Sincerity

Michael J. reports that he walked on hot coals this weekend. He and 4,000 of his closest friends. All part of this guy Tony Robbins and his motivational seminar megachurch.

I happened to run into Mr. J. at lunch, and he filled me in on some of the specifics. The 4,000 people. The guided meditation. The ninja staffers in black masks. The staffer who gripped his shoulders, put her face to his face, and yelled, "HAVE YOU WALKED YET?"

As he spoke, I tried to eat my sandwich. Mr. J. (a pretty smart guy) is thrilled with the experience. But his story made me feel increasingly nauseous. I mean, let's review:

• mob-sized crowd
• hyper-charismatic preacher
• black-clad agents
• $900 workshop fee tithe x 4,000 people = $3.6 million gross to the charismatic preacher and co. (not counting book sales)
• hot coals

Actually, on reflection, the thought of hot coals themselves isn't what gave me the heebie-jeebies. Implausible as it sounds, there's a fairly simple scientific explanation for why humans can walk on coals. If I desired to walk on burning coals, and someone I knew and trusted offered to assist, and 4,000 of my closest friends were nowhere in sight, I might consider doing it. I can't see wanting to do it—I'll ski Tuckerman's for my next adrenalin rush and keep my $900, thank you—but to each her own.

There's also a fairly rational explanation for why large crowds are susceptible to suggestion and charisma. My stomach's churning just thinking about it.

Don't get me wrong; I know that hordes of people love to brush elbows with hordes of other people and pay lots of money to hear mellifluous-voiced evangelists proclaim the answers to all life's problems. It's the not-so-secret Secret. It's the Power of Positive Thinking (TM). The preachers drip with sincerity and embrace every word they speak, and if we could only follow them—if we could only follow them—if we could only follow them ... (and if it doesn't work, it's our fault) ...

Many people also, I know, approve, admire, and envy the capitalist drive to connect the twin forces of mob mentality and adrenalin. And lord knows where the world would be today if enterprising individuals hadn't motivated the mobs around them.

An aside. Just this morning, I finished reading Harry Frankfurt's recently reissued treatise, On Bullshit. My mother lent it to me over the weekend, probably at about the same moment Mr. J. was walking on fire. It's a slim little essay that leads up to a quite elegant punchline:

"Sincerity is bullshit."

What, I wonder, would Harry Frankfurt make of Tony Robbins?

Comments

[Michael J.]

Great post. This was not much different from the Grateful Dead experience, in many ways. Or the Rolling Stones, though their tickets are much more expensive.

Robbins is aiming at the middle of the bell curve, and he's probably one of the best direct marketers to ever live. I'm not necessarily celebrating direct marketing, but it is a way of connecting people directly to what they want, and it's a measureable science. What kills me about DM is the waste, not the intent.

So for the middle of the bell curve, it's not every day you can have a deep experience of feeling, of any sort. I wish there were more ways for the culture to support feelings, especially love, but at the moment we have to train people to 1) notice feelings, 2) own them, and 3) share them. So the power of music, video, carefully scripted visualizations, improvisational interventions, and groupmind all combine to something that is hard to find, and worth teaching. That's an effort I can support in order to move the culture forward.

Like the early NLP work that much of Robbins core teachings has derived from, and expanded upon, it can be viewed as manipulative. But so can books, movies, music, opera. We're asking to have our emotions manipulated all the time. So in the Robbins world you are asking to be manipulated to in order to create the results you want in the world - in relationships, in work, in whatever you care about. Hopefully the crowd amplifies the message of love and transformation that the program describes, but I'm sure some people won't. Just like some people are good drivers and some are bad.

"Sincerity is bullshit" is just more destructive cynisism - so '90s - that pervades this profane culture of ours. If you want sincerity to thrive as an authentic human emotion, then we have to call bullshit on cliché phrases that reduce rich juicy human complexity to meaningless linguistic rubble. In my world, I like sincerity. The benefits of politeness are exaggerated.

Sorry about the disruptive lunch - you didn't have to stay, your choice, though I can understand the impulse for car-wreck rubber-necking.... And it produced a valuable blog post, rarely seen in these parts! ;)