In the second episode of Interregnum Richard Seymour discusses his recent article, 'The cruelties of self-help culture'. We talked about the magical thinking propagated by what Richard calls "the success wing of self-help literature" and why its claim that success depends almost solely on individual effort is so appealing. We also talked about the history of self-help culture and the significance of Samuel Smiles, the Victorian liberal reformer and author of the 1859 book Self Help: Illustrations of Character and Conduct. Finally we discussed Richard's plans to write a self-help book from the left.
