To all who chose to participate in the blog with me, thank you. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

Self-Esteem as a Spiritual Discipline

Four decades ago, when I began lecturing on self-esteem, the challenge was to persuade people that the subject was worthy of study.   Almost no one was talking about self-esteem in those days.  Today, almost everyone seems to be talking about self-esteem, and the danger is that the idea may become trivialized.  

And yet, of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves: it touches the very core of our existence.   Some part of us knows this.   We know that more fateful by far than what others think of us is what we think of ourselves.

“Self-esteem” is sometimes used interchangeably with “self-image,” which is unfortunate, because the concept is much deeper than any “image.”   Self-esteem is a particular way of experiencing the self.   It is more complex than any mental picture of ourselves and more basic than any transitory feeling.  It contains emotional, evaluative, and cognitive components.   It ordinarily exists, in large measure, beneath conscious awareness, as context or container for all of our thoughts, feelings, and responses, as ultimate ground to our being.  Our responses to other people,  to the challenges of work, to the sight of suffering or beauty, to the vicissitudes of life-all are affected by our deepest sense of who and what we think we are, what we are capable of, what we deserve, what is appropriate to us.

Self-esteem 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 avoidance or denial; to operate self-responsibly rather than the opposite.  These are characteristics it is difficult, if not impossible, to fake.

What we tell ourselves about our self-esteem, and what it actually is, may be quite different.   It may please us to believe that our self-esteem is relatively high when in fact it is seriously troubled.   Nothing is more common than to deny or avoid our fears and self-doubts, thereby preventing them from ever being resolved.   If I am willing fully to confront my self-esteem problems,  to face and accept reality,  I create the possibility of change and growth.  If I deny my problems, I sentence myself to being stuck in the very pain I wish to escape.   I do not wish to imply that if only we are willing to face our problems,  solutions will always come easily; we may suffer from blocks we cannot overcome without professional help, or from a lack of knowledge that limits our options.  Nonetheless, it is safe to say that the way we respond to discomfiting realities reveals a great deal about our deepest vision of who we are-how secure or insecure we feel.  It also reveals what kind of future we are likely to create for ourselves.

Of course, most people do not tell themselves anything about their self-esteem because they do not think in such terms.  However, the impact of a self-estimate works its way within us whether we are aware of it or not.    Ignorance of self-esteem-or misconceptions concerning it-does not nullify the role it plays in our lives.

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 created by praise-or by foolish and exaggerated notions of our capabilities.  It is not a shallow “feel-good” phenomenon.   As we shall see, if it is not grounded in reality, if it is not built over time through such practices as operating consciously, self-responsibly, and with integrity, it is not self-esteem.

The essence of self-esteem is the experience that we are competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and that we are worthy of happiness.   Thus, self-esteem is made of two intimately related components: (1) trust in our mind, in our ability to think, to respond effectively to challenges; and (2) confidence that success, achievement, friendship love, respect, personal fulfillment-in sum, happiness–are appropriate to us.

Self-esteem is not a luxury but a vitally important psychological need.   Its survival value is obvious.   To face life with assurance rather than anxiety and self-doubt is to enjoy an inestimable advantage:  one’s judgments and actions are less likely to be distorted and misguided.   A tendency to make irrational decisions-as well as fear of making decisions-is both observable consequences of intellectual self-distrust.  To face human relationships with a benevolent, nonarrogant sense of one’s own value  is, again, to enjoy an advantage: self-respect tends to evoke respect from others.    A tendency to form destructive relationships– and to experience the suffering they occasion as natural or one’s “destiny”–are familiar effects of feeling unlovable and without value.

Childhood experiences-or, more precisely, the way a child interprets childhood experiences-tend to lay the foundation for the level of self-esteem that will emerge later in life. Adults who give a child a rational, non-contradictory impression of reality; who relate lovingly, respectfully, and with belief in a child’s competence and worth; who avoid insults, ridicule, and emotional or physical abuse;  and who uphold standards and values that inspire the best in a child-can often make the path to healthy self-esteem seem simple and natural (although not invariably or necessarily; a child’s own choices and decisions should not be discounted).   Adults who deal with a child in the opposite manner can make the path to self-esteem far more difficult and sometimes impossible (without some form of help). 

However, what nurtures and sustains self-esteem in grown-ups is not how others deal with us but how we ourselves operate in the face of life’s challenges-the choices we make and the actions we take.

In psychotherapy, work with self-esteem may have to begin with healing childhood psychic wounds, breaking destructive patterns of behavior,  dissolving blocks,  or neutralizing anxiety.   But, although it can clear the ground, the elimination of negatives does not produce self-esteem.  Just as the absence of suffering does not equal the presence of happiness, so the absence of anxiety does not equal the presence of confidence.  Self-esteem is built over time by the practice of-

choosing consciousness rather than unconsciousness

self-acceptance rather than self-disowning 

self-responsibility rather than passivity, alibiing, or blaming

self-assertiveness rather than self-suppression

purposefulness rather than drifting

integrity rather than self-betrayal

These practices are what I call “the six pillars of self-esteem,” and I call them “practices” because I want to stress the significance of consistency and discipline.   They are not things we do only when we feel like it.   They represent an orientation to life that has the aspect of an ethical code.    To a well-integrated person, they may come to feel like “second-nature,”  but that is not a state into which anyone is born: it represents a spiritual achievement. 

When I use the word “spiritual” in this context I do not intend any religious, mystical, or otherworldly meaning.    By “spiritual” I mean pertaining to consciousness (as contrasted with “material,” which means pertaining to or constituted of matter); and further, pertaining to the needs and development of consciousness.  Now let me explain why I call the attainment of self-esteem a spiritual achievement.

The foundation of the practice of living consciously is respect for the facts of reality, respect for truth–recognition that that which is, is.   Such a practice reflects the understanding that to place consciousness in an adversarial relationship to existence-to evade or dismiss reality-is to invite destruction.   To work at cultivating such awareness within oneself is a noble pursuit, even a heroic one, because truth is sometimes frightening or painful, and the temptation to close one’s eyes is sometimes strong.    Whether the awareness we need to expand pertains to the external world or the world within ourselves, to strive for greater clarity of perception and understanding, to move always in the direction of heightened mindfulness,  to revere truth above the avoidance of fear or pain,  is to commit ourselves to spiritual growth–the continuing development of our ability to see.   Whatever other virtue we may aspire to, this one is its base.

