Maastricht.
I already addressed that when I said:
and:
To reiterate: people who are against instilling self-esteem in schools, etc., put up a strawman by implying that people who are interested in SE want to lie to people about their accomplishments. It’s a strawman because it attributes a quality or motivation to the SE movement that simply doesn’t exist.
I already addressed this here, as well:
(bolding new to this post).
Did your parents really withhold their *love * when you didn’t do well, lola? Or did they just withhold their total approval? If it was truly the former, I’m sorry - I’ve never known any parents like that (or at least to my knowledge), and I certainly wouldn’t approve. But communicating disappointment or disapproval without the child reading it as lack of love can be very tricky, and I wonder how many parents flawlessly navigate that path.
Also, if Maastricht said anything like that in this thread, I ain’t seeing it.
Here:
And you thought this a declaration that poverty or unnattractiveness made a person less worthy to occupy space on the planet?
That’s sure not how I read it.
OK, it’s time for a further definition of terms. If I’m reading it correctly, Maastricht’s point was that not everyone merits the same high opinion of him or herself, and that someone who behaves like a stupid and immoral asshole on a consistent basis is someone who probably doesn’t deserve a really high self-opinion. Another example, and one that tdn went through the roof about in his OP is Bart Simpson. I’m sorry, but while I’ll certainly grant him every right (or would, if he were actually a person rather than a cartoon) to take up space and breath, he does not merit the high self-opinion of himself that he has and that say, Lisa Simpson, deserves.
To many of us, that high self-opinion = high self-esteem. One esteems oneself highly. Esteem is not the same as love - it carries freight of honor and admiration. Is this what you mean by self-esteem?
If you feel, as tdn seems to indicate in his OP, that one should grab every millimeter of high self-opinion, regardless of merit, that one can, well then no, I think we’ll have to disagree. When I fuck up, I think less of myself. How much less and for how long depends on the degree and importance of the fuck-up - was it a momentary glitch, or a real reflection on who and what I am?
Generally, we consider people with too high a self-opinion to be arrogant, and generally that’s not considered a very desirable personality trait. It’s certainly not something I’d want to instill in my children. You can say that the opinion of others doesn’t matter, and to an extent you’re right. But external reality checks do have their value!
Nope, and I said as much in my first post in this thread.
Then what was your problem with what Maastricht said?
Because he was implying that high self-opinion=high self esteem, and IMO, it doesn’t. I liked his second post on the subject much better.
I think we’re just coming at this from different philosophical angles, Oy!. You only want to be loved based on what makes you different from everyone else. I think there’s another kind of love, just as important, based on what we share.
cuauhtemoc, close, but not quite dead on. I want to love and be loved on the basis of the unique connection I make with another person. This includes what is unique about me, and also what is unique about the other person, and above all what is unique about the way we interact. (Obviously, I’m not talking the Love Thy Neighbor sort of thing here - but then, to me, that’s not love, it’s basic respect and charity - putting yourself in the other guy’s shoes and so-forth.).
I’m not sure what you mean by what we share that’s different from what I mean. Can you explain further?
lola, you said that someone’s worth is not indicated by their material success, intelligence, or physical attractiveness. And I guess I’d have to argue that to some extent. Someone’s worth is determined by whatever qualities you value in that person, good and/or bad - to you, the person doing the evaluating. You don’t think those are very good qualities on which to evaluate, and I don’t necessarily disagree. And if those are the only qualities on which one were ever to evaluate a person, I think one would be missing out on a lot of fine people. But nevertheless, they are all characteristics of a person, and they all go into the pot.
If by worth, you mean solely ‘deserving the fundamental respect due to any human being with the morality of a fungus or better’, then of course I’d agree with you. Have you found anyone who didn’t? But if you mean worth in the sense of varying degrees of high opinion, I’d have to say that someone is as entitled to use those criteria as any others - they are not criteria I’d limit myself to, as I said above, and I can certainly think of characteristics that I personally would admire more, esteem more, one might say 
. But none of those three is entirely without merit as a quality one could evaluate others with.
And please, no non-judgemental stuff! We have judgement; we use it all the time - we can’t help it. We discern between that which pleases us and that which does not every moment. That includes other people.
Perhaps it would help to take this into the realm of the practical, rather than the theoretical - Since you know the existence of this place, you obviously know about all the horrific stories that get posted here - murders, rapes, injustices wreaked upon fluffy kittens and duckies and the eating of mayonnaise with french fries.
There are people here who have said that when individuals perpetrate these crimes, they are no longer of any worth, they have forfeited their worthiness. I disagree. That, in a nutshell, is what I am trying to convey. It’s an extreme example, but it applies to people who " just fuck up" as well.
