In an article I read today in the local newspaper, John Rosemond commented about the concept of "self-esteem." It seems, according to this professional psychologist from Gastonia, NC, that self-esteem is generally a bad thing. To support this idea, he calls upon the evidence presented in an article in April's "Scientific American" by Dr. Roy F. Baumeister, called "Violent Pride."
Pointing to the article's data, he attempts to show that Dr. Baumeister's study of the relationship between aggression and self-esteem debunks the "self-esteem mythology that has driven American parenting and education for more than a quarter century…" His main point, it seems, is that when children were taught "humility and modesty, rather than false pride," kids grew up better, and less likely to become violent.
At the beginning of the article, he presents pairs of people, asking which had more self-esteem… Gandhi or Hitler, Einstein or Eichmann, and so on. Noting these pairings in particular, I had to wonder if Rosemond thought that Hitler and Eichmann had been brought up with unconditional self-esteem. He didn't seem to get around to addressing that particular point.
An interesting quote from his article points out a source of confusion here:
|
"Gang members have high self-esteem. So do spouse abusers. On a narcissism scale, violent criminals, long thought to be 'acting out' low self-esteem, obtained a higher mean score than people in any other category." |
From this, as well as much of the rest of the article, it appears that Rosemond is equating "narcissism" with self-esteem. Since he also included Hitler as one of the "high self-esteem" crowd, I would think "megalomania" would also fall into this category, from the context of the article. Which makes me wonder what he thinks self-esteem is all about. From what I've heard, narcissism and megalomania are by-products of terribly low levels of self-esteem, in which a person will fight against the feeling that he is not worthy of anyone's esteem. Apparently, this is not the case, according to Dr. Rosemond.
Late in the article, he mentions that there are apparently more than one sort of self-esteem. "Performance-based self-esteem, better known as self-competency" is set aside from the article's condemnation. It seems that one should at least try to develop enough self-esteem that you can believe you're capable of getting up and facing the world in the morning. Anything else, apparently, is "false pride."
I can't help but wonder if there may be other types of self-esteem available that the good doctor failed to touch upon in his article? I mean, there seems to be quite a gap between the self-esteem of a Hitler and the self-esteem of "self-competency." Or, going in a different direction, I wonder what's so wrong with having an attitude that I ought to hold myself and others in about the same level of esteem?
A big part of the article was directed at the self-esteem efforts in some schools, in which children have been given unconditional rewards and no criticism. I would be the first to condemn such practices, myself, if I ever saw an example of it. Oddly, such practices always seemed to take place in "other" schools. It never appears to have happened in my school experience, nor in my son's. Maybe our experiences were rare. Somehow, I doubt it.
One telling point in the article came toward the end of the article, when he brought in a quote from the Bible: "Pride comes before a fall." If you think of the term "hubris," I'd be inclined to agree. But condemning all pride, it seems to me, is not a wise thing to do.