Various Pieces of Nonsense, Letters

 Hopepunk

Hope, 

George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) (and assistants)

Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND]

Anxious about the state of the world? Afraid of ecological apocalypse? Then “hopepunk” could be just the thing.

Young people feel so overwhelmed by the bleakness of their existence that they no longer crave dark dramas, according to a senior BBC executive. Instead, the corporation is embracing a new genre of storytelling that emphasises positivity and kindness and has set aside £150,000 for an audio series to reflect it.

Hopepunk…has been described as “weaponised optimism”, combining gentleness with the fight for social change.

(The Times, 2019)

Should I be anxious about not being anxious? As an American acquaintance once said to me gravely, many years ago: “If you ain’t got a problem you’ve got a serious problem.” He didn’t think it funny when I started laughing.

What top Chief Marketing Officers say

Amanda St L Jobbins, Oracle

The Charlatan, 

unknown artist

Photo Credit: City of London Corporation [CC BY-NC]

“CMOs have a critical role to play as thought leaders. Marketing now sits at the epicentre of business strategy for an organisation and the customer experience and engagement strategies a company deploys will be the difference between success and failure. Marketing is the only function truly targeted at understanding market dynamics, anticipating trends and thinking about how a company can and should respond. I personally share thought leadership content in the form of stories and insights via Linkedin where I can get instant feedback on how ideas and stories land, and also through speaking engagements and online communities.

The biggest challenge for CMOs is making the time to share, think, write, speak and engage in this way. However, I think we have to see that time as a key part of our role.”

(The Times, 2019)

 Back to school for you, I think. Poor communication skills due to too much gobbledygook. And what is this “customer experience” all about. If I want to buy a pair of socks, I don’t want an “experience”, I just want some socks.

                                    

Iris Meijer, Vodafone Business

“True thought leadership helps to cut through the jargon that’s often associated with the technology sector, and provide a clear and relatable vision for the audience. The CMO is pivotal in driving this, both as a thought leader themselves and by setting an example for the rest of the organisation. At Vodaphone Business, we’ve focused our thought leadership on outcomes and helping customers understand the end result of increasingly important technology decisions. By pushing this forward, I can help pitch thought leadership at the right level and avoid getting too technical too early.”

(The Times, 2019)

I think you’ve caught the “thought leadership” virus. Don’t worry it will eventually become dormant when you seize on some other business jargon buzzwords.

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)

Letters

Sir I am reminded by Matthew Paris  that I once asked in a test what was wrong with the sentence: “Because he had trouble with his vision, he visited an optimist.” One smart boy answered: “This should be optometrist, unless he was looking for rose-tinted spectacles.”

(David Craig, Thatcham, Berks, The Times, 2019)


Sir, When testing out her new mobile phone, my mother announced that she was calling me from her “nubile”. This was topped when conducting the regular Sunday lunchtime family quiz, she asked: “How many testicles does an octopus have?”

(Julie Spillane, Stanton-on-the-Wold, Notts, The Times, 2019)