Another example, courtesy of you:
When I fuck up, I don’t think any less of myself - I acknowledge that I made a mistake, I apologize and make amends, I step back and re-evaluate how I went wrong and what I need to change, and I take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Thinking “less of” myself doesn’t even factor in. See?
I think we’re waffling on terms again. I don’t think what you’ve described and what I feel (although perhaps describing it inadequately) are significantly different. And I submit that if you *didn’t * think less of yourself, at least momentarily, you wouldn’t feel the need (if you so determine) to apply any change. After all, you didn’t feel the need before you fucked up. Something changed. I suggest that something was the way you felt about yourself.
Thank you for a fascinating and enjoyable conversation. Unfortunately, I have to go to bed now, and if I’m good tomorrow, I’ll work instead of posting as I did tonight! So I’ll try to drop in tomorrow, but I won’t be able to get into a good meaty discussion as I did tonight.
Thanks so much! Good night. 
In what’s rapidly becoming a SDMB tradition, once again logic and clear exposition of an important human issue is found in a Pit thread. Kudos, tdn! It’s an important point to make; it’s important to distinguish self-esteem from false pride and all the other counterfeits. And you’re doing marvelously.
We all want that. But if we’re smart, we acknowledge the desire as selfish and egotistical - and believe me, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I’m not implying a value judgement at all, I’m just saying it’s one of those desires, which we all have, that is motivated purely by ego.
So you don’t “put yourself in the other guy’s shoes” out of love? Why then, may I ask, do you do it? Is it for practical reasons? Does basic respect and charity make you money? Are you trying to impress somebody? I maintain that when you “put yourself in the other guy’s shoes” and show basic respect and charity, you’re motivated by love, but for some reason, you don’t want to call it that.
We share our humanity, a basic condition from which there is no escape. It makes it very hard to be cruel when you keep this in mind. However, if the only love you know is based on individuals being smart, or pretty, or nice to be around, it’s very easy to be cruel - to other people, maybe who are dumb, ugly, or unpleasant to be around. After all, you don’t owe them a thing, I mean it’s not like you have anything in common with them, right?
This thread is about self-esteem, and at the heart of it for me is that you should have compassion for yourself as well as others. Lots of people don’t have that basic foundation of compassion for themselves. Deep down, they don’t believe they have the right to exist. And that’s sad. If you’re scratching your head right now, consider yourself lucky you never had to deal with it, but please try to have some compassion for those who do. Implying that only an elected few “deserve” self-esteem is not a good way to do that.
I’m not in the least certain that *anything * we want beyond basic sustenance is motivated by anything *but * ego (which includes self-acceptance and self-love) and possibly curiosity, when push comes to shove.
To be frank, deep at heart because my *ego * demands it. From an early age, my image of what it meant to be a decent person included compassion and empathy. I’ve never deliberately and knowingly been cruel to anyone in my life and I probably never will.
Again, it comes down to terms. Everyone has the right to exist, everyone merits fundamental self-respect. If you want to call that self-esteem, feel free - apparently so do a fair number of other people.
But when you use that word self-esteem, which to me at least has implications of honor and admiration, then I feel that this is in fact something that is earned by merit and achievement, not by mere existence. And, btw, nothing I’ve said has suggested that only a few merit this. I think virtually everyone has something for which they merit high self-esteem in my sense. I just don’t think it is something that people should attempt to instill in another for absolutely nothing. Find something in the person that *you * would be proud of in yourself and build on that! Encourage behavior that will truly win honor and admiration (no matter how minor or passing) and that is within the person’s abilities. But to try to instill a sense of pride before the desserts are there, which is what many people do in the name of self-esteem, is wrong-headed.
Well, I’d point out that “being a decent person” has nothing to do with ego, but this is already too circular for me, and I’d prefer to end it right now. You approach the problem your way, I’ll approach it in mine.
I looked up “esteem” in the thesaurus. “Honor” and “Admiration” were there, but so was “Respect”. You’re saying people can “respect” themselves just for existing, but to be allowed to “honor” themselves, they need to acheive something? Are you saying it’s a matter of degree?
I think you’re talking about grade inflation in schools, and self-esteem awards in gym class, and other (probably misguided) efforts of parents and school administrators to keep everyone on a level playing field. I hope the OP wiull correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s the problem he was trying to address. He was talking about people who don’t have that bedrock foundation of a sense of their own worthiness to exist. In other words, when he says “Even you deserve it, you moronic sleezebucket”, he isn’t talking to you. He’s talking to people who know that fundamental insecurity and struggle with it.
Hoo boy! So many responses, I don’t think there’s any way that I can get back to all of them, so I’m going to try to cover as many bases as I can in as few posts as I can. If I ignore your post, it’s not that I’m evading the issue, it’s that there are only so many hours in the day, and I don’t want to spend my entire Sunday on this.