The practice of self-acceptance is the application of this virtue specifically to oneself.  Self-acceptance is realism-meaning respect for reality–concerning ourselves.  It is the acceptance of our thoughts, emotions, and behavior-not necessarily in the sense of liking, condoning, or admiring-but in the sense of not denying or disowning.   Self-acceptance is my willingness to stand in the presence of my  thoughts, feelings, and actions, with an attitude that makes approval or disapproval irrelevant: the desire to be aware.   Obviously we will like and enjoy some aspects of who we are more than others-that is not at issue.   What is at issue is whether we can be open to that which we may not like or enjoy.    Perhaps I have had some embarrassing thoughts that reflect an envy or jealously I believed I was “above”; perhaps I sometimes experience emotions that clash with my official self-concept, such as hurt or humiliation or rage; perhaps I have sometimes acted in ways that are  shocking and dismaying to recall-the question is always: can I allow space within my awareness for such realities without retreating into rationalization, denial, alibiing, or some other form of avoidance; and also, without collapsing into self-repudiation (which is just another way of running from reality). Self-esteem cannot be built on a platform of self-rejection.    Spiritual growth cannot emerge out of self-made blindness.   The more aspects of reality a consciousness is open to seeing-and the operative word here is seeing, not groundless believing–the more highly evolved the consciousness and therefore the most mature the level of spiritual development.

In understanding the practice of self-responsibility, let us begin with the observation that the natural development of a human being is from dependence to independence, from helplessness to increasing efficacy, from non-responsibility to personal accountability.   Self-responsibility means that we recognize  first, that we are the author of our choices and actions; and  second,  that we are responsible for our life and well-being and for the attainment of our desires; and third, that if we wish to gain values from others, we must offer values in exchange: no one exists merely to take care of us; no other human being is our property.    The most fundamental expression of self-responsibility is reliance on our own minds-the choice to think and to operate consciously-as contrasted with living second-hand, off the borrowed values and judgments of others.    Independence in the full sense is not a state that comes easily to most people.   What many call “thinking” is  merely a recycling of the thoughts and opinions of other people.    To look at the world through one’s own eyes and  be willing to live by one’s own judgment, requires courage, self-trust, and intellectual conscientiousness.   To be willing to be accountable for one’s actions requires integrity.   These are moral and spiritual virtues.

To many, self-assertiveness may seem like the very opposite of a spiritual virtue.   And yet, if the practice of self-assertiveness is considered, not in a vacuum, torn from all context, but as part of a network of virtues that include rationality, self-responsibility, and integrity, it may be viewed in a very different light, as an essential step toward the realization of our humanity.    Self-assertiveness is not about running over widows and orphans to get to the front of the line, or being rude to waiters, or behaving as though no one’s needs existed but one’s own.   When I write of self-assertiveness, I have in mind the courage to treat oneself and one’s convictions with decent respect in encounters with other persons; the willingness to stand up for one’s ideas and to live one’s values in reality; the honesty to let oneself be visible to others-or, to say it differently, not to be so controlled by fear of someone’s disapproval that one twists one’s true self out of recognizable form.    Thus defined, we can see that self-assertiveness is not self-indulgence but is among the rarest of virtues.   Certainly spirituality is more to be associated with openness than with self-concealment, with candor rather than dissembling, with authenticity rather than a calculated persona.

The practice of living purposefully, as opposed to passively drifting through life, is essential to any genuine sense of control over one’s existence.   It is our goals and purposes that give our days their focus.  To live purposefully is to think through and formulate one’s short-term and long-term goals or purposes, to identify the actions needed to realize them, to keep oneself on track, and to pay careful attention to whether the outcomes produced by one’s actions are the outcomes anticipated or whether one needs to go back to the drawing-board.  To act only on the whim of the moment, or on the basis of the chance encounter or chance invitation or chance opportunity, is to embrace helplessness as one’s fundamental response: one is not a thoughtful initiator but only an impulsive reactor.    To remove oneself from the realm of purpose is to exist on the sidelines of life, to become a non-participant.   After that, no form of spirituality is possible.

The practice of integrity entails congruence between what we know, what we profess, and what we do.    To be loyal in action  to one’s understanding and professed convictions is the essence of integrity.    When there is not congruence but contradiction, at some level consciousness is betraying itself.   If one is genuinely concerned with the growth and evolution of consciousness,  which is what a spiritual quest or commitment entails, then a lack of integrity cannot be tolerated:  it is a self-inflicted wound one must strive to heal.   If we torment our mate with small or large lies and inconsistencies, are cruel to our children, or dishonorable with our associates, colleagues, or customers-if we run from honest self-examination while protesting it is our highest concern-we cannot buy our way to spirituality by studying the I-Ching, the Kabbala, the Bible, or the scriptures of Buddhism.     The issue is not so much whether we are “perfect” in our integrity but rather how concerned we are to correct such breaches as might exist.    In the absence of such concern, whatever our life journey is about, it is not about spiritual growth.     

I began thinking about the relationship between self-esteem and spirituality some years ago when I was asked a provocative question by an elderly businessman.   I was addressing a group of CEOs on the ideas I was writing about in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.   I was talking about the practice of living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully, and personal integrity-and why they were the foundations of self-esteem.   At the end of my presentation, the oldest businessman in the group said to me, “Is this a religion-these principles?”  At first, I was puzzled,  since I had made no reference to religion and no such thought was in my mind.   Seeing the puzzled expression on my face, he corrected himself: “Perhaps what I mean to ask is, is this a code of ethics?”   I answered, “Well, I hadn’t quite been thinking of it that way, but now that you ask, yes, I would say it is-or part of one.   After all, it’s not surprising that the virtues that self-esteem asks of us are also the virtues that life asks of us.” Afterwards, I found myself reflecting on why he had first thought of religion.   Was it simply that for many people religion and ethics are almost synonymous?   Somehow, in this case, I did not think so.   What I began to suspect much later was that he had been groping for the connection that I have made explicit in this essay: the connection between  the six pillars and spirituality. 

