BLOGSERVATIONS

I don’t intentionally watch Oprah. Though she has done some wonderful things with her influence and wealth, I feel that her program misleads and misinforms people. Whether directly or indirectly, she perpetuates magical thinking, superstition, and promotes questionable medical practices and pseudoscience. Because that’s what her audience is looking for, so she caters.

Plus I work for a living so I’m not at home to watch, not that I’d watch it if I was home. Luckily (or not) for me they rerun the day’s episode in the evening on channel 10. What I usually see leaves me saddened by the level of ignorance that persists in much of our society. People actually buy the crap she’s selling. What’s worse, I think she actually buys the crap she’s selling. Maybe she just turns a blind eye. Either way, she is doing a great disservice to the public.

I chuckled as Oprah recounted a story in which she had an idea to start her own network someday, called “Own.” She said her goal was to create a network with mindful, not mindless programming. Indeed. Her show is 80% mindless now! And many people would just say, “well, it’s not that bad.” But it is. Promoting fantasy as reality and illogic as logic is incredibly bad.

Recently I caught an episode for which Oprah’s guests were proponents of The Secret. That amazingly ridiculous notion that through what they call “the law of attraction” you can ask the universe for anything you want and you’ll get it. A book and DVD have been made to promote this idea. The orignal idea was what I stated above. That through the “law of attraction” you can get anything you want, a new car, house, wealth, happiness, even love.

Any rational human should understand that this is completely absurd. That’s not the way things work. After the initial release of the book and DVD, The Secret was making waves, I heard some people talking about it at work. I’m amazed at just how many people buy into this crap. Something like this doesn’t even require much thought. It’s baloney! But it sells.

Anyway, The Secret received some needed bashing from the skeptical community, pointing out that it is all hoopla, howver obvious that should have been. And as a result, during this episode of Oprah we find that they have changed their tune about how The Secret really works. Apparently you can’t “get” anything you want just by thinking about it, as they had orignally claimed. But thinking about what you want can empower you to feel better about life, and maybe yourself.

Sounds like positive thinking. These people have been promoting positive thinking and calling it “The Secret.” They made a product out of it. Of course to actually get what you want you need to blend your positive thinking with some hard work. But too often the people who fall for this nonsense are are not rich, struggling to make ends meet, maybe unemployed, maybe depressed. They don’t need to be robbed by swindlers, and Oprah should not be supporting this kind of harmful garbage. Yet she does.

Amid applause at the end of the program Oprah’s guests sat before the audience with near psychotic grins on their faces, playing the part, trying to look as if they had already prospered because of The Secret and not the money they stole from a gullible public. I find this deplorable.

The secrets this world has to share are being discovered by science, not psychics or new agers. It’s not easy to always navigate your way through, but please do not turn to people who are asking for your money in order to provide you with their secret information. Do not be fooled, and try not to fool yourself.

If you interested in reading a comical article by someone who has put The Secret to the test, read I’ve Got The Secret by Emily Yoffe at Slate Magazine.

I also urge you to read Self-Help’s Slimy ‘Secret’ by Tim Watkin at the Washington Post.