On Self-Esteem

A number of years ago, I had the experience of taking a self-esteem test. My score was moderate. There were two other people taking the test with me. One was a sweet little fellow from Alabama who was always ready to help out and treated people well. His score was very low. The other was a horrible woman who kept making false accusations against people. Her score was very high.

In Russia, there was a very popular singer and songwriter named Vladimir Vysotsky. He wrote in one of his songs, “I have no trust in faith, in myself even less faith.” According to the practicioners of self-esteem psychology, the man should have been an absolute loser. Instead he became one of the most successful singers and songwriters of all times. That is because he did not need self-esteem. He was in touch with a vast and powerful presence that was the feelings of Russian people. And he became far more successful than any self-esteeming yuppie.

I do not care if you have high self-esteem. I care who you are, not how you see yourself. There are plenty of jerks with high self-esteem and plenty of good people with terrible self-esteem. Self-esteem is no predictor of either success or personal goodness. And coercion toward self-esteem does nothing of merit.

I say this as someone who can be accused of neither too high a self-esteem nor too low a self-esteem. My score on the test was moderate. I've had in my life both periods of success and periods of failure. And there have been people seeing me as a good person as much as there have been people seeing me as a bad one.

I am of the conviction that coercion toward high self-esteem is a misdirection of psychology. Clearly, if someone keeps getting screwed, then it is for their benefit to see themselves as not worthy of being screwed. But there are plenty of people with high self-esteem who are jerks; and reinforcing their self-esteem will not solve their problem.

There are any number of situation in which self-esteem is indeed the solution. But it is no panacea. It is important to see things for what they are. Some people really do need to learn self-esteem. But there are many others whose self-esteem is just fine, and who are jerks in spite of it.