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<body><div id="filepos781479" style="height:0pt"></div><h1 class="calibre30" id="calibre_pb_60"><blockquote class="calibre19"><span class="calibre26"><a class="calibre20" href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_004.html#filepos4358">17</a></span></blockquote></h1>
<h1 class="calibre31"><blockquote class="calibre19"><span class="calibre26"><a class="calibre20" href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_004.html#filepos4358">Self-Esteem and Culture</a></span></blockquote></h1><div class="calibre32"> </div>
<p class="calibre22">One way to deepen our understanding of the themes with which this book has been concerned is to look at self-esteem as it relates to and is affected by culture.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Let us begin by considering the idea of self-esteem itself. It is not an idea—let alone an ideal—one finds in all cultures. It emerged in the West only recently and is still far from well understood.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In medieval times, “self” as we understand the idea still lay sleeping in the human psyche. The basic mind-set was tribal, not individualistic. Each person was born into a distinct and unchangeable place in the social order. With very rare exceptions, one did not choose an occupation but rather was cast by circumstances of birth into the role of peasant, artisan, or knight—or the wife of one. One’s sense of security derived, not from one’s achievements, but from seeing oneself as an integral part of “the natural order,” which was presumed to be ordained by God. Subject to the vicissitudes of war, famines, and plagues, one was more or less guaranteed a livelihood, determined by tradition. There was very little competition, just as there was very little economic freedom—or any other kind of freedom. In such an environment, with so little outlet for an independent, self-assertive mind, self-esteem—when and to the extent it existed—could not manifest itself through superior economic adaptiveness. There were occasions when it was life endangering: it could lead its possessor to the torture rack and the stake. The Dark and Middle Ages did not value self-assertion; did not understand individuality; could not conceive self-responsibility; had no grasp of the “Rights of Man” or the modern idea of <a></a>political freedom; could not imagine innovativeness as a way of life; did not grasp the relation of mind, intelligence, and creativity to survival; had no place for self-esteem (which does not mean it did not exist).</p>
<p class="calibre2">Our idea of “the individual,” as an autonomous, self-determining unit, able to think independently and bearing responsibility for his or her existence, emerged from several historical developments: the Renaissance in the fifteenth century, the Reformation in the sixteenth, and the Enlightenment in the eighteenth—and their two offspring, the Industrial Revolution and capitalism. Self-esteem, as we think about the concept today, has its roots in the post-Renaissance emerging culture of individualism. This is true of any number of ideals that we (and increasingly people in other countries) have come to admire, such as the freedom to marry for love, a belief in the right to the pursuit of happiness, a hope that work can be not only a source of sustenance but also of self-expression and self-fulfillment. Not long ago these values were regarded as very “Western,” very “American”—and now more and more of the world is embracing them. These values reflect human needs.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Self-esteem as a psychological reality existed in human consciousness thousands of years before it emerged as an explicit idea. Now that it has emerged, the challenge is to understand it.</p>
<p class="calibre33"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"> <strong class="calibre6">The Need for Self-Esteem Is Not “Cultural”</strong></span></span></p><div class="calibre34"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Every human being, whatever the network of customs and values in which he or she grows up, is obliged to act to satisfy and fulfill basic needs. We do not always and automatically feel competent in facing this challenge. Yet all human beings need an experience of competence (which I call self-efficacy) if they are to possess a fundamental sense of security and empowerment. Without it, they cannot respond appropriately. We do not always and automatically feel worthy of love, respect, happiness. Yet all human beings need an experience of worth (self-respect) if they are to take proper care of themselves, protect their legitimate interests, gain some enjoyment from their efforts, and (when possible) stand up against those who would harm or exploit them. Without it, again they cannot act appropriately in their own best interests. The root of the need for self-esteem is <em class="calibre23">biological:</em> it pertains to survival and continued efficacious functioning.</p>
<p class="calibre2">The need is inherent in human nature; it is not an invention of Western culture.</p>
<a></a>
<p class="calibre33"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"> <strong class="calibre6">The Universality of Self-Esteem Issues</strong></span></span></p><div class="calibre34"> </div>
<p class="calibre2"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Living Consciously</em></strong>. For every organism that possesses it, consciousness is an imperative of effective adaptation. The distinctive <em class="calibre23">human</em> form of consciousness is conceptual: our survival, well-being, and skillful adaptation depend on our ability to think—on the appropriate use of mind. Whether one is mending a fishing net or debugging a computer program, tracking an animal or designing a skyscraper, negotiating with an enemy or seeking to resolve a dispute with one’s spouse—in all cases, one can bring a higher level of consciousness to the occasion or a lower. One can choose to see or not to see (or anywhere between). But reality is reality and is not wiped out by self-elected blindness. The higher the level of consciousness one brings to what one is doing, the more effective and in control one feels—and the more successful one’s efforts.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">The root of the need for self-esteem is biological: it pertains to survival and continued efficacious functioning</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">In any context where consciousness is needed, operating consciously benefits self-esteem, and operating (relatively) unconsciously wounds self-esteem. The importance of living consciously is grounded not in culture but in reality.</p>
<p class="calibre51"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Self-Acceptance</em></strong>. When individuals deny and disown their experience, when they reject their thoughts, feelings, or behavior as “not me,” when they induce unconsciousness of their inner life, their intention is self-protection. They are trying to maintain their equilibrium and defend their view of themselves. The intention is to serve “self-esteem.” But the result is to harm self-esteem. Self-esteem requires self-acceptance; it is not served by self-rejection. This truth stands apart from any question of whether the beliefs of a given culture do or do not encourage self-acceptance. A highly authoritarian society, for example, might encourage neglect and even disparagement of the individual’s inner life. This does not mean that self-acceptance is merely a cultural bias with no justification in human nature. It means that some cultures may hold <a></a>values that are inimical to human well-being. Cultures are not equal in the psychological benefits they confer on their members.</p>
<p class="calibre51"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Self-Responsibility</em></strong>. No one can feel empowered, no one can feel competent to cope with life’s challenges, who does not take responsibility for his or her choices and actions. No one can feel efficacious who does not take responsibility for the attainment of his or her desires. Self-responsibility is essential to the experience of inner strength. When we look to others to provide us with happiness or fulfillment or self-esteem, we relinquish control over our life. There is no social environment in which these observations become untrue.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Not all cultures value self-responsibility equally. This does not alter the fact that where we see responsibility and the willingness to be accountable, we see a healthier, more robust sense of self—a biologically more adaptive organism.</p>
<p class="calibre2">As for teamwork, group activity, and the like, the self-responsible person can function effectively with others precisely because he or she <em class="calibre23">is willing to be accountable</em>. Such a person is not a dependent nor a parasite nor an exploiter. Self-responsibility does not mean one does everything oneself; it means that when one acts in concert with others, one carries one’s own weight. Does it need to be argued that a society whose members value this attitude is stronger and better equipped for survival than a society whose members do not?</p>
<p class="calibre51"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Self-Assertiveness</em></strong>. Self-assertiveness is the practice of honoring one’s needs, wants, values, and judgments, and seeking appropriate forms of their expression in reality. Not all cultures value self-assertiveness equally. And some forms of appropriate self-expression may differ from place to place—for example, the words one uses, or the tone of voice in which one speaks, or the gestures one makes. But to the extent that a culture suppresses the natural impulse to self-assertion and self-expression, it blocks creativity, stifles individuality, and sets itself against the requirements of self-esteem. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, to name two examples in this century, ruthlessly punished self-assertiveness; in these countries, it was a cultural disvalue. They were not societies in which human life could flourish. Other cultures punish self-assertiveness and self-expression in less extreme and violent ways (sometimes in very gentle ways). Hawaiian children may be lovingly enjoined, “Remain among the clumps of grasses and do not elevate <a></a>yourself.”<a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_041.html#filepos918108" id="filepos792080"><sup class="calibre39">1</sup></a> Just the same, self-effacement as a basic pattern of being is inimical to self-esteem—and to the life force.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">To the extent that a culture suppresses the natural impulse to self-assertion and self-expression, it blocks creativity, stifles individuality, and sets itself against the requirements of self-esteem</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Self-expression is natural; self-suppression is not. Children do not need to be educated into self-assertion; authoritarian societies do need to socialize them into self-surrender. That some children may come into this world more naturally self-assertive than others does not contradict this observation. When fear is absent, self-assertiveness is the natural condition of human beings. What people may have to learn is comfort with and respect for the self-assertiveness of others. This is clearly an imperative of cooperation. Cooperation is not a “middle ground” between self-assertiveness and self-suppression, but the intelligent exercise of self-interest in a social context—which <em class="calibre23">does</em> have to be learned.</p>
<p class="calibre51"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Living Purposefully</em></strong>. The idea of living purposefully can be misinterpreted to mean that all of one’s life is given over to long-term productive goals. Our purposes can include many things besides productive work: raising a family, enjoying a love affair or a marriage, pursuing a hobby, developing one’s body through exercise or one’s spirit through study and meditation. Understood correctly, there is nothing intrinsically “Western” about a strong goal orientation. When Buddha set out in search of enlightenment, was he not moved by a passionate purpose? I am confident that even among Polynesians, some men and women are more purposeful than others.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In discussing self-esteem, I use words like “efficacy,” “competence,” “achievement,” “success.” In our culture there might be a tendency to understand these ideas in exclusively materialistic terms; I intend no such implication. They are meant metaphysically or ontologically, not merely economically. Without disparaging the value of material attainments (which are, after all, necessities of survival), we can appreciate that these ideas embrace the total spectrum of human experience, from the mundane to the spiritual.</p>
<a></a>
<p class="calibre2">The question is: Is our life and well-being better served by organizing our energies with relation to specific (short- and long-term) purposes, or are they better served by living from day to day, reacting to events rather than choosing one’s own direction, passively drifting at the whim of impulse and circumstance? If one holds to the Aristotelian perspective, as I do, that a proper human life is one in which we seek the fullest exercise of our distinctive powers, then the answer is obvious. In passivity neither our reason nor our passion nor our creativity nor our imagination fulfill themselves. We only half live our existence. This perspective may be Western, but I believe it is arguably superior to the alternative.</p>
<p class="calibre2">If human life and happiness are the standard, not all cultural traditions are equal. In Africa, for example, there are societies in which it is normal and accepted practice to mutilate the genitals of young females. An ancient tradition in India led millions of widows to be burned alive. If we object to these practices, I doubt that anyone will wish to raise the charge of “cultural imperialism.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">We will want to keep this in mind as our discussion of self-esteem and culture proceeds.</p>
<p class="calibre51"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Personal Integrity</em></strong>. The practice of integrity consists of having principles of behavior and being true to them. It means keeping one’s word, honoring one’s commitments, being faithful to one’s promises. Since I have never heard this virtue disparaged as a “cultural artifact,” since it is esteemed in every society I know of—even in the underworld there is the idea of “honor among thieves”—I think it is obvious that this virtue is deeper than any “cultural bias.” It reflects an implicit awareness held by everyone about life.</p>
<p class="calibre2">The betrayal of one’s convictions wounds self-esteem. This is decreed not by culture but by reality—that is, by our nature.</p>
<p class="calibre24">I stressed early in the book that self-esteem is neither comparative nor competitive. It has nothing to do with striving to make oneself superior to others. A Hawaiian psychologist asked me, “Aren’t you teaching people to elevate themselves above others?” I answered that the work had nothing to do with others, in the sense he imagined: it had to do with our relationship with ourselves—and with reality. Raised in a culture in which not the individual but the group is primary, he had difficulty understanding this; his whole orientation was to the social collective. <a></a>“When gathered in a bucket, the crabs on top will always keep the others from getting out,” he insisted. “It’s not good to be too great.” “In the first place,” I answered, “I don’t see human society as a bucket of crabs, and in the second place, what happens to children of extraordinary talent or ability in your world?” He said that as he understood self-esteem, it could only be the security of belonging—of being well integrated into a network of relationships. Was that different, I wanted to know, from trying to base self-esteem on being liked and approved of? He countered that I was “phobic” about dependency.</p>
