Self help and doom

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/oct/04/sel-help-books-boom-”

But what de Botton calls “elite culture” has, he says, “abandoned a project on which it was engaged for most of human history. English literature, philosophy, history, they used to understand their role as basically being about the nourishment of the soul. But they’ve abandoned that field, leaving the area open to what are largely second-rate minds.””