For many people, one of the commonest associations with the idea of spirituality is the longing to feel at home in the universe-to feel benevolently connected to all that exists and to the ultimate source, whatever that might be, of all that exists.   We will not, in this context, raise the troublesome question of whether we wish to be benevolently connected to that which we regard as evil: instead, we will focus just on the longing for the experience of peace and harmony with existence, in the most profound sense imaginable.

Whatever else may be required for the fulfillment of this desire, peace and harmony with oneself is a precondition of peace and harmony with anything else.    A spirit cannot be benevolently connected to the universe ahead of being benevolently connected to  itself.   However, there is a sense in which the  reverse it also true.   The relationship is reciprocal.   A spirit cannot be benevolently connected to itself if it is in an adversarial stance to reality.    That is why the theme of respect for the facts of reality runs through my discussion of all six pillars.    That which is, is; that which is not, is not.   No truth is more fundamental.   To embrace this truth is the beginning of self-esteem.   It is also the beginning of spiritual development.

There are many persons who might describe themselves as subscribing to a philosophy of individualism in the abstract, as formulated thus far. But let us think through, concretely and specifically, what this means in social-political terms-because, especially among psychologists, there seem to be a great many persons who profess individualism while in their consulting rooms, working with therapy clients, but who become supporters of statism or collectivism when their focus shifts to the political arena. Statism or collectivism is the expression of the ethics of altruism in the August Comte sense, others above self, which holds self-sacrifice as the highest virtue, and laissez-faire capitalism is the expression of the ethics of individualism, of rational self-interest.

The essence of the social system entailed by the individualist ethics I advocate in my writings is contained in a single principle: No person or group of persons may seek to gain values from others by the use of physical force-in other words, the principle of voluntarism.

When human beings enter into social relationships, when they choose to deal with one another, they face a fundamental alternative: to deal by means of reason, or to deal by means of force. This alternative is inescapable: either a person seeks to gain values from others by their voluntary consent, by persuasion, by appealing to their mind, or a person seeks to gain values without the voluntary consent of the owner, which means by coercion or fraud. This, I submit, is the issue at the base of all social relationships and all political systems.

It is also the single most avoided issue in discussions of social philosophy.

I shall be blunt here, because there is a tendency in this arena to dance around the obvious, to discuss everything but the self-evident. It is at the mind that every gun is aimed. Every use of force is the attempt to compel a person to act against his or her judgment; if the person were willing to take the action, force would not be required.

In a free society, force may be used only as retaliation and only against the person or persons who initiate its use; a distinction is made between murder and self-defense. The person who resorts to the initiation of force seeks to gain a value by so doing; the person who retaliates in self-protection seeks not to gain a value but to keep a value that is already rightfully possessed.

The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism-or totalitarianism or collectivism or communism or socialism or Nazism or fascism or the welfare state. Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism-the belief that the individual exists to serve others-is translated into political reality.

Although this issue has not been traditionally discussed in the terms in which I am discussing it here, the moral-political concept that forbids the initiation of force, and stands as the guardian and protector of the individual’s life, freedom, and property, is the concept of rights. If life on earth is the standard of value, an individual has a right to live and pursue values, as survival requires; a right to think and act on his or her judgment-the right of liberty; a right to work for the achievement of his or her values and to keep the results-the right of property; a right to live for his or her sake, to choose and work for personal goals-the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Without property rights, no other rights are possible. We must be free to use that which we have produced, or we do not possess the right to liberty. We must be free to make the products of our work serve our chosen goals, or we do not posses the right to the pursuit of happiness. And-since we are not ghosts who exist in some nonmaterial manner-we must be free to keep and consume the products of our work, or we do not possess the right to life. In a society where human beings are not free to own privately the material means of production, their position is that of slaves whose lives are at the mercy of their rulers. It is relevant here to remember the statement of Trotsky: “Who does not obey shall not eat.”

In a political-economical context, freedom means one thing and one thing only: freedom from physical compulsion. There is nothing that can deprive us of our freedom except other persons-and no means by which they can do it except through the use of force. It is only by the initiation of force (or fraud, which is an indirect form of force) that our rights can be violated.

The only proper and justifiable purpose of government is to protect individual rights-to protect us from physical violence. It is the fact that others can violate our rights that necessitates the institution of government. If we are consistent in our adherence to individualism, we can see that the sole function of a government is to protect us from criminals, to protect us from foreign invaders, to provide a system of courts for the protection of property and contracts against breach or fraud-and otherwise to leave us alone. Voluntarism as a moral principle means libertarianism as a political principle.

In a society where our rights are protected by objective law, where the government has no other function or power, we are free to choose the work we desire to do; to trade our effort for the effort of others; to offer ideas, products, and services on a market from which force and fraud are barred; and to rise as high as our ability will take us. Among persons who do not seek the unearned, who do not long for contradictions or wish facts out of existence, who do not regard sacrifice and destruction as a valid means to gain their ends, there is no conflict of interest. They do not reach for a gun-or a legislator-to procure for them that which they cannot obtain through voluntary exchange.

This is not the place for a treatise on the political economy. I will simply say that, today, the difficulty in discussing this issue lies in the fact that most people have all but lost the knowledge of what capitalism is, how it functions, and what it has achieved. The truth about its nature and history has been drowned in a wave of misrepresentations, distortions, falsifications, and almost universal ignorance.

Today many people still take it as axiomatic that capitalism results in the exploitation of the poor; that it leads to monopoly; that it necessitates periodic economic depressions; that it starts wars; that it resisted and opposed the worker’s rising standard of living; that the standard of living was the achievement, not of capitalism, but of labor unions and of humanitarian labor legislation. Not one of these claims is true, but they are among the most common bromides of our culture. People do not feel obliged to question such bromides, since they “know” in moral principle that capitalism mustresult in evils: because capitalism is based on the profit motive and appeals to the individual’s self-interest

It is a widely held belief, inherited from Marx, that government is necessarily an agent of economic interest and that political systems are to be defined in terms of whose economic interests a government serves. Thus, capitalism is commonly regarded as a system in which the government acts predominantly to serve the interests of businesspeople; socialism, as a system in which the government serves the interests of the working class. It is this concept of government that the libertarian principle rejects.

The fundamental issue is not what kind of economic controls a government enforces, nor on whose behalf; the issue is whether one is to have a controlled economy or an uncontrolled economy. Laissez-faire capitalism is not government control of economics for the benefit of businesspersons; it is the complete separation of state and economics. This is implicit in the nature of capitalism, but historically it was not identified in such terms nor adhered to consistently.

It was the United States of America, with its system of limited, constitutional government, that implemented the principle of capitalism-free trade on a free market-to the greatest extent. In America, during the nineteenth century, people’s productive activities were for the most partleft free of governmental regulations, controls, and restrictions; most thinkers considered themselves thoroughly emancipated from the discredited economic policies of medievalism, mercantilism, and precapitalist statism.

And in the brief period of a century and a half, the United States created a level of freedom, of progress, of achievement, of wealth, of physical comfort-a standard of living-unmatched and unequaled by the sum of humankind’s development up to that time. With the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of capitalism, an extraordinary transformation took place in men and women’s thinking about the possibilities of life on earth, a revolution so radical that it is still far from fully understood.

With the collapse of the absolute state and the development of the free-market society, people saw the sudden release of productive energy that had previously had no outlet. They saw life made possible for countless millions who could have had no chance at survival in precapitalist economies. They saw mortality rates fall and population growth rates explode upward. They saw machines (the machines that many of them had cursed, opposed, and tried to destroy) cut their workday in half while multiplying incalculably the value and reward of their effort. They saw themselves lifted to a standard of living no feudal baron could have conceived. With the rapid development of science, technology, and industry, they saw, for the first time in history, the individual’s liberated mind taking control of material existence.

To the extent that various countries adopted capitalism, the rule of brute force vanished from people’s lives. Capitalism abolished slavery and serfdom in all of the civilized nations. Trade, not violence, became the ruling principle of human relationships. Intellectual freedom and economic freedom rose and flourished together. Political thinkers had discovered the concept of individual rights. Individualism was the creative power revolutionizing the world.

A system in which wealth and position were inherited or acquired by physical conquest or political favor was replaced by one in which values had to be earned by productive work. In closing the doors to force, capitalism threw them open to achievement. Rewards were tied to production, not to extortion; to ability, not to brutality; to the capacity for furthering life, not to that for inflicting death.

Much has been written about the harsh conditions of life during the early years of capitalism. Yet when one considers the level of material existence from which capitalism raised men and women and the comparatively meager amount of wealth in the world when the Industrial Revolution began, what is startling is not the slowness with which capitalism liberated people from poverty but the speed with which it did so. Once the individual was free to act, ingenuity and inventiveness proceeded to raise the standard of living to heights that a century earlier would have been judged fantastic. It would be difficult to name an event of history more impressive than this-or less appreciated.

Capitalism was achieving miracles before human beings’ eyes. Yet, from its beginning, the majority of nineteenth-century intellectuals were vehemently antagonistic to it. Their writings were filled with denunciations of the free-market economy. Broadly speaking, the antagonism came from two camps: the medievalists and the socialists.

The medievalists found the disintegration of feudal aristocracy, the sudden appearance of fortune makers from backgrounds of poverty and obscurity, the emphasis on merit and productive ability, the concern with science and material progress, and, above all, the pursuit of profit spirituality repugnant. Many of them-such as Richard Oastler, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, Robert Southey, William Cobbett, Thomas Hood, and Thomas Loe Peacock-unleashed scathing attacks on the factory system. They were avowed enemies of the Age of Reason. They declared individualism vulgar. They longed for a return to a status society. “Commerce or business of any kind,” wrote John Ruskin, “may be the invention of the Devil.”

And while the medievalists dreamed of abolishing the Industrial Revolution, the socialists wished to take it over. Both camps dismissed or gave only grudging acknowledgement to the achievements of capitalism. They preferred to eulogize the living conditions of previous ages. Freiedrich Engels, along with Carlyle, regarded the domestic industry’s system of the preindustrial era as the golden age of the working classes. The criticisms leveled against capitalism by both camps were remarkably similar: the “dehumanizing” effect of the factory system upon the worker, the “alienation” of man and woman from nature, the “old impersonality” of the market, the “cruelty” of the law of supply and demand-and the evil of the pursuit of profit.

In the writings of both medievalists and socialists, one can observe the unmistakable longing for a society in which the individual’s existence will be automatically guaranteed-that is, in which no one will have to be responsible for his or her own survival. Both camps project their ideal society as one characterized by what they call “harmony,” by freedom from rapid change or challenge or the exacting demands of competition; a society in which each must do his or her prescribed part to contribute to the wellbeing of the whole but in which no one will face the necessity of making choices and decisions that will crucially affect his or her life, and future; in which the question of what one has or has not earned, and does or does not deserve, will not come up; in which rewards will not be tied to achievements and in which someone’s benevolence will guarantee that one need never bear the consequences of one’s errors.

If we consider the writings of some of capitalism’s most famous nineteenth century defenders, it will help us to understand why people are so confused about the nature of capitalism today-and why statism, during this century, swallowed up so much of the world. Those early defenders of capitalism included the English thinkers John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty is generally regarded as one of the classic defenses of the rights of the individual. But individual rights is precisely the concept that Mill does not support. His ethical standpoint is that of utilitarianism. In On Liberty, he does argue that society should leave the individual free. But as justification for his position, he projects an essentially collectivist premise, the premise that the group should permit persons to be free because that will best allow them to serve its interests-thus implying that the individual does not in fact have the right to freedom but is, morally, the property of the collective. Not astonishingly, Mill ended his life as a socialist.

Herbert Spencer defended capitalism by means of spurious analogies to animals in a jungle and the survival of the fittest-which implied a complete misrepresentation of the nature of capitalism, one that was thoroughly in accord with the views of its enemies. An animal’s method of survival is not a human being’s; we do not survive by fighting over a static quantity of meat (or wealth); we survive by producingthe values, the goods, that our lives require. And what was Spencer’s ultimate oral justification for a free-market economy? Not the rights of the indiviudal, but the purification of the race-the weeding out of the unfit, in alleged accordance with the principle of evolution; that is, the good of the collective, of the human species. Aside from all other objections, the ludicrous irrelevance of this defense, sometimes labeled social Darwinism, is that capitalism facilitates the survival and well-being of countless more of the “less fit” than any other system since the beginning of time.

