Self-Esteem


Dglgmut

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Introspection, if we define it as analyzing feelings, like the last quote you used, is not looking at oneself. It is analyzing feelings. Self-esteem or self-respect would not come from that, but from a positive concept of self.

The concept of self is what I'm saying is necessarily false, not our feelings. "Why do I feel it?" can be better asked, "What made me feel it?" We are focused on experience in this mode of consciousness, not trying to chase our own tail, in a sense.

Edit: So I would not say that introspection is "directed inward", as we are still comfortably at the center of the experience. We are not looking inside ourselves, because we are the looker. The objectification is when we exclude ourselves in the moment, and that is a part of conceptualizing ourselves.

Introspection, if we define it as analyzing feelings, like the last quote you used, is not looking at oneself. It is analyzing feelings. Self-esteem or self-respect would not come from that, but from a positive concept of self.

The concept of self is what I'm saying is necessarily false, not our feelings. "Why do I feel it?" can be better asked, "What made me feel it?" We are focused on experience in this mode of consciousness, not trying to chase our own tail, in a sense.

Edit: So I would not say that introspection is "directed inward", as we are still comfortably at the center of the experience. We are not looking inside ourselves, because we are the looker. The objectification is when we exclude ourselves in the moment, and that is a part of conceptualizing ourselves.

1."What made me feel it?" is redundant since it is included in "Why do I feel it?" I think this is equally experientially-oriented (what happened?) and premise-oriented (are my emotional reactions in accordance with my convictions and reality?)

2.Could you conceive of carrying round uninvestigated feelings of rage, guilt, etc and having high

self- esteem? Since I can't, I think introspection factors significantly in self-esteem.

3. If self-esteem is the "reputation you have with yourself", (NB) I'd say it is the aggregate of all actions, feelings and thoughts - at subconscious level. It combines the sense of being competent to live, plus the sense of being appropriate to find happiness. The *sense* - mind you - not the cognitive choice of those - or fulfilment of them. (Though, of course, one would make conscious and volitional choices to those ends.)

Where and how does "self-objectification" apply to self-esteem? S-E can certainly not involve any exclusion of self. If this were possible, it would become self-alienation.

As I've often pointed out, I think self-esteem is not result-, or success-based, primarily.

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Well, to be more accurate, we do not have a relationship with ourselves, we have a concept of self. That's the point I was stressing. There is a difference between you, and your concept of self. You are not a concept.

Self-esteem is having a positive concept of self.

We need a concept of self in order to look at reality in relation to ourselves. However, when we look at reality objectively, we disregard our concepts of self, and therefore see no relationship.

You must admit, though, that when you focus on your concept of self, you are not focused on the observer, but the object, which cannot be the same thing without entering an infinite loop.

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  • 4 months later...

The notion that self-esteem is a cause and not an effect is poppycock. Aristo alludes to this, and I would add that it boils down to the fact that confidence is a result of competence...and competence is something that can be measured and evaluated in the real word, apart from any verbal diarreah about one's internal self-talk.

You don't achieve great things because you think you are great -- you are great because you achieve great things. That's the bottom line.

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The notion that self-esteem is a cause and not an effect is poppycock.

Actually, the dichotomy itself doesn't make any sense.

Self-esteem is both casue and effect, working like a wave that goes up and down in a person't life. It both feeds off achievement and good character and feeds them. And it is self-generating once it gets fired up and running.

But wait, there more!

:)

It doesn't exist in isolation.

Michael

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Exactly, Dglmut...self-esteem ultimately comes down to power, and how much power one has over ones environment. Nietzsche had something to say about TRUE self-esteem, (not the kind espoused by New Age charlartans in Southern California):

"What is good? -- All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? -- all that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? -- The feeling that power increases -- that a resistance is overcome.

Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but proficiency (virtue in the Renaissance style, virtu, virtue free of moralic acid)"

Why do you suppose MSK has become so enamored of the whys and wherefores of marketing and advertising and the psychology which underpin such procesees? I tip my hat to him. In more ways than one. :)

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I don't know... I mean, if a baby never moved a muscle, how much "self-esteem" could it possibly have?

I believe it comes from our sense of self, which is only established once we realize that we can deliberately affect reality.

MSK has it spot on - it is a two-way process.

One could be King of the world, and still feel a charlatan and an asshole.

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Why do you suppose MSK has become so enamored of the whys and wherefores of marketing and advertising and the psychology which underpin such procesees?

Eric,

My initial motivation was the same as that of Robert Cialdini when he wrote Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

I'm an ultra-gullible sucker--a con man's dream--of the first order.

And I got really tired of being taken.

Hell, even today I look at infomercials on TV and the first thought that comes to mind is entertainment. Then I fight off a trance as my fingers itch to get my wallet.

:)

Michael

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The notion that self-esteem is a cause and not an effect is poppycock. Aristo alludes to this, and I would add that it boils down to the fact that confidence is a result of competence...and competence is something that can be measured and evaluated in the real word, apart from any verbal diarreah about one's internal self-talk. You don't achieve great things because you think you are great -- you are great because you achieve great things. That's the bottom line.

