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The Fake Stoicism of Ryan Holiday’s Self-Help Advice
And why his books nevertheless dominate bookstores’ philosophy sections
At least in Canada, where I live, the philosophy section of mainstream bookstores is relatively paltry, which is depressing but understandable. Only what sells can sit on the bookstore’s shelves. And philosophy doesn’t sell well, especially when in competition with the rankest sophistry of the flourishing self-help genre.
Indeed, self-help authors parasitize philosophy, as I confirmed in a bookstore when I noticed that by far the biggest-selling author in the philosophy section is Ryan Holiday, a marketer and proclaimed Stoicism expert who allegedly turns that ancient philosophy’s principles into self-help fodder for consumers.
Notice below, in the picture I took of half the philosophy shelves, that Holiday has a whopping six titles in stock, whereas the other authors have no more than one or two. He’s like the Stephen King of philosophy.
Except that when you read Holiday, you discover he’s no philosopher at all but just a self-help writer. That’s equivalent to saying he’s a propagandist for neoliberal ideology; a panderer to fragile, infantilized consumers and employers; and a charlatan who twists the facts with sophistry.