It is historically, philosophically, and psychologically significant that not one of the defenders of capitalism chose to attack the position of its opponents at the root, on the level of basic premises; not one of them challenged the altruist-collectivist frame of reference I which all discussions concerning the value of capitalism were held. Therefore, although the case for capitalism has never been refuted economically, capitalism has lost more and more ground because we have lacked a moral philosophy to sustain and support it. One of the major goals of Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged was to provide just such a moral justification-and, in my estimation, she succeeded admirably.

In the world of the present, most people regard the right of a government to initiate force against its citizens as an absolute not to be debated or challenged. They stipulate only that the force must be used “for a good cause.” Precisely because capitalism in its ideal (that is, consistent) form forbids the use of force to gain social ends, or any other kind of ends, intellectuals dismiss the laissez-faire concept as “antisocial” and “unprogressive.”

Whatever the differences in their specific programs, all the enemies of the free-market economy-communists, socialists, fascists, welfare statists-are unanimous in their belief that they have a right to dispose of the lives, property, and future of others; that private ownership of the means of production is a selfish evil; that the more a person has achieved, the greater is his or her debt to those who have not achieved it; that men and women can be compelled to go on producing under any terms or conditions their rulers decree; that freedom is a luxury that may have been permissible in a primitive economy, but for the running of giant industries, electronic factories, and complex sciences, nothing less than slave labor will do. Whether they propose to take over the economy outright, in the manner of communists and socialists, or to maintain the pretense of private property while dictating prices, wages, production, and distribution, in the manner of fascists and welfare statists, it is the gun, it is the rule of physical force that they consider “kind,” they who consider the free market “cruel.”

Since the moral justification offered for the rule of force is humankind’s need of the things that persons of ability produce, it follows (in collectivist’s system of thought) that the greater an individual’s productive ability, the greater are the penalties he or she must endure, in the form of controls, regulations, expropriations. Consider, for example, the principle of the progressive income tax: those who produce the most are penalized accordingly; those who produce nothing receive a subsidy, in the form of relief payments. Or consider the enthusiastic advocacy of socialized medicine. What is the justification offered for placing the practice of medicine under government control? The importance of the services that physicians perform-the urgency of their patients’ need. Physicians are to be penalized precisely because they have so great a contribution to make to human welfare; thus is virtue turned into a liability.

In denying human beings freedom of thought and action, statists and collectivist systems are anti-self-esteem by their very nature. Self-confident, self-respecting men and women are unlikely to accept the premise that they exist for the sake of others. A free society cannot be maintained without an ethics of rational self-interest. Neither can it be maintained except by men and women who have achieved a healthy level of self-esteem. And a healthy level of self-esteem cannot be maintained without a willingness to assert-and, if necessary, fight for-our right to exist. It is on this point that issues of psychology, ethics, and politics converge.

A free society cannot automatically guarantee the mental or emotional well-being of all its members. Freedom from external coercion is not a sufficient condition of our optimal fulfillment, but it is a necessary one. The great virtue of capitalism-laissez-faire capitalism, as contrasted not only with the more-extreme forms of statism but also with the mixed economy we have today-is that it is the one system whose defining principle is precisely the barring of physical coercion from human relationships. No other political system pays even lip service to this principle. No other political system is consistent with the individualism that so many people embrace in the personal realm.

The Importance of Definitions

Some years ago, a number of professors, interested in self-esteem, were invited to contribute essays to a book entitled The Social Importance of Self-Esteem, edited by Andrew Mecca, Neil J. Smelser, and John Vasconcellos, and to be published by the University of California Press. I attended a self-esteem conference and found myself sitting next to one of the professors who would be contributing an essay.

I asked him what definition of self-esteem he was working for and if it was shared by the other contributors.

I was astonished to see him draw back tensely, glower at me suspiciously, and demand, “Why do you want to know?”

Astonished and fascinated by his response, I explained, as benevolently as I could, that if the research was to have value one would need to know what the writers meant by “self-esteem” and if all the writers were working with the same concept. Otherwise, it would be a Tower of Babel, and what merit could their conclusions have?

Still more angrily, he said, “Don’t think you can trap me into a definition!” I was stunned (although I admit I was also amused). “Look,” I said, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘trapped.’ After all, we are colleagues. We are both interested in the subject of self-esteem. I have been working in this field for many years. Since you are working on a book about self-esteem, don’t you think it’s natural that I’d be interested in how you define the term? How can you possibly construe my question as a trap?”

I do not remember how he answered. I only know his stance remained puzzlingly adversarial.

Unsurprisingly, the book was a disappointment. I do not know that it satisfied anyone.

If asked what I see as immediate challenges facing those who work in the field of self-esteem, either as researchers or as practitioners, I will answer-for reasons contained in the above story-that the first priority is to carve out a definition of self-esteem that researchers can agree on. No easy task, in my opinion.

Obviously, I must resist the temptation to argue for the definition of self-esteem that I have presented and elaborated on at length elsewhere (Branden, 1994). I see self-esteem as “the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthyof happiness.” Whether one accepts this formulation or any variant of it, or something else entirely, I am persuaded that any definition of self-esteem needs to include both the issue of competence and that of worthiness, rather than just one of those constituents, and must be reality-based, not merely matter of feelings (Mruk, 1995). And this means that our concept must be differentiated from narcissism or grandiosity. Otherwise, we will have the pleasure of reading in the newspapers that psychological studies now suggest that high self-esteem correlates with violent behavior more than low self-esteem does (Branden, 1997).

Another challenge to researchers and practitioners is the need to operationalize the concept of self-esteem so that we clarify what it looks like in action. How do we recognize a decent level of self-esteem? How do we recognize its absence?

And this is the doorway to yet another related challenge: that of creating a test that will measure levels of self-esteem. Everyone recognizes the limitations of self-reports. But how to improve on them is not obvious. Yet in the absence of a reliable test, it is difficult to produce reliable research concerning self-esteem’s effects. I see this as one of the toughest challenges we face.

