1. Does self-esteem mean feeling good about yourself?

Self-esteem is an experience. It is a particular way of experiencing the self. It is a good deal more than a mere feeling. It involves emotional, evaluative, and cognitive components. It also entails certain action dispositions: to move toward life rather than away from it; to move toward consciousness rather than away from it; to treat facts with respect rather than denial; to operate self-responsibly rather than the opposite.

Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness. It is confidence in the efficacy of our mind, in our ability to think. By extension, it is confidence in our ability to learn, make appropriate choices and decisions, and respond effectively to change. It is also the experience that success, achievement, fulfillment-happiness-are right and natural for us.

Self-esteem is not the euphoria or buoyancy that may be temporarily induced by a drug, a compliment, or a love affair. It is not an illusion or hallucination. Lots of things (some of them quite dubious) can make us “feel good”-for a while. If self-esteem is not grounded in reality, if it is not built over time through the appropriate operation of mind-for example, through operating consciously, self-responsibly, and with integrity–it is not self-esteem.

2. Doesn’t a teacher’s preoccupation with nurturing a student’s self-esteem get in the way of academic achievement?

That depends on the teacher’s understanding of self-esteem and what is required to nurture it.

If a teacher treats students with respect, avoids ridicule and other belittling remarks, deals with everyone fairly and justly, and projects a strong, benevolent conviction about every student’s potential, then that teacher is supporting both self-esteem and the process of learning and mastering challenges. For such a teacher, self-esteem is tied to reality, not to faking reality.

In contrast, however, if a teacher tries to nurture self-esteem by empty praise that bears no relationship to the students’ actual accomplishments-dropping all objective standards-allowing young people to believe that the only passport to self-esteem they need is the recognition that they are “unique”-then self-esteem is undermined and so is academic achievement.

We help people to grow by holding rational expectations up to them, not by expecting nothing of them; the latter is a message of contempt.

3. Can anyone develop high self-esteem or is it the prerogative of a fortunate minority?

People of average intelligence or better can, in principle, grow into psychologically healthy adults. Obviously parents, teachers, and other adults can do a great deal to make the road to self-esteem easier or harder. Sometimes, where there are deep psychic wounds and traumas, left unresolved since childhood, a decent level of self-esteem can be very difficult to achieve. In such cases, psychotherapy may be necessary.

But I have never met anyone utterly devoid of self-esteem and I have never met anyone unable to grow in self-esteem, assuming appropriate opportunities for learning exist in their world-space.

4. Doesn’t a focus on self-esteem encourage excessive and inappropriate self-absorption?

Rationally, one does not focus on self-esteem per se; one focuses on the practices that support and nurture self-esteem-such as the practice of living consciously, of self-acceptance, of self-responsibility, of self-assertiveness, of purposefulness, and of integrity, as I discuss in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.

Self-esteem demands a high reality-orientation; it is grounded in a reverent respect for facts and truth. Excessive and inappropriate self-absorption is symptomatic of poor self-esteem, not high self-esteem. If there is something we are confident about, we do not obsess about it-we get on with living.

5. Can’t one have too much self-esteem?

No, not if one is talking about reality-based self-esteem rather than grandiosity. It is no more possible to have too much self-esteem than it is to have too much physical or mental health. But sometimes when people lack adequate self-esteem they fall into arrogance, boasting, and grandiosity as a defense mechanism-a compensatory strategy. Their problem is not that they have too big an ego but that they have too small a one.

Further, let me say that high self-esteem is not egotism, as some people mistakenly imagine. Egotism is an attitude of bragging, boasting, arrogating to oneself qualities one does not possess, throwing one’s weight around, seeking to prove one’s superiority to others-all evidences of insecurity and underdeveloped self-esteem.

6. Isn’t self-esteem essentially a godless pursuit?

Is watching one’s diet and eating intelligently a “godless pursuit?” Is exercising? Is striving to learn and grow? Is the pursuit of self-development and self-realization “godless?” Why would one think in such terms?

