Liking yourself is good - right? Importance of self-esteem an idea whose time has past

National Post ^ | October 15, 2002 | Robert Fulford

[supercat]

What those pushing "self-esteem" fail to realize is that what fundamentally matters is one's perceived ability to improve oneself. If this sense is lacking, one will be crippled. Liberals recognize this lack, and the harm it causes, in those who don't recognize that they can be good or great. What they ignore, however, is that it is just as bad if not worse to think that one is so good as to not need improvement.

Indeed, "true believer" liberals(*) consistently fail to recognize that all human endeavors are driven by the need to "improve". Whether it be improving themselves, their pocketbook, or the world in which they live, the "spark of creation" that drives humanity is the need for improvement. Unfortunately, in seeking to make things "good enough", liberals consistently undermine the forces that would make them better.

(*) Unlike some people, I do not impart any altruistic motives to liberal leadership. While they cast their claimed goals in all sorts of high rhetoric, the real goal of the liberal leadership is to create a class of slaves. To do this, they must break the human spirit. It is truly distressing to realize the extent to which they have managed to do this while hiding their true agenda.

Satan isn't a person. "He" is modern liberalism--the most deadly enemy of the human spirit.

One thing I've said before and will say again: Even God failed to create an Eden which was compatible with the human spirit. Liberals seek to create Eden--a magical state of being where nobody needs to worry about anything, because all their needs will be provided for them. What the liberal idealists fail to grasp is that not only is Eden unachievable, but if such an existence were achieved it would be Hell on Earth.

[supercat]

I've always thought "low self-esteem" is in reality shyness.

Much is encompased by the term "self-esteem". What really matters is that one recognize one's ability to improve. Sometimes "low self-esteem" is caused by a recognition that one can (and therefore shoot) improve oneself considerably, and a desire to do so before 'showing oneself off'.

What the liberals' false "high self-esteem" efforts have done is make people believe not that they can be who they want to be, but that they already are. If people see themselves as they want to be, while seeing others as they are, they will of course perceive themselves as superior--often far superior--to others. This, I think, contributes greatly to the psychopathic behaviors that all too often arise.

[Dan Day]

I notice you don't mention Bill Clinton in your list of personalities. He is the most glaring example of a self-loathing person who relied on the opinions of others for his every action.

Clinton has a lot of psychological problems, but "self-loathing" is not one of them. Quite the contrary, he's supremely egotistical.

Yes, he craved the attention and approval of others to a pathological degree, but due to personality flaws quite different from "self-loathing".

Other than your... idiosyncratic belief that "self-loathing" is at the root of all bad behavior, feel free to point out any action of Clinton's which demonstrated his alleged "self-loathing".

Those who possess true self-esteem are not afraid of criticism; people like Hitler would brook no criticism because he really had no confidence in himself.

!

Ok. Sure. Whatever you say...

Gee, it's funny, no biographer of Hitler, no researcher into his writings, no psychologist analyzing his behavior is as fond of the "he acted the way he did because he had no self-confidence" theory as you are. Perhaps you could provide us with some of your original research and show us the evidence for your, shall we say, novel view.

Most everyone else familiar with the topic disagrees with you however. Here's one example of many: Instigators of Genocide: Examining Hitler From a Social Psychological Perspective

Even better, we can read Hitler's own view of himself in Mein Kampf, where we can find countless examples of his extreme self-confidence (and not a hint of alleged lack of self-confidence) such as:

[note: Each blank line represents a break in the quoting -- each block of text is its own book excerpt, separate from the rest]

Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace.

I believe that even then my oratorical talent was being developed in the form of more or less violent arguments with my schoolmates. I had become a little ringleader; at school I learned easily and at that time very well, but was otherwise rather hard to handle.

School work was ridiculously easy, leaving me so much free time that the sun saw more of me than my room.

How it happened, I myself do not know, but one day it became clear to me that I would become a painter, an artist. There was no doubt as to my talent for drawing;

At that time I regarded this as a natural complement to my gift as a painter, and only rejoiced inwardly at the extension of my artistic scope.

In my hand a suitcase full of clothes and underwear; in my heart an indomitable will, I journeyed to Vienna.

I had set out with a pile of drawings, convinced that it would be child's play to pass the examination. At the Realschule I had been by far the best in my class at drawing, and since then my ability had developed amazingly; my own satisfaction caused me to take a joyful pride in hoping for the best. Yet sometimes a drop of bitterness put in its appearance: my talent for painting seemed to be excelled by my talent for drawing, especially in almost all fields of architecture.

Now I was in the fair city for the second time, waiting with burning impatience, but also with confident self-assurance, for the result of my entrance examination. I was so convinced that I would be successful that when I received my rejection, it struck me as a bolt from the blue.

