The Consolations of Philosophy
by Alain de BottonPantheon, 320 pp., $22.95
Have problems? Sure, we all do. And in this twisted, crazy world, to whom do we turn for advice? Oprah? Angels? How about the likes of Schopenhauer and Seneca? According to Alain de Botton, director of the Graduate Philosophy Program at London University and bestselling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, it’s the old philosophical standbys, as spoon-fed to the lay public with a feel-good spin, who will dress our psychic wounds and leave us happy and productive members of society.
Botton’s newest offering, The Consolations of Philosophy, is billed as “literary self-help,” and if you’re wondering what differentiates this cute, e-mail-friendly genre (subject: consolation for frustration, a broken heart, etc.) from the illiterate brand of self-help books touted on daytime TV each afternoon, the answer is … not much. Like his psychic-advisor cousins, Botton attempts to soothe spiritual aches ranging from not having enough money to sexual inadequacy with practical advice and plenty of quotes (many in French and Greek for awe-inspiring effect).
In the first chapter, “Consolation for Unpopularity,” Botton’s advice (via Socrates) is to question the status quo. The majority is not always right, say Socrates and Botton, so if you’re being criticized it’s not necessarily because you are at fault. Likewise, if you’re a success (say a bestselling novelist), it doesn’t necessarily mean the emperor has clothes.
After the first chapter, Botton goes on to explain the transformation of “tears into knowledge,” how not to take pencils rolling off your desk as a personal affront, and how to free yourself from frustration-inducing expectations. From Schopenhauer, Botton appropriates an especially bleak and convoluted understanding of physical attraction as nature’s way of fixing abnormalities in the gene pool. Such shady views of human interaction are handed over as gospel, but in a familiar voice that reads at times like a gimmicky cookbook, a comparison supported by a wealth of cutesy illustrations. Under the phrase “We will cease to be so angry once we cease to be so hopeful” is a diagram of a wish arrow crashing into the brick wall of reality.
And while it is reassuring to know that when it came to impotence “Montaigne did not blame the penis,” one must wonder why we should listen to philosophers — a notoriously unhappy demographic — for workable life-advice. True to Botton’s tendency to simplify beyond logic, he concludes both this book and the account of Nietzsche’s sad life and far-from-cheery philosophy (peppered with pictures of, among other things, a Superman comic) with the summary, “Not everything which makes us feel better is good for us. Not everything which hurts may be bad.”
This article appears in June 23 • 2000.