With regard to self-esteem, I do not see “God” as relevant, one way or the other-unless you believe in a malevolent God who wishes human beings to face the challenges of life in a state of terror and paralysis.

The plain truth is, some people with good self-esteem believe in God and others with good self-esteem do not.

7. Isn’t self-esteem determined by parental upbringing?

How some parents wish it were! But the truth is, many factors influence our self-esteem. Certainly parental upbringing is important; parents can make the road to self-esteem easier or harder-but they cannot determine the ultimate level of their child’s self-esteem.

Neither can teachers or other adults. Neither can biology–nor birth experiences. Yet all these factors can play a role. And among these factors, none is likely to be as important as the influence of parents, primarily through the values they instill, which can lead a child toward or away from growing self-esteem.

However, we must remember the role that each individual plays, through the choices and decisions we make every day.

We are not merely clay on which external forces write. We are active contestants in the drama.

As adults, we carry primary responsibility for the level of self-esteem we develop.

8. Isn’t self-esteem the consequence of approval from “significant others?”

No. If we live semi-consciously, non-self-responsibly, and without integrity, it will not matter who loves us-we will not love ourselves. When people betray their mind and judgment (”sell their souls”) to win the approval of their “significant others,” they may win that approval but their self-esteem suffers.

What shall it profit us to win the approval of the whole world and lose our own?

It is commonly held that among young people the approval of “significant others” does profoundly affect self-esteem, and to some extent this is doubtless true-but one has to wonder about the reality of a self-esteem that is so precarious that it crashes easily if that approval is withdrawn.

9. Don’t the possession of good looks, popularity, and wealth almost guarantee self-esteem?

People who lack self-esteem sometimes think so, but the truth is that in today’s world there are celebrities who have physical beauty, millions of adoring fans, and millions of dollars-and still they cannot get through a day without drugs. They live with severe anxiety or depression or both. Good looks, popularity, and wealth guarantee nothing-if one does not have the self-esteem to support them.

Lacking such self-esteem, it is very easy to feel like an imposter, waiting to be “found out”–and waiting for all one’s advantages to be blown away.

Even among young people, where the assets mentioned above tend to be more important, the relation of these assets to self-esteem is fragile at best; long-term, they are far from an adequate foundation for the experience of competence and worth.

10. Does praising appropriate behavior nurture self-esteem?

That depends on what is meant by “praising.”

If we see a child acting consciously and responsibly, and we acknowledge this behavior with recognition and appreciation, we may increase the likelihood that such behavior will be repeated. If we ridicule, punish, or ignore it, we may produce the opposite result. Either way, we may indirectly influence the child’s self-esteem (although not necessarily).

But to be effective, “praise”-or, more exactly, recognition–should be reality-based, calibrated to the significance of the child’s actions (in other words, not extravagant or grandiose), and directed at the child’s behavior rather than his or her character. Sweeping statements such as “You’re a perfect angel,” or “You’re always such a good girl,” or “You’re always so kind and loving,” are not helpful: rather than nurture self-esteem, they tend to evoke anxiety, since the child knows there are times when they are not true.

Even with these restrictions, praise or recognition needs to be administered cautiously, so as to avoid turning a child into an approval-addict. We want a child to experience the intrinsic pleasure that flows from appropriate behavior. We want the child to become the source of his or her own approval, not always waiting eagerly for ours. So we need to avoid bombarding a child with our “evaluations.”

11. Isn’t it true that if you have high self-esteem, nothing bothers you?

Some enthusiasts for self-esteem believe good self-esteem solves nearly all the important problems of life. This is untrue. Struggle is intrinsic to life. Sooner or later everyone experiences anxiety and pain-and while self-esteem can make one less susceptible, it cannot make one impervious. To offer a simple example: If someone you love dies, does having good self-esteem mean the loss won’t “bother” you? Clearly not.

Think of self-esteem as the immune system of consciousness. If you have a healthy immune system, you might become ill, but you are less likely to; if you do become ill, you will likely recover faster-your resilience is greater. Similarly, if you have high self-esteem, you might still know times of emotional suffering, but less often and with a faster recovery-your resilience is greater.

A well-developed sense of self is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of your well-being. Its presence does not guarantee fulfillment, but its absence guarantees some measure of anxiety, frustration, and despair.

Some people, when they face new challenges initially perceived as intimidating or overwhelming, may suffer a temporary dip in the level of their self-esteem. Then, as they persevere and master the new challenges, self-esteem rises again. Such fluctuations are normal.

12. Once you’ve attained self-esteem, is it automatically maintained forever?

Every value pertaining to life requires action to maintain it. If we do not continue to breathe, the breathing we did yesterday will not keep us alive today. The same principle applies to self-esteem and the practices that support it.

If–through the six practices mentioned above–we have succeeded in building good self-esteem, this does not mean that we now drop those practices without harm to ourselves.

If we do not choose to sustain these practices-if we elect to operative mindlessly, irresponsibly, without integrity-there is no way for self-esteem to avoid being adversely affected.

Neither a business, nor a marriage, nor a soul can be kept alive and healthy without continuous effort. Responsibility for appropriate action never ends.

Rate your self-esteem by clicking on this link http://www.self-esteem-nase.org/jssurvey.shtml

It occasionally happens that I read an article or essay that affects me so deeply that I feel a strong desire to broadcast it to the world. This does not happen very often but it happened recently. I hope that no further explanation will be necessary.

ISRAEL’S PECULIAR POSITION
by Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem.

Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese — and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.

Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.

Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.

Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms.

But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.

Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967] he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.

There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.

The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews.

They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us.

Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.

When I first heard the term “libertarianism” in the early 1950s, I mentioned it to Ayn Rand as a possible name for our political philosophy. She was suspicious of the term and inclined to dismiss it as a neologism. “It’s a mouthful,” she remarked. “And it sounds too much like a made-up word.”

I answered, “Maybe so, but what alternative do we have?”

She said, “We’re advocates of laissez-faire capitalism.”

I answered, “Sure, but that’s kind of a mouthful too–it’s not a one-word name–and besides, it puts the whole emphasis on economics and politics and we stand for something wider and more comprehensive: we’re champions of individual rights. We’re advocates of a non-coercive society.”

I suggested that “libertarianism” could convey all that by means of a single word–especially if we were to define “libertarianism” as a social system that (a) barred the initiation of force from all human relationships and (b) was based on the inviolability of individual rights.

Ayn considered this suggestion briefly, then shook her head and said, “No. It sounds too much like a made-up word.”

Later, when many advocates of laissez-faire took up the word, and some of them were anarchists (notably Murray Rothbard), Ayn felt vindicated at rejecting a term broad enough to include Objectivist advocates of pure capitalism, on the one hand, and “anarcho-capitalists,” on the other. She did not realize that the majority of people who called themselves “libertarians” were advocates not of anarchism but of constitutionally limited government (in essence, the Objectivist model), and that she could have fought for her interpretation of the term “libertarian” just as she fought for her interpretation of the word “selfish. “There was no good reason to surrender a much-needed word to the opposition.

Later still, when she saw that libertarians often supported their position with aspects of her philosophy, without necessarily subscribing to the total of Objectivism, she became angrier still and decided that all libertarians were, in effect, and in her own inimitable style, “whim-worshipping subjectivists.”

Being a more balanced and reality-oriented teacher of Objectivism than Leonard Peikoff, David Kelley addressed libertarian groups with the aim of persuading them that Objectivism was the best possible foundation for their political beliefs. For this he was denounced by Peikoff as a traitor to Objectivism.

In any event, today libertarianism is part of our language and is commonly understood to mean the advocacy of minimal government. Ayn Rand is commonly referred to as “a libertarian philosopher.”