When after the death of my mother I went to Vienna for the third time, to remain for many years, the time which had mean-while elapsed had restored my calm and determination. My old defiance had come back to me and my goal was now clear and definite before my eyes.

I do not know what horrified me most at that time: the economic misery of my companions, their moral and ethical coarseness, or the low level of their intellectual development.

I was firmly convinced that I should some day make a name for myself as an architect.

Since my earliest youth I have endeavored to read in the correct way, and in this endeavor I have been most happily supported by my memory and intelligence.

Eternal Nature inexorably avenges the infringement of her commands. Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

And so it was easy for me to imagine how this ' educated ' world would confront me, and in this I erred only in so far as even then I still regarded people as better than in cold reality they for the most part unfortunately are.

I was able to go on speaking. After half an hour the applause slowly began to drown out the screaming and shouting. I now took up the program and began to explain it for the first time. From minute to minute the interruptions were increasingly drowned out by shouts of applause. And when I finally submitted the twenty-five theses, point for point, to the masses and asked them personally to pronounce judgment on them, one after another was accepted with steadily mounting joy, unanimously and again unanimously, and when the last thesis had found its way to the heart of the masses, there stood before me a hall full of people united by a new conviction, a new faith, a new will.

In spite of all the interruptions, I was able to speak for about an hour and a half and I felt as if I were master of the situation. Even the ringleaders of the disturbers appeared to be convinced of this; for they steadily became more uneasy, often left the hall, returned and spoke to their men in an obviously nervous way.

And, above all things, the People's State will never be created by the desire for compromise inherent in a patriotic coalition, but only by the iron will of a single movement which has successfully come through in the struggle with all the others.

Of course here, as everywhere else, one must take account of those human weaknesses which make men hesitate, especially at the beginning, to submit to the control of a superior mind.

If, in the world of our present parliamentary corruption, [the Nazi party] becomes more and more aware of the profoundest essence of its struggle, feels itself to be the purest embodiment of the value of race and personality and conducts itself accordingly, it will with almost mathematical certainty some day emerge victorious from its struggle. Just as Germany must inevitably win her rightful position on this earth if she is led and organized according to the same principles. A state which in this age of racial poisoning dedicates itself to the care of its best racial elements must some day become lord of the earth.

Oh, yeah, there's a guy filled with self-doubt... *snicker*

Those who abuse or seek to dominate other people are the worst self-loathers of all.

So you believe.

No truly selfp-confident person would have any need to harm another person in any way.

I admire your childlike faith in such absolutes, but I'm afraid they clash with reality.

[Dan Day]

Sink, you have it exactly right.

Um... You think he has it "exactly right" when he says that Hitler acted the way he did from a *lack* of self-confidence? *snort*

Most of those that do not agree with you here are confusing the false self esteem of narcissistic personality disorder with true self esteem (as you have properly described.)

Nonsense. As those of us who disagree have pointed out at length, we're entirely *clear* on the difference between the two. It is instead *sinkspur* who doesn't seem to grasp that the two are distinct from each other, it's the reason he's still baffled about how anyone who had "self-esteem" could possibly hurt a fly.

He fails to understand that while the latter type is constructive, the former type is destructive. I'm amazed that you would think sinkspur was "exactly right", since he's arguing *against* the position (and esteem-type distinctions) that Nathanial Branden holds (and you seem to be a student of Branden).

The author of the article mentions Nathaniel Branden, but goes on to prove that he hasn't understood his books. Is anyone reading this thread familiar with Branden's description of self esteem?

Yes, and nothing the author says about Branden's work conflicts with it. You're reading way too much into the authors short cite of Branden -- he's not laying the entire modern bogus "self-esteem movement" (which is based on a false, unfounded sense of self-worth) on Branden, he's simply listing him in a long list of people who helped make "self-esteem" a Big Topic in the 60's and 70's and helped hype (one might say overhyped) its significance. Here's his entire comment about Branden:

In 1969, Nathaniel Branden, a psychologist from Toronto who was once the lover and acolyte of Ayn Rand, moved over to this burgeoning field with The Psychology of Self Esteem, declaring self-esteem "the single most significant key to behaviour."

Are you disputing that Branden holds such a position? Don't try, he clearly does. He has authored an avalanche of books on the topic:

A Woman's Self-Esteem: Struggles and Triumphs in the Search for Identity (1998)
Self-Esteem at Work: How Confident People Make Powerful Companies (1998)
Self-Esteem Every Day: Reflections on Self-Esteem and Spirituality (1998)
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (1994)
The Art of Self-Discovery: A Powerful Technique For Building Self-Esteem (1993)
The Power of Self-Esteem (1992)
How To Raise Your Self-Esteem (1987)
The Psychology of Self-Esteem: A New Concept of Man's Psychological Nature (1969)

And contrary to your claim that the author "doesn't understand Branden", in fact the point the author is making is quite similar to Branden's own, concerning legitimate self-esteem versus counterfeit self-esteem

[Dan Day]

Most people I've met who have a lot of "self esteem" need a tall glass of shut the f*ck up.