<p class="calibre2">If we have a genuine need to experience our powers and worth, then more is required than the comfort of “belonging.” This is not to argue against the value of “relationships.” But if a culture places relationships first, above autonomy and authenticity, it leads the individual to self-alienation: to be “connected” is more important than to know who I am and to be who I am. The tribalist may wish to assert that being “connected” <em class="calibre23">is</em> more important, <em class="calibre23">is</em> the higher value, but that is not a license to equate it with self-esteem. Let that kind of gratification be called something else. Otherwise, we are trapped in an eternal Tower of Babel.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">If human life and happiness are the standard, not all cultural traditions are equal</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">When I discussed these issues with a Hawaiian educator who was eager to introduce better self-esteem principles into the school system, she said, “No matter what our skills or talents, so many of us here have a major self-esteem problem. We feel inferior and we’re afraid we’ll never catch up. Our children suffer from demoralization.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">All this leads naturally to the question: What is the effect of different cultures, and different cultural values, on self-esteem?</p>
<p class="calibre33"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"> <strong class="calibre6">The Influence of Culture</strong></span></span></p><div class="calibre34"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Every society contains a network of values, beliefs, and assumptions, not all of which are named explicitly but which nonetheless are part of the human environment. Indeed, ideas that are not identified overtly but are held and conveyed tacitly can be harder to call into question—precisely because they are absorbed by a process that largely bypasses <a></a>the conscious mind. Everyone possesses what might be called a “cultural unconscious”—a set of implicit beliefs about nature, reality, human beings, man-woman relationships, good and evil—that reflect the knowledge, understanding, and values of a historical time and place. I do not mean that there are no differences among people within a given culture in their beliefs at this level. Nor do I mean that no one holds any of these beliefs consciously or that no one challenges any of them. I mean only that at least some of these beliefs tend to reside in every psyche in a given society, and without ever being the subject of explicit awareness.</p>
<p class="calibre2">It is not possible for anyone, even the most independent, to make <em class="calibre23">every</em> premise conscious or to subject <em class="calibre23">every</em> premise to critical scrutiny. Even great innovators who challenge and overthrow paradigms in one area of reality may accept uncritically the implicit assumptions reigning in other areas. What impresses us about a mind like Aristotle’s, for instance, is the wide number of fields to which he brought the power of his extraordinarily original intellect. Yet even Aristotle was in many respects a man of his time and place. None of us can entirely escape the influence of our social environment.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Consider, as illustration, the view of women that has dominated human history.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Some version of woman-as-inferior is part of the “cultural unconscious” of just about every society we know of</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">In almost every part of the world and throughout virtually all the centuries behind us, women have been regarded, and been taught to regard themselves, as the inferior of men. Some version of woman-as-inferior is part of the “cultural unconscious” of just about every society we know of—and in the “cultural <em class="calibre23">conscious</em>” as well. Woman’s second-class status is a pronounced aspect of every brand of religious fundamentalism—be it Jewish, Christian, Islamic, or Hindu. Therefore, it is at its most virulent in societies dominated by religious fundamentalism, such as modern Iran.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In Christianity, and not only among fundamentalists, it was held (and often is still held) that woman’s relationship to man should be as man’s relationship to God. Obedience, in this view, is a woman’s cardinal virtue (after “purity,” no doubt). I once made the mistake, in therapy with a <a></a>female client, of associating this idea with “medieval Christianity.” She looked at me with astonishment and said sadly, “Are you kidding? I heard it from our minister last Sunday—and from my husband on Monday.” When her husband learned of our discussion, he insisted that she discontinue therapy. Woman-as-inferior is not an idea that supports female self-esteem. Can anyone doubt that it has had a tragic effect on most women’s view of themselves? Even among many modern American women who consider themselves thoroughly “emancipated,” it is not difficult to detect the pernicious influence of this view.</p>
<p class="calibre2">There is a corresponding widely held idea about men’s value that is detrimental to male self-esteem.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In most cultures men are socialized to identify personal worth with earning ability, with being “a good provider.” If, traditionally, women “owe” men obedience, men “owe” women financial support (and physical protection). If a woman loses her job and cannot find another, she has an economic problem, to be sure, but she does not feel diminished as a woman. Men often feel emasculated. In hard times, women do not commit suicide because they cannot find work; men often do—because men have been trained to identify self-esteem with earning ability.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Now it could be argued that there is rational justification for tying self-esteem to earning ability. Does not self-esteem have to do with being equal to the challenges of life? Then is not the ability to earn a living essential? There are at least two things to be said about this. First, if a person is unable to earn a living because of his (or her) own choices and policies—unconsciousness, passivity, irresponsibility—then that inability is a reflection on self-esteem. But if the problem is the result of factors beyond the individual’s control, such as an economic depression, then it is wrong to make the problem the occasion of self-blame. Self-esteem properly pertains only to issues open to our volitional choice. Second, note that the emphasis usually is not on earning ability as such, but on being <em class="calibre23">a good provider</em>. Men are judged, and are encouraged to judge themselves, by how well they can financially <em class="calibre23">take care of others</em>. Men are socialized to be “servants” fully as much as women; only the <em class="calibre23">forms</em> of culturally encouraged servitude are different.<a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_043.html#filepos922457" id="filepos806148"><sup class="calibre39">*</sup></a> If a man cannot support a woman, he tends to lose stature in her eyes and in his own. It would take unusual independence and self-esteem to challenge this culturally induced attitude and to ask “<em class="calibre23">Why</em> is this the gauge of my value as a man?”</p>
<a></a>
<p class="calibre33"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"> <strong class="calibre6">The Tribal Mentality</strong></span></span></p><div class="calibre34"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Throughout human history, most societies and cultures have been dominated by the tribal mentality. This was true in primitive times, in the Middle Ages, and in socialist (and some nonsocialist) countries in the twentieth century. Japan is a contemporary example of a nonsocialist nation still heavily tribal in its cultural orientation, although it may now be in the process of becoming less so.</p>
<p class="calibre2">The essence of the tribal mentality is that it makes the tribe as such the supreme good and denigrates the importance of the individual. It tends to view individuals as interchangeable units and to ignore or minimize the significance of differences between one human being and another. At its extreme, it sees the individual as hardly existing except in the network of tribal relationships; the individual by him- or herself is nothing.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Plato, the father of collectivism, captures the essence of this perspective in the <em class="calibre23">Laws</em>, when he states, “My law will be made with a general view of the best interests of society at large … as I rightly hold the single person and his affairs as of minor importance.” He speaks enthusiastically of “the habit of never so much as thinking to do one single act apart from one’s fellows, of making life, to the very uttermost, an unbroken concert, society, and community of all with all.” In ancient times, we think of this vision as embodied in the militaristic society of Sparta. In modern times, its monuments were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Between the ancient and the modern, we think of the feudal civilization of the Middle Ages, in which each person was defined by his or her place in the social hierarchy, apart from which personal identity could hardly be said to exist.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">The essence of the tribal mentality is that it makes the tribe as such the supreme good and denigrates the importance of the individual</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Tribal societies can be totalitarian but they need not be. They can be relatively free. Control of the individual can be more cultural than political, although the political is always a factor. What I wish to point out here is that the tribal premise is intrinsically anti-self-esteem.</p>
<p class="calibre2">It is a premise and an orientation that disempowers the individual qua individual. Its implicit message is: You don’t count. By yourself, you are <a></a>nothing. Only as part of us can you be something. Thus, any society, to the extent that it is dominated by the tribal premise, is inherently unsupportive of self-esteem and more: it is actively inimical. In such a society the individual is socialized to hold him- or herself in low esteem relative to the group. Self-assertiveness is suppressed (except through highly ritualized channels). Pride tends to be labeled a vice. Self-sacrifice is enjoined.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Some years ago, in <em class="calibre23">The Psychology of Romantic Love</em>, I wrote about the lack of importance attached to emotional attachments in primitive societies. Love, as a celebration of two “selves” in union, was an utterly incomprehensible idea. I argued in that book that romantic love, rationally understood, requires self-esteem as its context—and that both ideas, romantic love and self-esteem, are foreign to the tribal orientation.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Anthropological studies of primitive tribes still in existence tell us a good deal about early forms of the tribal mentality and its perspective on what we call “individuality.” Here is a rather amusing illustration provided by Morton M. Hunt in <em class="calibre23">The Natural History of Love:</em></p>
<div class="calibre40">
<p class="calibre41"> By and large, the clanship structure and social life of most primitive societies provide wholesale intimacy and a broad distribution of affection; … most primitive peoples fail to see any great difference between individuals, and hence do not become involved in unique connections in the Western fashion; any number of trained observers have commented on the ease of their detachment from love objects, and their candid belief in the interchangeability of loves. Dr. Audrey Richards, an anthropologist who lived among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia in the 1930s, once related to a group of them an English folk-fable about a young prince who climbed glass mountains, crossed chasms, and fought dragons, all to obtain the hand of the maiden he loved. The Bemba were plainly bewildered, but remained silent. Finally an old chief spoke up, voicing the feelings of all present in the simplest of questions: “Why not take another girl?” he asked.</p>
</div><div class="calibre42"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Margaret Mead’s well-known study of the Samoans shows likewise that deep emotional attachments between individuals are very foreign to such societies’ psychology and pattern of living.<a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_041.html#filepos918302" id="filepos812074"><sup class="calibre39">2</sup></a> While sexual promiscuity and a short duration of sexual relationships are sanctioned and encouraged, any tendency to form strong emotional bonds between individuals is actively discouraged. If love is self-expression and self-celebration, <a></a>as well as celebration of the other, think of the self-esteem implications of the Samoan orientation—or of its spiritual equivalent in contemporary “sex clubs” in New York City.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In the mores regulating sexual activity in primitive cultures, one often encounters a fear of, even an antagonism toward, sexual attachments that grow out of (what we call) love. Indeed, sexual activity often appears acceptable to most when the feelings that prompt it are superficial. “In the Trobriand islands, for instance,” writes G. Rattray Taylor:</p>
<div class="calibre40">
<p class="calibre41"> Adults do not mind if children engage in sexual play and attempt precociously to perform the sexual act; as adolescents, they may sleep with one another, provided only that they are not in love with one another. If they fall in love, the sexual act becomes forbidden, and for lovers to sleep together would outrage decency.<a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_041.html#filepos918489" id="filepos813429"><sup class="calibre39">3</sup></a></p>
</div><div class="calibre42"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Love, if it occurs, is sometimes more severely regulated than sex. (Of course, in many instances there is not even a word for “love” in any sense approximating our own.) Passionate individual attachments are seen as threatening to tribal values and tribal authority. Again, think of the implications for self-esteem.</p>
<p class="calibre2">One encounters the tribal mentality again in the technologically advanced society of George Orwell’s <em class="calibre23">1984</em>, where the full power and authority of a totalitarian state is aimed at crushing the self-assertive individualism of romantic love. The contempt of twentieth-century dictatorships for a citizen’s desire to have “a personal life,” the characterization of such a desire as “petty bourgeois selfishness,” is too well known to require documentation. Modern dictatorships may have a better grasp of individuality than did primitive tribes, but the result is that the hostility is more virulent. When I attended the First International Conference on Self-Esteem in Norway in 1990, a Soviet scholar remarked, “As Americans, you can’t possibly grasp the extent to which the idea of self-esteem is absent in our country. It’s not understood. And if it were, it would be condemned as politically subversive.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">What is interesting about modern Japan is that it is a semifree society whose tradition is tribal and authoritarian while containing within itself some liberal forces thrusting toward greater individualism and freedom from the constraints of old ways. Here is Jonathan Rauch commenting on the “older” aspect of Japanese culture:</p>
<p class="calibre43"> There is a disturbing side of Japan: a traditional, preliberal side. The baseball teams often train their players to the point of pain and exhaustion <a></a>on the grounds that this will build strength of spirit. In high school hazings, underclassmen are humiliated and bullied on the understanding that they will get their own turn at bullying when they become upperclassmen. In the ever-present Japanese seniority systems, the young suffer and pay their dues and learn to endure and accept and later inflict the same. The bully-worshipping portion of Japan is only one sector of the rich and diverse Japanese moral geography. Yet I was not in Japan a week before this sector had drawn my attention and seduced me with its vaguely fascist magnetism…. As it happened, I had been recently reading Plato, and when I saw the traditional Japanese values—strength through suffering, strength through hierarchy, strength through individual submersion in the group—I recognized what I beheld…. No one would have admired the traditional Japanese values more than Plato, who would have seen in them the gleaming Sparta of his dreams.<a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_041.html#filepos918660" id="filepos816572"><sup class="calibre39">4</sup></a></p>
<p class="calibre2">Some years ago I had a Japanese teacher of aikido as a psychotherapy client. He had moved from Japan to California at the age of twenty-two. He said, “Japan is changing, sure, but the weight of tradition is still very heavy. The idea of self-esteem barely exists, and it’s really something else there, not what you write about, not what I understand and want for myself. There, it’s all tied up with a group thing—family, the company, you know, not really the individual. I saw my friends struggling with the issue, not knowing how to put it into words. I came to the States because I like the greater individualism. A lot of people are crazy here, you know, really mixed up—but still, I think there’s a better chance to develop self-esteem here.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">My point is not that the Japanese culture in its entirety is unsupportive of self-esteem. The culture is far too diverse and contains too many conflicting values for any such proposition. The elements alluded to above are indeed inimical to self-esteem. There is much in Japanese culture that discourages autonomy, as is generally true of tribal cultures. But there are other elements whose psychological effects are positive. A high regard for knowledge and learning. An understanding of the importance of being fully accountable for one’s actions and commitments. A loving pride in work well done. In cultures of high diversity, it is more useful to think of the implications for self-esteem of specific beliefs or values rather than of the culture as a whole.</p>
<p class="calibre2">What one can say as a generalization is that tribal cultures discount individuality and encourage dependency and to this extent may be characterized as unfriendly to self-esteem.</p>
<a></a>
<p class="calibre33"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"> <strong class="calibre6">The Religious Mentality</strong></span></span></p><div class="calibre34"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">In California, when educators introduced self-esteem curricula into the schools, the most fervent opponents were Christian fundamentalists. They denounce such programs as “self-worship.” They argue that self-esteem alienates children from God.</p>
<p class="calibre2">I recall, many years ago, a Carmelite nun speaking of her training. “We were taught that the enemy to be annihilated, the barrier between ourselves and Divinity, was the self. Eyes cast down—not to see too much. Emotions suppressed—not to feel too much. A life of prayers and service—not to think too much. Above all, obedience—not to question.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">Throughout history, wherever religion has been state enforced, consciousness has been punished. For the sin of thinking, men and women have been tortured and executed. This is why the American idea of the absolute separation of Church and State was of such historic significance: it forbade any religious group to use the machinery of government to persecute those who thought or believed differently.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Throughout history, wherever religion has been state enforced, consciousness has been punished</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">When beliefs are arrived at not by a process of reason but by faith and alleged revelation—when there are no objective criteria of knowledge to appeal to—those who think differently are often perceived by believers as a threat, a danger, capable of spreading the disease of nonbelief to others. For example, consider the typical religious response to atheism. If one has arrived at belief in God through some authentic personal experience, one would imagine that an appropriate response to those not similarly advantaged would be compassion. Instead, more often than not, the response is hatred. Why? The answer can only be that the atheist is experienced by the believer as a threat. Yet if the believer truly feels not only that God exists but that God is on his or her side, then it is the atheist, not the believer, who should receive kindness and sympathy, having lacked the good fortune to be touched by the experience of Divinity. (As it happens, the Bible sets the precedent for this lack of benevolence; we are told Jesus threatened those who did not believe he was the son of God with an eternity of torment. And in the Koran, Mohammed is no more merciful toward <a></a>nonbelievers. Religious support for cruelty toward those who don’t agree with one has a long history.)</p>
<p class="calibre2">Of course the issue is deeper than theism versus atheism. For thousands of years men have killed other men in the name of different notions of God. Terrible religious wars were between people all of whom called themselves Christians.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Historically, not only has traditional religion generally set itself in opposition to science, it has also condemned most personal mysticism—because the mystic claims direct, unmediated experience of God, unrouted through religious authority. For the traditional religionist, the mystic who operates outside the orbit of the church is too much of an “individualist.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">My purpose here is not an examination of the impact of religion as such, but only religious authoritarianism as it manifests itself in a given culture. If there are religions or specific religious teachings that encourage the individual to value him- or herself and that support intellectual openness and independent thinking, then they are outside the scope of this discussion. My focus here is on the effects for self-esteem of cultures (or subcultures) in which religious authoritarianism dominates, in which belief is commanded and dissent is regarded as sin. In such situations, living consciously, self-responsibly, and self-assertively is proscribed.</p>
<p class="calibre2">It would be a mistake to let one’s thinking on this point stop at Islam or Roman Catholicism. Luther and Calvin were no friendlier to the independent mind than was the pope.</p>
<p class="calibre2">If, in any culture, children are taught, “We are all equally unworthy in the sight of God”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If, in any culture, children are taught, “You are born in sin and are sinful by nature”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are given a message that amounts to “Don’t think, don’t question, <em class="calibre23">believe</em>”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are given a message that amounts to “Who are you to place your mind above that of the priest, the minister, the rabbi?”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are told, “If you have value it is not because of anything you have done or could ever do, it is only because God loves you”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are told, “Submission to what you cannot understand is the beginning of morality”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are instructed, “Do not be ‘willful,’ self-assertiveness is the sin of pride”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are instructed, “Never think that you belong to yourself”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are informed, “In any clash between your judgment and <a></a>that of your religious authorities, it is your authorities you must believe”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">If children are informed, “Self-sacrifice is the foremost virtue and noblest duty”—</p>