Ladies and gentlemen of an Objectivist persuasion, we are all libertarians now. Might as well get used to it.

I met her when she came to a workshop I was conducting on “Self-esteem and the Art of Being.”

She was thirty-two years old, pretty, and worked as a receptionist in a law firm. Early in life she had decided that she knew what she was—“a bad girl.” How else could she explain the endless screaming reproaches of her mother, and the emotional coldness of her father, and a home that lacked any trace of love, affection, or kindness? As an adult, she supported the claim that she was a bad girl trough sexual promiscuity, and an inability to remain faithful to any lover or boyfriend.

I met him at the same self-esteem workshop as the one where I met her.

He was thirty-five, athletic, and worked as an artist in an advertising firm. He had come to the United States from Norway.

Months later—when he became a therapy client—he would tell me their story as he saw it.

When he was six years old, his mother had deserted him and his father to run off with another man. He knew what this meant.

“If your own mother doesn’t love you, what can you expect from another woman?” He decided that he was unlovable.

With the help of his embittered father, he also learned that no woman can be trusted, all women are sluts, and to love is to be hurt.

Picture about one hundred-and thirty people in a hotel meeting room. I give an opening talk of about ninety minutes, then there is a fifteen minute break, and then I ask the group to stack the chairs against the walls and sit on the floor in circles of four.

“Do not sit with anyone you know,” I say.

I take the group through a sentence-completion exercise. Then I invite them to share their experiences and what they may have learned.

I stand on the stage scanning the room, and I notice a young couple whose hands and other aspects of body language suggest an immediate connection.

I ask the group to stand up, stretch, and then move into new circles of four, but only with complete strangers.

“Don’t sit with anyone you sat with in the previous circle,” I say.

I see that this couple ignores my instructions and moves together into a new group.

This happens two more times as I keep “reshuffling” the groups until the evening program ends. Then I see them standing near the exit, until their bodies convey a kind of tension that is unmistakable in its meaning. “How in hell can it happen so fast?” I ask myself, fascinated.

I see them finding each other with the terrifying accuracy of two guided missiles meeting in space.

Within a week, as I learn later, they were on fire with love.

They felt born to a new innocence.

All feelings of guilt, sinfulness, or weighted sadness were washed away in the cleanliness of a love liked nothing they had ever experienced.

They did not feel that they were unlovable.

They felt that they were the essence of love.

Then the time bomb that lay sleeping in both of them began to tick—the sense that they were in danger, that love such as they imagined is illusion, that to love is to be hurt.

Anxiety awakened first in him and then in her.

He became a little impatient with her, a little critical, and she responded by becoming defiant, contemptuous of some of his mannerisms—each of them gearing up to defend against the rejection they dreaded and felt to be inevitable.

In one moment, she would complain of being “suffocated” in their relationship and in the next she would beg for more time and attention because, she would say, “I don’t know how to live without you.”

Then he would suggest that perhaps he had not paid enough attention to how few books she read.

She would say, bitterly, that she was not an intellectual, and he would mutter under his breath that she could say that again.

Then he would weep, “I love you so much.”

It lasted a few months longer—until the day when one or both of them were no longer able to believe their relationship was salvageable.

As he would tell me later, on the day that was the “official” end of their “romance,” they stood on the steps of the building where she lived, and they hugged each other, and then she watched him walking away and she cried “Why? Why? We were so happy together! What was wrong with us?”

He did not turn around, but merely shrugged.

Then, once again, she shouted “Why?”

Self-concept generates life scripts.

This is part seven of a seven part series, with a new post each day. Each post will be linked to the preceding post. The essay in its entirety can be found on the “Page” titled “Politics and Social Philosophy” which will be posted on 2/12/08.

My own view is that the philosophical and the moral and ultimately the psychological are the base of everything in this sphere. And I’ll give just one concluding example of the psychological. When people think of the disintegration and deterioration of a semifree society such as we’ve had, they think of Marx as a very negative influence, which of course he was. They are much less likely to appreciate the relevance of a man from my own profession, Sigmund Freud.

What could Freud have to do with the welfare state? My answer is, plenty. It was Freud and his followers who were most responsible for introducing into American culture and spreading the doctrine of psychological determinism, according to which all of us are entirely controlled and manipulated by forces over which we have no control, freedom is an illusion, ultimately we are responsible for nothing. If we do anything good, we deserve no credit. If we do anything bad, we deserve no reprimand. We are merely the helpless pawns of the forces working upon us, be they our instincts or our environment or our toilet training.

Freud, whatever his intentions, is the father of the “I couldn’t help it” school. (Perhaps credit should be shared with behaviorism, the other leading school of psychology in this country, that propounds its own equally adamant version of determinism.) The inevitable result of the acceptance of determinism, of the belief that no one is responsible for anything, is the kind of whining, blame shifting, and abdication of responsibility we have all around us today. Any advocate of freedom, any advocate of civilization, has to challenge the doctrine of psychological determinism and has to be able to argue rationally and persuasively for the principle of psychological freedom or free will, which is the underpinning of the doctrine of self-responsibility.

My book “Taking Responsibility” addresses the task of showing the relationship between free will on the one hand and personal responsibility on the other as well as exploring the multiple meanings and applications of self-responsibility, from the most intimate and personal to the social and political. And that I see as the much wider canvas and much wider job still waiting to be done: to provide a philosophical frame so that people will understand that the battle for libertarianism is not, in essence, the battle for business or the battle for markets. Those are merely concrete forms. It’s the battle for your ownership of your own life.

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This is part six of a seven part series, with a new post each day. Each post will be linked to the preceding post. The essay in its entirety can be found on the “Page” titled “ Politics and Social Philosophy ” which will be posted on 2/12/08.

For a very long time in virtually every major civilization we know of, there has been a terrific animus toward businesspersons. It was found in ancient Greece, in the Orient, everywhere. The trader, the banker, the merchant, the businessman has always been a favorite villain. But if we understand that the businessman is the person most instrumental in turning new knowledge and new discoveries into the means of human survival and well-being, then to be anti-business is in the most profound sense to be anti-life.

That doesn’t mean that one glamorizes business or denies the fact that businesspeople sometimes do unethical things, but we do need to challenge the idea that there is something intrinsically wrong about pursuing self-interest. We need to fight the idea that profit is a dirty word. We need to recognize that the whole miracle of America, the great innovation of the American political system, was that it was the first country in the history of the world that politically acknowledged the right to the pursuit of self-interest, as sovereign, as inalienable, as basic to what it means to be a human being. The result was the release of an extravagant, unprecedented amount of human energy in the service of human life.

We cannot talk about politics or economics in a vacuum. We have to ask ourselves: On what do our political convictions rest? What is the implicit view of human nature that lies behind or underneath our political beliefs? What is our view of how human beings ought to relate to one another? What is our view of the relationship of the individual to the state? What do we think is “good” and why do we think so?

Any comprehensive portrait of an ideal society needs to begin with identifying such principles as those, and from that developing the libertarian case. We do have a soul hunger, we do have a spiritual hunger, we do want to believe and feel and experience that life has meaning. And that’s why we need to understand that we’re talking about much more than market transactions. We’re talking about an individual’s ownership of his or her own life. The battle for self-ownership is a sacred battle, a spiritual battle, and it involves much more than economics. Without the moral dimension, without the spiritual dimension, we may win the short-term practical debate, but the statists will always claim the moral high ground in spite of the evil that results from their programs and in spite of their continuing failure to achieve any of their allegedly lofty goals.

I don’t think that there is any battle more worth fighting in the world today than the battle for a truly free society. I believe that we really need to think through all the different aspects from which it needs to be defended, argued for, explained, encouraged, supported; and then according to our own interests and areas of competency, we pick the area in which we can make the biggest contribution.

To view previous parts of this essay please click on the following link - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

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