And that, in a nutshell, is the best one-line summary I've yet seen of the point made in the original article.

[drlevy88]

"Love your neighbor as yourself" is not a mandate to love oneself first, but rather a recognition that our natural sinful condition is already pre-occupied with self-love and needs to be drawn outward to God and others.

The passage might be clarified as "Love your neighbor as you would wish yourself to be loved." This is not calling for an extinguishment of the wish for love.

[Stallone]

Narcissism is the very definition of evil.

The key to being a peaceful member of society is the characteristic of submitting to a power or value higher than oneself. That higher power can be GOD, the POLICE, LOVE, REALITY, or simply TRUTH.

When self-love is greater than other values, welcome to chaos and evil.

The Liberal American obsession with self-praising is a principal reason for our decline.

Only with credible facts and accomplishment is self-praising warranted - otherwise, it is a deadly and corroding lie.

The American education system is a big part of the problem. Want proof?

In a comparison of math skills across several countries, hard test results showed Taiwanese children ranking top of the list. American kids scored dead last.

Yet in response to a self-assessment survey question attached to each test "I am good at math", the Taiwanese children thought poorly of themselves - they ranked last.

But Buffy and Bubba in America, however, saw themselves as the world's math top guns, proving that the self-esteem curriculum was alive and kicking, despite the facts.

Self-esteem is the effect, not the cause, of a life well lived.

[Misterioso]

Um... You think he has it "exactly right" when he says that Hitler acted the way he did from a *lack* of self-confidence? *snort*

From Alice Miller, "Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?"

"It was in large part owing to Hitler and his history that I became aware of the dangers of our traditional morality. We are exhorted to honor our parents and never question them no matter what they have done. Yet when I realize that millions of human beings had to die so that Adolf Hitler could keep his repression of childhood trauma intact, that millions were subjected to humiliation in concentration camps so that he never had to recognize how he had once been humiliated, then I believe that one can't point out these connections often enough in order to shed light on this unconscious production of evil. How should young people be expected to recognize and reject inhumanity and crime if these continue to be disguised instead of being pointed out as plainly as possible? Only when young people are permitted to know exactly what happened and how it could happen, only if they don't allow anything to stifle their curiosity and are not afraid of the truth, can they free themselves from the burden placed upon them by their forebears' blindness."

[Misterioso]

I challenge you to name me a book about self esteem written before Branden's "Psychology of Self Esteem" in 1969. Branden was the forerunner in popular psychology pointing to the requirement for a healthy self esteem.

I don't think you have a clue about narcissistic personality disorder or childhood psychology. But that won't stop you because you have a choir here to preach to.

[tm22721]

Self esteem must be earned, not learned.

BUMP

[Dan Day]

I challenge you to name me a book about self esteem written before Branden's "Psychology of Self Esteem" in 1969.

Why?

But sure, I'm game, how about two?

Society and the Adolescent Self-Image by Morris Rosenberg, Princeton Univ Pr; ASIN: 0691093350; (June 1965) website

Antecedents of Self Esteem by Stanley Coopersmith, W H Freeman & Co.; ASIN: 0716709120; (January 1967) website

What do I win?

More to the point, just how boneheaded a challenge was that, since the article we're all discussing ALREADY LISTED THESE? Try reading for content next time.

Branden was the forerunner in popular psychology pointing to the requirement for a healthy self esteem.

He was one of the earlier ones, sure, but not "the forerunner" in the strictest sense of the word. But then, no one claimed he wasn't. A little *defensive*, are we?

I don't think you have a clue about narcissistic personality disorder or childhood psychology.

I don't think you have a clue about my background -- nor about how to properly discuss an issue without getting emotional and making empty personal attacks.

But that won't stop you because you have a choir here to preach to.

Given that I haven't even touched on the issue of "childhood psychology", and have been discussing behaviors which tend more towards megalomania than narcissism (you *are* aware that they are two different things, aren't you?), it looks to me as if you're not only barking up the wrong tree, you're baying at the moon as well.

You know, the decaffeinated brands taste almost as good.

I don't know what emotional landmines you've got going there, but you obviously have a big enough chip on your shoulder that maybe you might want to take an MMPI yourself.

[Dan Day]

From Alice Miller, "Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?"

I can't tell if your example was meant to agree or disagree with me.

But although Miller's hypothesis is full of holes, loose ends, and self-contradictions, even if it were true, it neither confirms nor disconfirms the topic of Hitler's alleged lack of self-confidence -- being mistreated as a child and *repressing* it as Miller claims is not synonymous with maintaining a low self-confidence.