Thank you, sir! You are both a gentleman and a lady. But if I was doing so marvelously, you’d think I’d have convinced a few more people by now.
Let’s explore the difference between SE and false pride, since this seems to be the major area of contention. I think the major difference is how genuine the self-praise is.
Real SE (to be more or less indistinguishable from self-respect) assumes a basic birthright to breathe the same air as everyone else, to occupy space the same as everyone else, that we are all born with rights to the same amount of basic dignity. Within this framework, one is free to assess one’s own actions honestly and truthfully, and even the worst of your actions are not a threat to the basic self that you were born as. Coupled with basic compassion for yourself, you are then free to take action to correct your ways, and to act more in harmony with the good person you know you are.
False SE (or false pride) does not assume this basic self-respect. It has at its core the notion that you are somehow less than others. One way that this manifests itself is in constantly belittling yourself, publicly or privately, hurting yourself, and sabotaging yourself, either consciously or subconsciously. Another way it manifests itself is with false pride. Since this person cannot face a life of inferiority, he tries to artificially pump himself up by being boastful, arrogant, and hurtful of others. He has something to prove – to the world, but mostly to himself. The world sees this as pride, but it’s a facade. It’s overcompensation.
The best example I can give is myself. In my low-SE days, anyone who accomplished anything was a direct threat to me. If someone did something good, I would find a way to put it down, or sabotage it, or best it. I probably came off as being extremely arrogant and self-centered. I’m sure people thought that I thought nothing but the best of myself. In fact, the exact opposite was true. I was so insecure that I had to challenge everything.
Then I decided to take control of my life and do something about it. I raised my SE. I came to realize that just because someone else accomplished something great, it did not diminish me in any way. I didn’t need the approval of the world because I could approve of myself all I needed. I came to appreciate my own strengths on their own merits, rather than on how they compared (unfavorably) to the world at large. And I could then concentrate on my own strengths and, give them honest evaluation (at no threat to myself), and further improve them. This also had the effect of allowing me to appreciate others for who they were, and to give kudos where kudos were due.
Does that make sense?
This is silly.
You dont get ~self~ esteem from ~other~ people. Yes, self esteem ~is~ related to performance, just not ~other~ peoples view of ones performance.
Think of the concept of being ones own worst critic; a person sets themselves goals, and ones self esteem is based on whether one fully achieves ones goals. Only the individual knows exactly what it is they set out to do and how the result measures up to that. And that is what determines the amount of self esteem one has.
I won’t correct you, because you’re not wrong.
OK, I’ll sort of correct you on the “moronic sleezebucket” comment. I’m not sure exactly why I said it, but I think it has to do with on or more of the following things. Take your pick:
I wanted this to be worthy of the Pit.
It’s a joke, son. The ironing is delicious.
This topic pisses me off, and I was expressing frustration.
I was out until 4:30 AM, and was living on very little sleep, and didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
The irony is meaningful. If you truly have SE, then being called a moronic sleezebucket will roll off your back. You don’t have a need to take it personally, because you know in your heart of hearts it’s not true.
Anyone who tries to take away the SE of other people is, in fact, a moronic sleezebucket. And yet even such people deserve SE themselves, and if they had it, they’d be much less inclined to take it from others, thus making much less moronic and far less sleezebuckety. Or something like that.
On reflection – It’s a joke, son.
Let’s step back for a moment and evaluate what we should have (hopefully) learned up to this point.
What self-esteem is not:
-Arrogance
-Boasting
-Putting others down
-False pride
-Unrealistic assessment of one’s abilities
-Lying about grades, taking away athletic achievements, or any other wonky PC stuff filling the headlines.
What self-esteem is:
-Self-respect, equal to that of what you’d give to any person you love dearly.
-Self-forgiveness
-Realistic assessment of your abilities and worth
-Allowing yourself to be human instead of berating yourself for not being super-human
-Recognizing your birthright to take up space on the planet, just like everyone else.
-Realizing that your importance to yourself is not necessarily defined by artificial goals set externally by society (i.e. In your neighborhood, the worth of a woman is judged as to how many little decorative soaps she has in her bathroom. You could give a fuck about decorative soaps. You understand that this in no way makes you less worthy of breathing the air in your neighborhood.)
Ooh, I like that last analogy. The anti-SE crowd here would have you believe that since you don’t measure up in the soap department, then you don’t deserve to feel good about yourself. What you need to do is to redouble your efforts, and compete in soapworld more effectively. You will then have earned the right to be happy.
A little hyperbole there? Sure. But no more absurd than berating little Suzy as an uncompassionate human because she has trouble memorizing the times tables.