<p class="calibre2">—then <em class="calibre23">consider what will be the likely consequences for the practice of living consciously, or the practice of self-assertiveness, or any of the other pillars of healthy self-esteem</em>.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In my experience, what makes discussions of the impact of religious teachings difficult is the high degree of individual interpretation of what they mean. I have been told on occasion that none of the teachings given above really mean what it sounds like it means. Many Christians I have talked to assure me that they personally know what Jesus Christ <em class="calibre23">really</em> meant but that, alas, millions of other Christians don’t.</p>
<p class="calibre2">What is inarguable, however, is that whenever and wherever religion of any kind (Christian or non-Christian) has been backed by the power of the state, consciousness, independence, and self-assertiveness have been punished, sometimes with appalling cruelty. This is the simple fact at which one must look in weighing the cultural/psychological impact on individuals of the religious authoritarian orientation. This does not mean that all religious ideas are necessarily mistaken. But it does mean that if one looks from a historical perspective at one culture after another, one cannot claim that the influence of religion in general has been salutary for self-esteem.</p>
<p class="calibre2">The subject of religion tends to provoke strong passions. To some readers, almost every sentence in this section may be incendiary. My colleagues in the self-esteem movement are understandably eager to persuade people that there are no conflicts between the self-esteem agenda and the precepts of conventional religion. In discussions with religious critics, I myself have sometimes asked, “If you believe that we are the children of God, isn’t it blasphemy to suggest that we not love ourselves?” And yet, the question remains: If the fundamentalists have gone on the warpath about the introduction of self-esteem programs in the schools because they believe such programs are incompatible with traditional religion, is it possible they are not mistaken? That is a question that must be faced.</p>
<p class="calibre2">If, as is my hope, the six pillars will one day be taught to school-children, <a></a>well—has any religious orthodoxy ever wanted a people fully committed to the practice of living consciously? And will boys and girls (and men and women) of high self-esteem accept Protestant theologian Paul Tillich’s assertion that everyone is equally unworthy in the sight of God?</p>
<p class="calibre33"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"> <strong class="calibre6">The American Culture</strong></span></span></p><div class="calibre34"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">The United States of America is a culture with the greatest number of subcultures of any country in the world. It is a society characterized by an extraordinary diversity of values and beliefs in virtually every sphere of life. And yet, if we understand that we will be speaking only of dominant trends to which there are any number of countervailing forces, there is a sense in which we may legitimately speak of “American culture.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">What was so historically extraordinary about the creation of the United States of America was its conscious rejection of the tribal premise. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the revolutionary doctrine of individual, inalienable rights and asserted that the government exists for the individual, not the individual for the government. Although our political leaders have betrayed this vision many ways and many times, it still contains the essence of what the abstraction—<em class="calibre23">America</em>—stands for. Freedom. Individualism. The right to the pursuit of happiness. Self-ownership. The individual as an end in him- or herself, not a means to the ends of others; not the property of family or church or state or society. These ideas were radical at the time they were proclaimed, and I do not believe they are fully understood or accepted yet; not by most people.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">What was so historically extraordinary about the creation of the United States of America was its conscious rejection of the tribal premise.</em></strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">Many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. They saw God as a force that had created the universe and then largely withdrew from human affairs. They were keenly aware of the evil that resulted when any particular religion gained access to the machinery of government and thereby acquired power to enforce its views. As men of the Enlightenment, they tended to be suspicious of the clergy. George Washington said <a></a>explicitly that the United States was not to be identified as “a Christian nation.” Freedom of conscience was integral to the American tradition from the beginning.</p>
<p class="calibre2">To this day, as Harold Bloom observes in <em class="calibre23">The American Religion</em>, the American’s relationship to his or her God is a highly personal one, unmediated by any group or authority.<a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_041.html#filepos918868" id="filepos830810"><sup class="calibre39">5</sup></a> It is an encounter that takes place in the context of utter spiritual aloneness. This is quite unlike what one tends to find elsewhere in the world. It reflects the individualism at the heart of the American experience. The majority of Americans, according to Bloom, are convinced that God loves them in a highly personal way. He contrasts this perspective with Spinoza’s observation in his <em class="calibre23">Ethics</em> that whoever loved God truly should not expect to be loved by God in return. Americans tend to see themselves as the chosen people.</p>
<p class="calibre2">At the core of the American tradition was the fact that this country was born as a frontier nation where nothing was given and everything had to be created. Self-discipline and hard work were highly esteemed cultural values. There was a strong theme of community and mutual aid, to be sure, but not as substitutes for self-reliance and self-responsibility. Independent people helped one another when they could, but ultimately everyone was expected to carry his or her own weight.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In nineteenth-century America, people were not educated in “the psychology of entitlement.” They were not encouraged to believe that they were born with a claim on the work, energy, and resources of others. This last was a cultural shift that occurred in the twentieth century.</p>
<p class="calibre2">This generalized account of traditional American culture leaves out a good deal. It does not, for instance, address the institution of slavery, the treatment of black Americans as second-class citizens, or legal discrimination against women, who only acquired the right to vote in this century. Just the same, we can say that to the extent the American vision was actualized, it did a good deal to encourage healthy self-esteem. It encouraged human beings to believe in themselves and in their possibilities.</p>
<p class="calibre2">At the same time, a culture is made of people—and people inevitably carry the past with them. Americans may have repudiated the tribal premise politically, but they or their ancestors came from countries dominated by the tribal mentality, which often continued to influence them culturally and psychologically. They may in some instances have come to these shores to escape religious prejudice and persecution, but many of them carried the mind-set of religious authoritarianism with them. They brought old ways of thinking about race, religion, and gender into the New World. Conflicting cultural values, present from the beginning, <a></a>continue to this day. In our present culture, pro-self-esteem forces and anti-self-esteem forces collide constantly.</p>
<p class="calibre2">The twentieth century witnessed a shift in cultural values in the United States, and predominately the shift has not supported higher self-esteem but has encouraged the opposite.</p>