A challenge that confronts not only researchers and practitioners, but also parents and teachers, is that of thinking through what behavior on the part of adults is likely to nurture self-esteem in young people, and what behavior is likely to accomplish the opposite, and what are the grounds of their beliefs.

Many clinicians, for instance, have discovered through experience that treating a client with acceptance and respect can support the client’s struggle for a better self-esteem, while mere assurances of the client’s worth are generally ineffective. Similarly, many parents and teachers have discovered -or learned from the late child psychologist Haim Ginott-that hyperbolic praise is likely to do more harm than good (Ginott, 1972). Many teachers have invited criticism for believing that a young person’s self-esteem can be cultivated by having students sing or announce “I am unique.” (It should hardly be necessary to point out that a hay sandwich is also “unique.”)

I am sometimes asked for advice about selecting a psychotherapist who can helpfully’ address self-esteem issues. I suggest that people interview the therapist and ask these questions:

What do you mean by “self-esteem”?

What do you think self-esteem depends on?

What will we do together that will have positive effect on our self- esteem ?

What are your reasons for thinking so ?

For many practitioners the ability to answer these questions will be their number one challenge. When we can answer them well, there is no end to the possibilities confronting us–taking our work into schools, prisons, the world of business, and the culture in general.

Some of the things we need to know about self-esteem can only be learned through controlled studies. But there is a great deal that can be learned by working with people and paying attention to the outcome of our interventions. Everyone knows that sometimes we have a pet “theory” about what ought to work and we keep repeating the favored move, ignoring the fact that it is not delivering the desired results. Over the years I have had to remind myself more than once of that wise observation that doing more of what doesn’t work, doesn’t work. And often I have learned more from my failures than from my successes–because failures stimulate new thinking (or should).

It is unrealistic to demand that we ought to use only those interventions that have been proven effective in controlled studies. A clinician cannot provide “data” for every move he or she makes. Practice is always ahead of research, and not only in psychology. But we can do our conscientious best to pay attention to outcome. For clinicians, parents, and teachers, that will be an unending challenge.

REFERENCES

Branden, N. (1994). The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. New York: Bantam Books.
Branden, N. (1997). The Art of Living Consciously. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Ginott, H. (1972). Teacher and Child. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Mruk. C. (1995). Self-Esteem: Research, Theory, and Practice. New York: Springer.

Perhaps the following recollections can contribute to this debate.

In the winter and spring of 1958, I gave the first course of lectures entitled “The Basic Principles of Objectivism” which, although I did not fully realize it at the time, was to launch the Objectivist movement. These lectures included a lengthy discussion of the psychology of self-esteem and my theory of social metaphysics. This was work on psychology done not by Rand, but by me. Another lecture by me was entitled “Why Human Beings Repress and Drive Underground not the Worst Within them, but the Best.” Again, a psychological contribution made by me. Then, in addition, Barbara Branden created and gave a lecture entitled “Basic Principles of Efficient Thinking.”

However, the point is, the entire series of 20 lectures was presented to the world as “Objectivism.” This was understood to mean not that Rand was the originator of every thought propounded, but that all of it, whether developed by her, by me, or by Barbara Branden, had Rand’s complete agreement.

Later, I was to offer through the Nathaniel Branden Institute additional courses on what we then called “Objectivist Psychology.” It was called “Objectivist” because it was perceived by Rand to be entirely compatible with her philosophy, and, in some instances, an application of her philosophy. (Later I would drop the name “Objectivist Psychology” because such a designation made little sense to me and I began calling my work “Biocentric Psyhology.” Later still, I decided I did not like using any such name and dropped “Biocentric Psychology” too.)

After the break, Rand became suspicious of any intellectual affiliation with anyone and thereafter “Objectivism” meant either work originated by Rand herself or works, such as Leonard Peikoff’s, that had Rand’s knowledge and full sanction.

Now, in retrospect, it is clear to me that calling work in psychology “Objectivism” was inappropriate, inasmuch as Objectivism is a philosophy. Just the same, the evidence makes clear that Rand herself saw Objectivism as an open system in the sense that it was open to new identifications, new discoveries, new principles, providing, of course, this new material did not stand in contradiction to what had already been established.

Had Leonard Peikoff been a generative figure, more intellectually productive, I dare say that Rand would have regarded his contributions as “Objectivism.”

I might mention, in conclusion, that the fact that I wrote my first articles on psychology in an Objectivist publication, and the material was offered to the world as an aspect of “Objectivism” made it possible, years later, when I had become persona non grata, for Leonard Peikoff and his followers to talk about “The Objectivist Theory of Self-Esteem” and to use my theory of social metaphysics as if these ideas had originated in the mind of Rand. The truth is, there is no Objectivist theory of self-esteem. In her whole life, Rand wrote maybe no more than seven or eight sentences on the subject. I have written volumes. That is a story for another day.

Here, my purpose is to draw attention to the historical evidence that lends support to the claim of David Kelley and others that Objectivism is and must be “an open system.”

Were Rand alive, obviously she would have the right to say, “Do not describe as ‘Objectivism’ any viewpoint I disagree with. But when her agreement or disagreement is no longer possible, we are on our own to judge what is or is not compatible with Objectivism…and that could include even challenging some position of Rand’s which we believe to be in conflict with her more fundamental premises.

David Kelley drew to my attention something I wrote in the Objectivist in April, 1965—“A Message to Our Readers.” I wrote:

“In the future, when Objectivism has become an intellectual and cultural movement on a wider scale, when a variety of authors have written books dealing with some aspect of the Objectivist philosophy—it could be appropriate for those in agreement to describe themselves as ‘Objectivists.’ However, at present, when the name is so intimately associated with Rand and me, it is not. At present, a person who is in agreement with our philosophy should describe himself, not as an Objectivist, but as a student or supporter of Objectivism.”

Today I regret that second sentence as inappropriate and stultifying, but note the implications of the first sentence, which, I assure you, had Rand’s full knowledge and approval. (Everything in our publication was edited by her.) We were clearly projecting a future when “Objectivism” would cover far more than the writings of Rand.

If, later, Rand pulled back from that vision, it was for reasons more emotional than philosophical, and one can feel compassion for her suffering, but still…she was right the first time and wrong the second.

