Oprah and the Triumph of the Therapeutic
- Post-Oprah, the notion that confession is something private, something hidden, became hopelessly medieval. In America today, confession is best done in public: shame is gone, replaced by more therapeutic bywords like ‘closure’ and ‘catharsis.’
Labels: America the Beautiful, Decline and Fall, Modernist Tomfoolery, Pop Culture
5 Comments:
As one old priest once told me, confession isn't about therapy, it's about absolution. There is a place for pastoral counseling, but the confessional ain't it.
As Christopher Lasch pointed out, we live in a culture awash in narcissism. Add the therapeutic toxin into the mix, and getting people to see the reality of sin becomes next to impossible.
An old American priest once told me, sadly, after my confession, that these days most people come for therapy, not absolution.
+JMJ+
"Confession as entertainment" is such a big part of our culture that a very popular book blog that has invited people to share their "Top Ten Books I've Lied About" now has sixty-five bloggers joining the linky party. (Yes, of course I linked up. I like irony.)
Oprah's brand is more of "confession as self-help"--but naturally, it's also highly entertaining.
Reading War and Peace as I am, and influenced by Tolstoy's ideas about history, I'd say that Oprah didn't lead the trend, but followed it.
I remember my contemporaries back in the '80s mistaking shamelessness for "honesty." It was probably one of the reasons that '92 was the last full year I lived in the US.
+JMJ+
Oh, she definitely didn't start the trend! If anything, she's just the major symptom.
I think the loss of shame can be traced directly to the loss of a real understanding of sin. At least all Adam and Eve didn't know was that they were naked. We their children don't know that we've been sinful.
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