[Pete Jamison]

An early entry in the Self-Help category of popular writing published in 1936, this title is the subject of a story I recall from publisher Bennett Cerf.  When noting that he’d strongly supported the publication of Atlas Shrugged and recommended against the publication of this Dale Carnegie work, he proclaimed that he’d been right both times.  Although the Carnegie book had been famous for decades for selling in the millions when such figures were rare, Cerf got some serio-comedy mileage from his conviction that Rand’s was a better book.

While “How To Win Friends…” is a work vastly more pedestrian than a novel or a work of analysis, self-help titles have a kind of “drill” value: they are repetitive, in that they reinforce action principles that while often obvious, can be underrated.  It’s a mistake to dismiss an action principle due to being obvious, since such a principle can be not only true but crucial.  Self-help books generally automatize action principles — including the obvious ones in danger of omission due to being alleged common knowledge. 

Just one example of the above would be Carnegie’s use of the adage “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.”  The immediate context of the statement’s mention was the situation of a wise salesman avoiding conflict with a customer and stressing benefit.  Imagine how much more effective an SJW (social justice warrior) would be with a bit of knowledge like that.

And here’s the thing I found fascinating about this book: not only were many “pearls of wisdom” mistakenly overlooked in Carnegie’s day (giving his book value since it’s basically an organized collection of common adages), but we notice something when proceeding in context to the present day.  Peikoff and others have expressed the view that there’s no such thing as common knowledge anymore. That magnifies the value of what was once simply assumed. 

I don’t want to overstate the point.  One of the biggest reasons to read this book may merely be to experience it as a time machine that shows how the past normality of peoples’ lives was so much more optimistic and healthy than now.  But when I draw the most dire conclusions from the dumbing down of society over time, I can be surprised by the capacity of some today still to learn from the past.  I think reason can be de-emphasized, but not entirely eliminated from the affairs of men.  I expect that social improvement will come from the more reasonable of us being able to see the applicability of past knowledge, and from the inability of the SJW sorts to see it.

/sb

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