If anything, her description of someone who has "totally repressed" childhood traumas (and Miller describes *all* German childrearing of the time as "destructive") only bolsters the idea of someone maintaining an adult self-assurance (since to hold a low self-regard would be to accept and dwell on the childhood disapproval, not "totally repress" it as Miller claims).

Even if that was the motivation for Hitler's megalomania -- and I don't buy it -- the fact remains is that he was supremely arrogant, *not* self-doubting.

[GBA]

For every comment by Sinkspur that I felt needed comment, you beat me to it and said it as well or better than I would have.

As you have stated, there is a difference between self-confidence and self-esteem. Self-esteem is sometimes a path to self-confidence or is often found on the road to self-confidence, but in a normative sense, self-esteem is not what people should be chasing after.

[Misterioso]

Even if that was the motivation for Hitler's megalomania -- and I don't buy it -- the fact remains is that he was supremely arrogant, *not* self-doubting.

From Instigators of Genocide: Examining Hitler From a Social Psychological Perspective David R. Mandel University of Hertfordshire " As noted earlier, nationalism tends to embody threatened egotism within a collective ideology, and it is no surprise that Hitler gravitated toward nationalism (although his rise to power was certainly unpredictable). Hitler's nationalist identity was very much the result of his need to establish a positive social identity in light of the repeated personal failures and disconfirmed expectations that he had experienced as a teenager and young adult (see Kershaw, 1998). Because he could neither plausibly protect his high self esteem with personal examples of success nor accept his failures, he bolstered his egotistic sense of self by identifying with what he conceived of as a strong and great nation."

I guess I see Mandel's depiction of Hitler's high self esteem as narcissism and not a genuine feeling of self worth. However, I am not a student of the rise of Hitler so I'll bow out. BTW, I failed my only MMPI test, but I doggedly push on, hoping for redemption.

[mongrel]

Several additional points to all of this: The National Assocciation of Self-Esteem's website has a hard time defining self-esteem, leading them to say this, "Since self-esteem has both psychological and sociological dimensions, this has made it difficult to come up with a comprehensive definition, and rarely have both dimensions been taken into consideration together in conducting research studies." When a psychologist says it's hard to define something, watch out. He's probably trying to have it both ways without being pinned down.

The problem with some of the arguments here is that if someone with a seemingly positive self-regard does something negative, there is an a priori assumption that underneath that is self-loathing. Everyone has had some sort of negative experiences that could contribute to that, so the theory can never be disproven.

In NASE's definition they divide self-esteem into two components, competance and worthiness. But then they claim "the worthiness component of self-esteem is often misunderstood as simply feeling good about oneself, when it actually is tied to whether or not a person lives up to certain fundamental human values, such as finding meanings that foster human growth and making commitments to them in a way that leads to a sense of integrity and satisfaction."

At this point, we've completely left a rudimentary understanding of the word self-esteem itself, and loaded it up with all kinds of baggage that makes it useless.

Underneath all these arguments promoting self-esteem is a fundamental lie: that if I can discover my true self, I am basically a good person and will live a positive and healthy life. Boomers as a generation have been on a 30-year journey of self-discovery and have only demonstrated their ability to fool themselves. In their twenties, they rebelled against authority. In the marriage and child-bearing years, they weakened marriage and abandoned their children. Now as they approach their senior years, I am afraid they will bankrupt our economic system as they insist on getting what is theirs while doing little to generate a savings to live on.

The cult of self-esteem tends to mask the need for a healthy doubt of one's inherent goodness. That is the basic problem.

[TopQuark]

He ridicules psychologists for touting the effects of self-esteem, then uses psychologists to debunk same.

There is such a thing as evolution of ideas, and the includes ideas within the same discipline.

Perhaps you should refrain from calling someone "idiot" in haste, lest you invite questions about your own capacity.

[TopQuark]

They are so confident that they are loved children of God that they know their worth,

You are confused: self-esteem is the attitude of a person towards seld; G-d's love comes from without.

This statement also implies that an atheist cannot have high self-esteem, which is patently false.

[sinkspur]

Perhaps you should refrain from calling someone "idiot" in haste, lest you invite questions about your own capacity.

Perhaps you should re-read the article. The author comes from a point of view and makes no pretense at being objective.

[sinkspur]

You are confused: self-esteem is the attitude of a person towards seld; G-d's love comes from without.

Not confused at all. Awareness of God's love is a strong contributor to self-esteem.

As for atheists, of course they can have high self-esteem. I just don't know how they do so without God.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Liking yourself is good - right? Importance of self-esteem an idea whose time has past

Lol! I missed that...but do those old-fashioned rules of grammar and spelling matter today if, by pointing out someone's mistake, you hurt their self-esteem? (^: