Theory Confirmed - I always

Theory Confirmed - I always rued the passing of the notion of "self-respect" - the sense of knowing and being able to live with oneself and one's actions - and its replacement by the idea of "self-esteem", the notion that one is just plain pretty darn good. Self-respect seems grown-up, sensible, based in moral concepts as simple as the Golden Rule, while self-esteen always seemed to me to be a gateway to narcissism and a solipsistic view of the world. Self-esteem says "I'm special!". Self-respect says "I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person". Self-esteem is one step removed from bragging; self-respect is an integral part of character.

The saw was that without sufficient self-esteem, kids would grow up to have problems - crime, violence, promiscuity, the whole line-up. It never added up to me, though - most of the real troublemakers I knew growing up, and in the adult world, seemed to like themselves just fine.

It seems that research is bearing this out. Despite a decade of social-service and education-establishment pandering to the concept of self-esteem, investigation indicates it's just not so. Andrew Sullivan, in a Time Magazine article, quotes Dr. Brad J. Bushman of Iowa State University and Dr. Roy F. Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University

"I think we had a great deal of optimism that high self-esteem would cause all sorts of positive consequences, and that if we raised self-esteem people would do better in life," Baumeister told the Times. "Mostly, the data have not borne that out." Racists, street thugs, school bullies all polled high on the self-esteem charts. And you can see why. If you think you're God's gift, you're particularly offended if other people don't treat you that way. So you lash out, or commit crimes, or cut ethical corners to reassert your pre-eminence. After all, who are your moral inferiors to suggest tht you could be doing something, er, wrong? What do they know?

So what do we do now? We've spent uncounted millions on programs to boost self-esteem, while the notion of self-respect has gone begging, and and it's been squeezed out of the agenda for most of the institutions that used to promote it (schools, churches, social organizations).

So when can we stop teaching school kids to mouth "I AM someone" - which always struck me as pathetic - and start teaching them why that matters?

Posted by Mitch at October 9, 2002 04:45 PM