I have often struggled, in talking to people with more traditional political views, to explain how truth and empowerment work as the central organizing principles for my politics. Here's one attempt:

In Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, the book that in many ways kicked off the self-help phenomenon (but from which that movement strayed very far), he says that when people "blame someone else – a spouse, a child, a friend, a parent, an employer – or something else – bad influences, the schools, the government, racism, sexism, society, the 'system' – for their problems, these problems persist. Nothing has been accomplished. By casting away their responsibility they may feel comfortable with themselves, but they have ceased to solve the problems of living, have ceased to grow spiritually, and have become dead weight for society. They have cast their pain onto society."

I would add the wonderful caveat from Marianne Williamson that while it used to be enough to follow Lao Tzu's advice, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," now, in this modern capitalist world, we must also ask who owns the fishing pond.

In other words, one of the most frequent complaints about New Age views like Peck's that focus on self-empowerment is that they ignore the crushing inequality of the playing field. The point is to focus on empowerment, on teaching to fish, and to never let …

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