Nurturing Self-Esteem in Young People

If we are to consider how self-esteem is best nurtured in young people, we must first be clear on what we mean by “self-esteem.” So I shall begin with a definition.

Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life, and as being worthy of happiness. Thus, it consists of two components: (1) self-efficacy — confidence in one’s ability to think, learn, choose, and make appropriate decisions; and (2) self-respect — confidence that love, friendship, achievement, success — in a word, happiness — are natural and appropriate (Branden, 1994).

If a person felt inadequate to face the normal challenges of life, if he or she lacked fundamental self-trust or confidence in his or her mind, we would recognize the presence of a self-esteem deficiency, no matter what other assets the person possessed. The same would be true if a person lacked a basic sense of self-respect, felt unworthy of the love or respect of others, felt undeserving of happiness, or was fearful of asserting thoughts, wants, orneeds.

Self-esteem is not the euphoria or buoyancy that may be temporarily induced by a drug, a compliment, or a love affair.If it is not grounded in reality, if it is only a delusion in someone’s consciousness — if it is not built over time through such practices as living consciously, self-responsibly, and with integrity, discussed below — it is not self-esteem (Branden, 1997).

We cannot “give” a child self-esteem; but we can support the practices that will lead a child to self-esteem, and abstain from the actions that tend to undermine a child’s self-esteem.

Over more than four decades of practicing psychotherapy, I have been preoccupied with the question of what people are doing right when they are strengthening their self-esteem and what they are doing wrong when they are undermining it. In “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem,” I examine the six practices that I have found to be essential for nurturing self-esteem, and that have been indispensable to my work as a therapist. Here, I can only suggest the briefest essence of “the six pillars.”

The practice of living consciously: respect for facts; being present to what we are doing while we are doing it; seeking and being eagerly open to any information, knowledge or feedback that bears on our interests, values, goals, and projects; seeking to understand not only the world external to self but also our inner world, so that we do not act out of self-made blindness (Branden, 1999).

The practice of self-acceptance: the willingness to own, experience, and take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and actions, without evasion, denial, or disowning — and also without self-repudiation; the virtue of realism applied to the self.

The practice of self-responsibility: realizing that we are the author of our choices and actions; that each one of us is responsible for our life and well-being, and for the attainment of our goals; and that if we need the cooperation of other people to achieve our goals, we must offer values in exchange, since no one exists merely to serve us (Branden, 1997).

The practice of self-assertiveness: being authentic in dealings with others; treating our values and person with decent respect in our social interactions; willingness to stand up for our ideas and ourselves in appropriate ways in appropriate contexts.

The practice of living purposefully: identifying our short-term and long-term goals or purposes and the actions needed to attain them (formulating an action-plan); organizing behavior in the service of those goals; monitoring action to be sure we stay on track; and paying attention to outcome to recognize if we need to go back to the drawing board.

The practice of personal integrity: living with congruence between what we know, what we profess, and what we do; manifesting our professed values in action.

One of the simplest applications of living consciously and being self-responsible is being conscious of — and taking responsibility for — the words coming out of one’s mouth.If adults did so, they would not be so prone to make the kind of statement’s that can devastate a young person’s self-esteem. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you do anything right?” When I hear adults talking to a child abusively, I inquire, “What is your purpose? Have you found that insulting a child’s intelligence raises the level of performance?” I ask teachers: “Have you found ridicule to be an effective tool for facilitating learning?” Pay attention to outcome!

Or, a lesson in self-acceptance: Five-year-old Jennie bursts into the room and screams, “I hate my brother!” Mother number one says, “What a terrible thing to say! You don’t mean it!You can’t hate him! He’s your brother!” What is she teaching? Self-alienation and self-doubt. Mother number two says, “Wow! You’re really feeling mad at your brother right now!. Want to tell me about it, sweetheart? “What is she teaching? Self-acceptance and the non-catastrophizing of negative emotions (Branden, 1987).

Clearly, parents and teachers can make it easier or harder for a young person to develop self-esteem. They can make it easier or harder for a young person to learn the six practices and make them an integral part of his or her life.However, they cannot inspire these practices in young people if they do not manifest them in their own behavior.In this area, modeling is essential to effective teaching. According to Stanley Coopersmith’s landmark study of the family origins of self-esteem,the parents of children with high self-esteem tend to have high self-esteem themselves (Coopersmith, 1967).

The six practices provide a standard for assessing parental and teaching policies. Do these policies encourage or discourage consciousness, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, purposefulness, and integrity? Do they raise or lower the probability that a young person will learn self-esteem-supporting behaviors?

The issue of what supports — or subverts — self-esteem is present virtually from the beginning of life. A child has no more basic requirement, a far as parental behavior is concerned, then that of safety and security.This entails the satisfaction of physiological needs, protection from the elements, and basic caretaking in all its obvious respects. It entails the creation of an environment in which the child can feel nurtured and safe.

In this context, the process of separation and individuation can unfold (Mahler, Pine, and Bergman, 1975). A mind that can later learn to trust itself can begin to emerge. A person with a confident sense of boundaries can develop.

Today we know that touch is essential for a child’s healthy development.Through touch we send sensory stimulation that helps the infant’s brain to develop. Through touch we convey love, caring, comfort, support, nurturing.

As the process of growth continues, a child who is treated with love tends to internalize the feeling and to experience him or herself as lovable. Love is conveyed by verbal expression, nurturing actions, and the pleasure and joy parents show in the sheer fact of the child’s being.

An effective parent can convey anger or disappointment without signaling withdrawal of love — and can teach without resorting to rejection, humiliating behavior, or physical or emotional abuse, all of which can damage a child’s fragile sense of self.

A child whose thoughts and feelings are treated with acceptance tends to internalize the response and to learn self-acceptance.Acceptance is conveyed, not necessarily by agreement, which is not always possible, but by listening to and acknowledging the child’s thoughts and feelings, and by not chastising, arguing, lecturing, psychologizing, or insulting.

A child who is treated with respect tends to learn self-respect. Stated simply, respect is conveyed by addressing the child with the same good-mannered courtesy one normally extends to adults. A home-or a classroom-in which people talk to one another with benevolent respect is an environment that supports self-esteem.

