Self-esteem: Smells Like Teen Trouble

By Selwyn Duke

There is a reason why G.K. Chesterton once called common sense ". . . that forgotten branch of psychology."  It is because the field can reliably be used to govern your life; all you need do is listen closely to its prescriptions.

And do exactly the opposite. 

To the best of my recollection, the self-esteem movement in schools powerfully took hold about 15 years ago; thus, we have had almost a generation of children weaned on it.  And I can honestly say that I knew it was nonsense from the very beginning.  In fact, it is worse than that, as it is nothing less than a force corruptive of and destructive to the soul.

Now, finally, little by little, the experts are coming to this realization.  For instance, Benjamin Radford writes at LiveScience.com:

. . . according to the study's [that of one published in the journal Psychological Science] co-author, associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University Jean Twenge, for today's youth 'confidence has crossed over into overconfidence.' Too much self-esteem (overconfidence) may be just as damaging as too little self-esteem.'

Twenge and other researchers believe that the decades of efforts to boost self-esteem may have created unrealistic expectations in today's youth, and their inflated self-esteem may lead to a sense of entitlement: 'I'm great, so I deserve great things.'

No kidding. 

The problem is, however, that everyone is still missing the point.  The article speaks of those who think the self-esteem pendulum has swung too far, but the truth is that it should never have swung at all.  This is because what they are instilling in children is not as healthy as it sounds.  But before I reveal what it is, let's examine for a moment the fallacies underpinning self-esteem theory.

The self-esteem movement rose to prominence largely if not completely because of feminist concerns.  The idea at the time was that girls' performance in school deteriorated as they advanced into the higher grades and that this was because their "self-esteem" dropped precipitously as they entered adolescence.  But there were two holes in this theory. 

First, what they billed as a problem was nothing but a figment of ideological imaginations.  At the time that they were complaining about girls' academics, the lasses had already overtaken the lads in school performance or were in the process of doing so (I discussed boys' woes in this piece).  But that's a leftist for you, always proposing solutions that don't work for problems that don't exist.

The second fallacy also concerned ignoring inconvenient facts.  To sell their self-esteem theory, psychologists devised self-esteem tests that purportedly could measure the quality, and, lo and behold, what do you think they found?  Sure enough, the girls scored lower than the boys.  

Now, if these "researchers" had factored into the equation that boys were starting to fall behind in academics, their nonsensical theory would have collapsed.  But it gets even worse.  The group that scored highest on the self-esteem tests was also the one that did the worst academically.  That group was black males. 

Thus, the correlation was the reverse of what they claimed, in that what they were calling "high self-esteem" was associated with worse grades, not better.  But how could this be?

It's very simple.  Although they didn't realize it, they were using self-esteem as a euphemism for what has been called the father of all sins: Pride.  And, as the Bible says, "Pride goeth before the fall."

Just a cursory examination of self-esteem training makes this apparent to the discerning.  I remember one exercise I was told about in which children were instructed to stand in front of their class and tell everyone what makes them great.  Yes, great. 

This flies in the face of what millennia of man's wisdom and every religious tradition worth its salt tells us, which is that pride is a destructive force that plagues man.  And not only doesn't it have to be taught and shouldn't be encouraged, it should be purged.  It should be countered with the virtue of humility, which is a prerequisite for spiritual growth.

Now, I can't offer a complete exposition on pride versus humility here, but apropos to this subject matter I'll say that humility a prerequisite for learning as well.  After all, is it common for a prideful person to have a teachable spirit? 

We've all met the egotistical, and they can be maddening to deal with.  They are resistant to learning because they cannot admit it when they're wrong and assimilate the correct information; they just can't tolerate the idea that others may know more than they do.  And this inability to honestly evaluate themselves is why pride is called the father of all sin.  Since the prideful cannot accept that they have flaws, it means that their characteristic flaw is blinding them to others they may have or develop and makes it unlikely that they will correct them.  And now they teach Ego 101 in schools.

People must come to recognize the profound destructiveness of self-esteem theory and demand it be stricken from educational institutions. 

We also have to wonder who exactly is devising curricula.  After all, God is out and pride is in.  Think about that.  

             © 2008 Selwyn Duke -- All Rights Reserved          

Comments

[blackmail]

Selwyn,
You are not exactly one to talk about the pitfalls of misplaced self esteem. You actually tout your stuff as being Truth with a capital “T.” If that’s not inflated ego (I known you’ll say that essentially you’re channeling from the Almighty) I don’t know what is. “Physician heal thy…” Oh, just forget it.

[Self esteem]

This gave me some great insights, and helped my self esteem. Thank you.