Self Esteem Nonsense

 Self-esteem is one of the oddest, most misguided and even dangerous ideas to emerge from the 20th century. It is also one of the most durable. Originally an emanation of 1970s California counterculture, self-esteem has achieved the ultimate status for any idea: it has become common sense.

Searching through The Times over recent years, you can find hundreds of people talking about their self-esteem: teachers, parents, actors, writers. Since its 1990s heyday self-esteem has been referred to thousands of times in parliament, usually as a sort of abstract, unimpeachable moral good, the same way Victorian politicians once talked about piety. This is a sign of its impeccable establishment status.

Indeed, presumably because of the way it was pressed on to my generation in childhood, self-esteem is enjoying a second flowering in the guise of related concepts such as "self-care", "self-cherishing". "self-acceptance" and "self-compassion".

But you don't have to look too closely at self-esteem for it to seem a weird notion. Esteem yourself? Why? For what? I have spent a lot of time reading up on the topic but I have never once encountered the suggestion that you might achieve high self-esteem by, for example, giving to charity or helping in a homeless shelter. Self-esteem supposes that the right to feel good about ourselves matters more than doing any good...

The Ghost of a Flea
William Blake (1757-1827)
Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND]

Self-esteem caught on because it appeals to our individualistic modern culture. How natural and how convenient simply to esteem ourselves rather than worrying about the esteem of others...

The evolutionary psychologist Randolph Nesse recalls that, in his days as a therapist, he tried to help patients improve their self-esteem. He was rarely able to help them: "natural selection shaped us to care enormously about what other people think about our resources, abilities and character. This is what self-esteem is all about. We constantly monitor how much others value us."

It's unpleasant not to like ourselves but most of us have good reasons for those feelings. We are unlikely to be wholly decent people and this is something we should accept about ourselves - and others. Our society is fond of socially excluding or "cancelling" those who have morally transgressed. I wonder if we punish people in this way because the sin of not being a good person is unnatural in a culture which teaches that all people (and ourselves especially) are innately good. Another social media phenomenon, "virtue signalling" is rooted in the notion inspired by self-esteem that goodness is something you can simply assert, with no good deeds required...

(James Marriott, The Times, 2021) 

Manna from heaven, James. For too long the notion of self-esteem has ruled the waves and led to an unrealistic approach to the human condition. As humans we are tainted and we should accept that. 

* Sir, James Marriott is to be applauded for recognising that the concept of self-esteem is odd, misguided and even dangerous. I have been puzzled for years as to how and when the switch began from the traditional view that to think well of oneself was not a virtue. I decided it must have been about halfway through my lifetime, and as Marriott says there actually was a "father of self-esteem", John Vasconcellos, who got it going in that benighted decade of the 1970s. He managed to overturn all former codes of modesty, humility and selflessness.

When I was at school, praise for one's success would be tempered by "don't rest on your laurels". Putting others before you, never boasting, disguising feelings of self-satisfaction even if justified - these were the desirable qualities, as they had been for centuries. A friend of Charlotte Bronte once wrote to her saying: "You must tell me of my faults." Who today would make such a request? And if it were complied with, it would be thought damaging - to the recipient's self-esteem.

(Madeline Macdonald, Knebworth, Herts, The Times, 2021)

*Sir, James Marriott deftly scrutinises the elevation of the concept of "self-esteem" to its lofty position in the canon of narcissistic virtue signalling. Can one hope that it might eventually be relegated to where it belongs, beside self-importance, self-interest, self-pity, self-indulgence and selfishness?

(Fanny Prior, London NW3, The Times, 2021) 

*Sir, I was heartened to read James Marriott's piece on self-esteem. I could not agree more that this modern ideal, "You have to love yourself", which has grown over the past four decades, is something to be avoided rather than to achieve. In my youth we were taught by our parents and schools that other people and their feelings were as important as our own. This is not to say we were devoid of growing self-confidence in our own abilities. Self-esteem as it is known today can breed selfishness and egoism - unattractive traits. I am pleased someone of the younger generation feels the same way.

(Richard Bailey, Ryton, Glos, The Times, 2021)