter half of the book when he asks us to ‘be beautiful, not attractive’ and to ‘enjoy motherhood, not desperate housewifery/husbandry’ and to meet our children’s needs not little adults.
Affluenza is a long book – over five hundred pages so you need to be committed to get right through it, so unusually for our book of the month, I would recommend that your time could be better spent.
Richard Jackson, co-founder of Mancroft