<p class="calibre2">I am thinking of the ideas I was taught in college and university, during the 1950s, when epistemological agnosticism (not to say nihilism) joined hands with moral relativism, which joined hands with Marxism. Together with millions of other students, I was informed that:</p>
<div class="calibre40">
<p class="calibre41"> The mind is powerless to know reality as it really is; ultimately, mind is impotent.</p>
<p class="calibre41"> The senses are unreliable and untrustworthy; “everything is an illusion.”</p>
<p class="calibre41"> Principles of logic are “mere conventions.”</p>
<p class="calibre41"> Principles of ethics are mere “expressions of feelings,” with no basis in reason or reality.</p>
<p class="calibre41"> No rational code of moral values is possible.</p>
<p class="calibre41"> Since all behavior is determined by factors over which one has no control, no one deserves credit for any achievement.</p>
<p class="calibre41"> Since all behavior is determined by factors over which one has no control, no one should be held responsible for any wrongdoing.</p>
<p class="calibre41"> When crimes are committed, “society,” never the individual, is the culprit (except for crimes committed by businessmen, in which case only the most severe punishment is appropriate).</p>
<p class="calibre41"> Everyone has an equal claim on whatever goods or services exist—notions of the “earned” and “unearned” are reactionary and antisocial.</p>
<p class="calibre41"> Political and economic freedom have had their chance and have failed, and the future belongs to state ownership and management of the economy, which will produce paradise on earth.</p>
</div><div class="calibre42"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">I thought of these ideas and of the professors who taught them in the spring of 1992 as I sat watching on television the riots in South-Central Los Angeles. When a looter was asked by a journalist, “Didn’t you realize that the stores you looted and destroyed today wouldn’t be there for you tomorrow,” the looter answered, “No, I never thought of that.” Well, who would have ever taught him it was important to learn how to think, when <a></a>“advantaged children” aren’t taught it either? When I saw a group of men drag a helpless man out of his truck and beat him almost to death, I heard the voice of my professors saying, “If you find this morally objectionable, that’s just your emotional bias. There is no right or wrong behavior.” When I saw men and women laughing gleefully while dragging TV sets and other household goods out of looted stores, I thought of the professors who taught, “No one is responsible for anything he or she does (except the greedy capitalists who own the stores and deserve whatever trouble they get).” I thought how perfectly the ideas of my professors had been translated into cultural reality. Ideas do matter and do have consequences.</p>
<p class="calibre2">If mind is impotent and knowledge is superstition, why <em class="calibre23">should</em> a course on “the great thinkers of the Western world” be rated as more important than a course on modern rock music? Why <em class="calibre23">should</em> a student exert the effort of attending a course in mathematics when he or she can get credit for a course on tennis?</p>
<p class="calibre2">If there are no objective principles of behavior, and if no one is responsible for his or her actions, then why <em class="calibre23">shouldn’t</em> business executives defraud customers and clients? Why <em class="calibre23">shouldn’t</em> bankers embezzle or misappropriate customers’ funds? Why <em class="calibre23">shouldn’t</em> our political leaders lie to us, betray us in secret deals, withhold from us the information we need to make intelligent choices?</p>
<p class="calibre2">If the “earned” and the “unearned” are old-fashioned, reactionary ideas, why <em class="calibre23">shouldn’t</em> people loot whatever they feel like looting? Why is working for a living superior to stealing?</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Ideas do matter and do have consequences</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">What has emerged in the second half of this century is a culture that in many respects reflects the ideas that were taught for decades in the philosophy departments of the leading universities of our nation, passed to other departments, and passed into the world. They became the “received wisdom” of our leading intellectuals. They surfaced in editorial pages, television programs, movies, and comic strips. These ideas are irrational, they cannot be sustained, and there are a growing number of thinkers who oppose them. Still, they are read and heard everywhere, with the exception of the eulogizing of Marxism; empirical evidence has <a></a>blasted socialism into the junk-heap of history. The ideas are deadly for civilization, deadly for our future, and deadly for self-esteem.</p>
<p class="calibre2">The American culture is a battleground between the values of self-responsibility and the values of entitlement. This is not the only cultural conflict we can see around us, but it is the one most relevant to self-esteem. It is also at the root of many of the others.</p>
<p class="calibre2">We are social beings who realize our humanity fully only in the context of community. The values of our community can inspire the best in us or the worst. A culture that values mind, intellect, knowledge, and understanding promotes self-esteem; a culture that denigrates mind undermines self-esteem. A culture in which human beings are held accountable for their actions supports self-esteem; a culture in which no one is held accountable for anything breeds demoralization and self-contempt. A culture that prizes self-responsibility fosters self-esteem; a culture in which people are encouraged to see themselves as victims fosters dependency, passivity, and the mentality of entitlement. The evidence for these observations is all around us.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">The American culture is a battleground between the values of self-responsibility and the values of entitlement</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">There will always be independent men and women who will fight for their autonomy and dignity even in the most corrupt and corrupting culture—just as there are children who come out of nightmare childhoods with their self-esteem undestroyed. But a world that values consciousness, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, purposefulness, and integrity will not preach values inimical to them or pass laws that discourage or penalize their exercise. For example, children will not be taught to regard themselves as sinful, obedience will not be rewarded more than intelligent questioning, students will not be taught reason is a superstition, girls will not be told femininity equals submissiveness, self-sacrifice will not be eulogized while productive achievement is met with indifference, welfare systems will not penalize the choice to work, and regulatory agencies will not treat producers as criminals.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Some awareness of these realities is reflected in the fact that those who are genuinely concerned with the problems of the underclass in <a></a>America are thinking increasingly about the importance of teaching cognitive skills, the values of the work ethic, self-responsibility, interpersonal competence, the pride of ownership—and objective standards of performance. The philosophy of victimhood has not worked, as is evidenced by the steady worsening of social problems under several decades of that perspective. We do not help people out of poverty by telling them the responsibility is “the world’s” and that they themselves are powerless and that nothing need be expected of them.</p>
<p class="calibre2">Christopher Lasch is not a champion of individualism, and he has been a vocal critic of the self-esteem movement, which makes his observations on this issue interesting:</p>
<div class="calibre40">