When praise is in order, convey appreciation of behavior, and do so realistically.Do not make extravagant, global statements about the child’s intelligence or ability — because they make the child feel anxious and unseen. When criticism of behavior is necessary, do so respectfully, with regard for the dignity of the recipient. Do not indulge in character assassination (Ginott, 1972).

When parents express their pleasure in and appreciation of a child’s questions or observations or thoughtfulness, they are encouraging the exercise of consciousness or mindfulness. When they respond positively and respectfully to a child’s efforts at self-expression, or invite such self-expression, they encourage self-assertiveness. When they acknowledge and show appreciation for a child’s truthfulness, they encourage integrity. In short, catch a child doing something right and convey pleasure and appreciation at the sight of it.

How parents respond when children make mistakes can be fateful for self-esteem. If a child is ridiculed or chastised or punished for making a mistake — or if a parent steps in impatiently, saying “Here, let me do it!”-the child cannot feel free to struggle and learn. A natural process of growth is sabotaged. A child who does not feel accepted by parents if he or she makes a mistake may learn to practice self-rejection in response to mistakes. Consciousness is muted, self-acceptance is undermined, self-assertiveness and self-responsibility are suppressed. It is more useful to ask, “What have you learned?What might you do differently next time?”

An effective way to stimulate expanded consciousness in young people is to avoid asking questions that can be answered with a yes or no and to ask instead questions that require thought. For instance, instead of asking, “Did you have a good time at the circus?” — ask, “What was the most interesting (or exciting) thing you saw at the circus?” Or: “What’s your favorite book (or class) and what do you like about it?”

There is no end to the possible ways one might encourage the six practices in young people; here, it has been possible to indicate only a few. I turn now to some of the ways in which teachers can contribute to the development of self-esteem in their students.

To many students, school represents a “second chance”-an opportunity to acquire a better sense of self and a better vision of life than was offered in their home. A teacher who projects confidence in a child’s competence and goodness can be a powerful antidote to a family in which such confidence is lacking and which perhaps the opposite perspective is being conveyed. A teacher who treats boys and girls with respect can provide enlightenment for a child struggling to understand human relationships and who comes from a home where such respect does not exist. A teacher who refuses to accept a child’s negative self-concept and relentlessly holds to a better view of the child’s potential has the power-sometimes-to save a life. A client once said to me, “It was my forth grade teacher who made me aware a different kind of humanity existed than my family-she gave me a vision to inspire me.”

“Feel good” notions of self-esteem are harmful rather than helpful. Yet if one examines the proposals offered to teachers on how to raise students’ self-esteem, many are the kind of trivial nonsense that gives self-esteem a bad name, such as praising and applauding a child for virtually everything he or she does, dismissing the importance of objective accomplishments, handing out gold stars on every possible occasion and propounding an “entitlement” idea of self-esteem that leaves it divorced from both behavior and character. One of the consequences of this approach is to expose to ridicule the whole self-esteem movement in the schools.

A few words, as an aside, on the relationship of self-esteem to external achievements in school or beyond. To observe that the practice of living purposefully is essential to well-realized self-esteem should not be understood to mean that the measure of a person’s worth is his or her external achievements. We admire achievements-in ourselves and in others-and it is natural and appropriate to do so.But this is not the same thing as saying that our achievements are the measure or ground of our self-esteem. The root of our self-esteem, as I have discussed at length elsewhere (Branden, 1994) is not our achievements, but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve all the self-virtues mentioned above.

If the proper goal of education is to provide students with a foundation in the basics needed to function effectively in the modern world, then nothing is more important than building courses on the art of critical thinking into every school curriculum. And if self-esteem means confidence in our ability to cope with the challenges of life, is anything more important that learning how to use one’s mind?This means learning, not what to think, but how to think.

In an information-age economy, where everyone’s chief capital asset is what they carry between their ears, the ability to think independently is valued far above mere obedience. Individual teachers and designers of curricula need to ask themselves: How does my work contribute to the process of young people becoming thinking, innovative, creative human beings?

To give a child the experience of being accepted and respected does not mean to signal that “I expect nothing of you. “Teachers who want children to give their best must convey that that is what they expect. Children often interpret the absence of such expectations as evidence of contempt.

We know that a teacher’s expectations tends to turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. If a teacher expects a student to get an A-or a D-either way, expectations tend to become realities. If a teacher knows how to convey, “I am absolutely convinced you can master this subject and I expect you to, and I will give you all the help you need,” the child feels nurtured, supported, and inspired.

If a proper education has to include an understanding of thinking, it also has to include an understanding of feelings. A teacher is in a position to teach children a rational respect for feelings coupled with an awareness that one can accept a feeling without having to be ruled by it. For self-esteem, this is an issue of the highest importance.

Students can learn to own when they are afraid, and accept it, and (for instance) still go to the dentist when it is necessary to do so. They can learn to admit when they are angry, and talk about it, and not resort to fists. They can learn to recognize when they are hurt, and own the feeling, and not put on a phony act of indifference. They can learn to witness their feelings of impatience and excitement, and breathe into them, and yet not go out to play until they have finished their homework. They can learn to recognize their sexual feelings, and accept them, and not be controlled by them in self-destructive ways. They can learn to recognize and accept their emotions without losing their minds.

The last issue I will mention, equally applicable to parents and teachers, is the need to ask, “What do I want from this child? Obedience or cooperativeness?” If I want obedience, fear may be an appropriate feeling to encourage. If I want cooperativeness, then I must speak not to a child’s fear, but to a child’s mind.

If, in dealing with a young person, we remember that we are addressing a mind, the simplest conversation can be a vehicle for supporting and strengthening self-esteem.

Such are a few of the ways in which parents and teachers can contribute to the self-esteem of young people.

References

Branden, N. “How to Raise Your Self-Esteem.” New York: Bantam Books, 1987.

_________ “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.” New York: Bantam Books, 1994.

_________ “Taking Responsibility.”New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

_________ “The Art of Living Consciously.” New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Coopersmith, S. “The Antecedents of Self-Esteem.” San Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co., 1967.

Ginott, H. “Teacher and Child.” New York: Macmillan. 1972

Mahler, M.S., Pine, and Bergman “The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant. “New York: Basic Books, 1975.

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

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.

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.

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.