Peter Birkenhead's whole argument can be summed up by this point he makes in his article.
"If you wouldn't tell another person you loved her before you got to know her, why would you do that to yourself? Skipping the getting-to-know-you part has given us what we deserve: the Oprah culture."
I'm sorry, but restricting your love for people until you get to know them is exactly what is wrong with society today. Not the other way around. He gets the cause and effect wrong, on this point and every other point in the piece.
And he practically admits it, when he writes,
..." 'Beauty inspires.' True enough. But hasn't the lack of beauty inspired some pretty great work? And aren't there all kinds of beauty?"
Birkenhead damns Oprah for telling people to love themselves and others unconditionally first and the life you want will come. And then when she "handpicks" the girls for the school she is damned again for not having enough love to see the beauty in the other "less telegenic" girls she didn't pick.
Well if you want Oprah to stop sending mixed messages to the "poor, gullible" masses, Peter Birkenhead, maybe you should do the same.
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