<p class="calibre41"> Is it really necessary to point out, at this late date, that public policies based on a therapeutic model of the state have failed miserably, over and over again? Far from promoting self-respect, they have created a nation of dependents. They have given rise to a cult of the victim in which entitlements are based on the display of accumulated injuries inflicted by an uncaring society. The politics of “compassion” degrades both the victims, by reducing them to objects of pity, and their would-be benefactors, who find it easier to pity their fellow citizens than to hold them up to impersonal standards, the attainment of which would make them respected. Compassion has become the human face of contempt.<a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_041.html#filepos919047" id="filepos844067"><sup class="calibre39">6</sup></a></p>
</div><div class="calibre42"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">In our discussion of living purposefully, I spoke about paying attention to outcomes. If our actions and programs do not produce the results intended and promised, then it is our basic premises we need to check. It has been rightly noted that “doing more of what doesn’t work, doesn’t work.” A culture of self-esteem is a culture of accountability, which means of self-responsibility. There is no other way for human beings to prosper or to live benevolently with one another.</p>
<p class="calibre2">In <a href="CR%21103EG31QYH2BV8VT2G4M9E0T9KCH_split_022.html#filepos454608">Chapter 12</a>, “The Philosophy of Self-Esteem,” I discussed the premises that support self-esteem in that they support and encourage the six pillars. A culture in which these premises are dominant, are woven into the fabric of child-rearing, education, art, and organizational life, will be a high-self-esteem culture. To the extent that the opposite of these premises are dominant we will see a culture inimical to self-esteem. My point is not pragmatism: I am not saying we should subscribe to these ideas because they support self-esteem. I am saying that because these ideas are in alignment with reality, they are in alignment with and supportive of self-esteem.</p>
<a></a>
<p class="calibre2">The focus of this book is psychological, not philosophical, and so I have expressed these ideas in a very personal way, as beliefs exist in an individual consciousness. But if the reader senses that in its implications this book is almost as much a work of philosophy as of psychology, he or she will not be mistaken.</p>
<p class="calibre33"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"> <strong class="calibre6">The Individual and Society</strong></span></span></p><div class="calibre34"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">We all live in a sea of messages concerning the nature of our value and the standards by which we should judge it. The more independent we are, the more critically we examine these messages. The challenge is often to recognize them for what they are—other people’s ideas and beliefs that may or may not have merit. The challenge, in other words, is not to take the assumptions of one’s culture as a given, as “reality,” but to realize that assumptions can be questioned. As a boy growing up, I am sure I benefited from the fact that my father’s favorite saying (after the Gershwin song, I imagine) was, “It ain’t necessarily so.”</p>
<p class="calibre2">Cultures do not encourage the questioning of their own premises. One of the meanings of living consciously has to do with one’s awareness that other people’s beliefs are just that, their beliefs, and not necessarily ultimate truth. This does not mean that living consciously expresses itself in skepticism. It expresses itself in critical thinking.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">The challenge is not to take the assumptions of one’s culture as a given, as “reality,” but to realize that assumptions can be questioned</em>.</strong></p>
<hr class="calibre37"/><div class="calibre29"> </div>
<p class="calibre2">There are tensions between the agenda of a society and that of any individual that may be inevitable. Societies are primarily concerned with their own survival and perpetuation. They tend to encourage the values that are perceived as serving that end. These values may have nothing to do with the growth needs or personal aspirations of individuals. For example, a militaristic nation or tribe, in adversarial relationships with other nations or tribes, tends to value warrior virtues: aggressiveness, indifference to pain, absolute obedience to authorities, and so on. But this does not mean that from the standpoint of an individual, his interests are served by identifying masculinity or worth with those particular traits, <a></a>even though he will be encouraged or pressured to do so. He may set a different agenda of his own, which his culture may label “selfish,” such as the life of a scholar. In holding to his own standards, in his eyes he manifests integrity; his society may brand him as disloyal or narrow and petty in his vision. Or again, a society may identify its interests with a large and growing population, in which case women will be encouraged to believe there is no glory comparable to motherhood and no other standard of true femininity. Yet an individual woman may see her life another way; her values may lead her toward a career that precludes or postpones motherhood, and she may or may not have the independence to judge her life by her own standards and to understand womanhood very differently from her mother, her minister, or her contemporaries (who, again, may brand her as “selfish”).</p>
<p class="calibre2">The average person tends to judge him- or herself by the values prevalent in his social environment, as transmitted by family members, political and religious leaders, teachers, newspaper and television editorials, and popular art such as movies. These values may or may not be rational and may or may not answer to the needs of the individual.</p>
<p class="calibre2">I am sometimes asked if a person cannot achieve genuine self-esteem by conforming and living up to cultural norms that he or she may never have thought about, let alone questioned, and that do not necessarily make a good deal of sense. Is not the safety and security of belonging with and to the group a form of self-esteem? Does not group validation and support lead to an experience of true self-worth? The error here is in equating any feeling of safety or comfort with self-esteem. Conformity is not self-efficacy; popularity is not self-respect. Whatever its gratifications, a sense of belonging is not equal to trust in my mind or confidence in my ability to master the challenges of life. The fact that others esteem me is no guarantee I will esteem myself.</p>
<div class="calibre29"> </div><hr class="calibre37"/><p class="calibre38"><strong class="calibre6"><em class="calibre23">Genuine self-esteem is what we feel about ourselves when everything is not all right</em>.</strong></p>
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<p class="calibre2">If I live a life of unthinking routine, with no challenges or crises, I may be able to evade for a while the fact that what I possess is not self-esteem but pseudo self-esteem. When everything is all right, everything is all right, but that is not how we determine the presence of self-esteem. Genuine self-esteem is what we feel about ourselves when everything is <a></a><em class="calibre23">not</em> all right. This means, when we are challenged by the unexpected, when others disagree with us, when we are flung back on our own resources, when the cocoon of the group can no longer insulate us from the tasks and risks of life, when we must think, choose, decide, and act <em class="calibre23">and no one is guiding us or applauding us</em>. At such moments our deepest premises reveal themselves.</p>
<p class="calibre2">One of the biggest lies we were ever told is that it is “easy” to be selfish and that self-sacrifice takes spiritual strength. People sacrifice themselves in a thousand ways every day. This is their tragedy. To honor the self—to honor mind, judgment, values, and convictions—is the ultimate act of courage. Observe how rare it is. But it is what self-esteem asks of us.</p>
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