Project: Blog Different

As a group we recently viewed “The Secret”, a media craze from a year or so ago which focuses on “The Law of Attraction”: roughly the idea that if you envision something enough, good things will happen around that subject. Their analysis is obviously far more complex than that, as it is an hour and a half film, but in generalized terms, that is the thrust of the movie.

Now, I’d known about “The Secret” for some time now, back to my Barnes & Noble days when “The Secret” was the top book, cd, book on tape, and dvd. Everybody had to own everything related to this pretty basic concept. I was skeptical at the time, but had never actually viewed the entirety of the material…until today.

After watching the DVD (still haven’t read the book), I have to say, I’m even more appalled. Going in I thought it would be an overly preachy advice/self-help/empowering type thing discussing techniques for getting ahead in life, and to some extent that’s what it is, but there is something even darker about it which really irked me. The movie openly preaches that life is about abundance, but more so, about financial abundance and material gain. While some portions discuss other kinds of gain, for the most part, it really comes down to the dollar. We hear story after story about how this person, or that person, achieved success, and then how it was all attributed to “The Secret” (read: not luck, not greed, not connections, not one’s initial position in the racial-gender-socio-economic hierarchy) The whole film and concept is just to validate the wealthy. Of course there is some truth to what they say, if there wasn’t, it would have never gotten so huge. If you dream big, you’ll work harder, you’re more likely to achieve success. That makes a lot of sense. That said, they actually tell you to spend beyond your means as a way of mentally bringing success your way. I’m sure the hundreds of thousands of Americans in debt because of that attitude are thrilled today! Oh wait, they should be thinking of wealth, not debt, my bad! What it comes down to is that positive emotions, ideas, energy, can only go so far. My thoughts aren’t going to change a red light green or will checks to my door step, they’re only going to change my mindset as I see those lights change colors or how I feel about checks or bills in my mailbox. The movie also minimizes the role of medicine as it tells of a woman who survived Breast Cancer through watching comedic television programming while ignoring medical advice. Not to say de-stressing isn’t important, and that keeping a positive attitude isn’t really important for recovering from terrible illness, but any time anyone downplays the role of modern medicine, I almost have to laugh out loud. There’s a major reason why we live upwards of 70 now a days versus 20 or 30 a few hundred years ago. I assure you it’s not that we are a more positive culture!

Beyond that though, the film is entirely geared at straight white Christian Americans. The only people of any color are two or three very stereotyped black speakers, and every religious concept is straight out of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

As a whole the movie is the ultimate propaganda for an emotional version of the American Dream. The movie dictates that personal wealth and success are solely based upon the thoughts of the person. While this is a nice thought, especially for those with money (i.e. they deserved it), it puts blame on those without money; saying it’s your fault to the bulk of Americans who don’t have what those at the top do. It’s not because they don’t think to themselves enough “I’m going to be successful one day”, it’s because the system in this country is to maintain a small ruling elite, the large working class, and the myth of a large middle class. The movie even flat out states early on the reason why the top 1% of the world control 99% of the wealth is because they know “the secret”! They don’t control all that money because they know about the law of attraction, it’s because they know how to control people and milk the system for all it’s worth. That’s the real secret.