Thinking you are great is not self esteem which is an unconscious, positive evaluation of competence and lack of self-denigration--that is, a bad or wrong act is not the same as being a bad actor. Thinking you are (a) bad (actor) is just the other side of the coin as thinking you are great. It's not what you think you know in this context, but what you know you know. Cause and effect isn't atomistically apropos for it's just one part of the human actor, albeit an integrated one. That being said this is more about the semantics than substance for I essentially agree with you, you just have to get deeper into the meat and potatoes of this, which I suspect you do in your next post on this subject. I'm going there now and see if I can get a real argument going with you.

--Brant

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Exactly, Dglmut...self-esteem ultimately comes down to power, and how much power one has over ones environment. Nietzsche had something to say about TRUE self-esteem, (not the kind espoused by New Age charlartans in Southern California):

"What is good? -- All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? -- all that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? -- The feeling that power increases -- that a resistance is overcome.

Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but proficiency (virtue in the Renaissance style, virtu, virtue free of moralic acid)"

Why do you suppose MSK has become so enamored of the whys and wherefores of marketing and advertising and the psychology which underpin such procesees? I tip my hat to him. In more ways than one. :smile:

Well, you're right about the "New Age charlartans (sic)," but Nietzsche's self esteem ideas are like someone with no moral moral agency, for power without right actions is power dictating "right actions" which is both circular and ultimately destructive with denial of free will too boot. Humans have moral agency denied thereby by him and as a contradiction comes back to eat up this "TRUE self-esteem," which is as phony as anything you'll find in So. Cal.

--Brant

and you go to war

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  • 2 weeks later...

Brant:

"Thinking you are great is not self esteem which is an unconscious, positive evaluation of competence and lack of self-denigration--that is, a bad or wrong act is not the same as being a bad actor. Thinking you are (a) bad (actor) is just the other side of the coin as thinking you are great."

I agree. Perhaps "great" was a poor choice of words. I was merely using it as a shorthand for the phenomenon of "positive self-regard". I also agree that both self-loathing and narcissistic grandiosity are different sides of the same coin. But this goes to my point that ultimately, much of what we think of ourselves is simply mental epiphenomena...

This need to have a personal narrative, a mythology about ourselves is the root of the problem. Unfortunately, my impression of the Oist/Branden conception of self-esteem is that it seems to feed into this problematic dynamic.

There is no god. We are not all equal in the eyes of the Lord. Some are weaker, some are stronger. Some are smarter, some are dumber. How to live with this reality? Branden proposes that we trust in the competency of our mind. But not all minds are equally competent, even assuming best practices are followed. This notion of everyone having the potential to have equal self-esteem is a chimera.

I prefer Nietzsche's succinct proposal which I quoted upthread: that ultimately, Life -- that phenomenon which Branden himself said is a process of moving forward (for after all, stillness is death) depends on...moving outward...reaching out...expanding...absorbing more of one's environment...in essence, acquiring more power, no matter one's station in life.

Casuistry about one's own self-talk and personal narrative is merely a soporific. We need to become more like animals in this respect. Watch your dog or cat when they get injured. They feel pain but ascribe no moral judgement to it. They just keep going...

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Brant:

"Nietzsche's self esteem ideas are like someone with no moral moral agency, for power without right actions is power dictating "right actions" which is both circular and ultimately destructive with denial of free will too boot."

Not necessarily. IMO, power does not *dictate* "right-actions". Rather, power is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effecting right actions in the world.

The problem is when an overwrought emphasis is placed on the "right" of "right action", over and above the "action."

Put two objectivists who are both dedicated to "reason" in a room together and ask them to discuss things like the legitimacy of homosexuality, or women presidents, or even the value of the music of Bach. Do we see a dawning of the age of Reason? Not likely. Communication is frought with competing wills. When those who pledge fidelity to reality and reason can't agree on such mundane topics, what can we conclude? Any issue can be "reasoned" and argued about forever and ever, eventually extinguishing the subject of its attention into irrelevancy. Who among us here have not been a victim of the Paralysis of Analysis?

Nietzsche has this to say:

"Origin of the logical.-- How did logic come into existence in man's head? Certainly out of illogic, whose realm originally must have been immense. Innumerable beings who made inferences in a way different from ours perished; for all that, their ways might have been truer. Those, for example, who did not know how to find often enough what is "equal" as regards both nourishment and hostile animals--those, in other words, who subsumed things too slowly and cautiously--were favored with a lesser probability of survival than those who guessed immediately upon encountering similar instances that they must be equal. The dominant tendency, however, to treat as equal what is merely similar--an illogical tendency, for nothing is really equal--is what first created any basis for logic.

In order that the concept of substance could originate--which is indispensible for logic although in the strictest sense nothing real corresponds to it--it was likewise necessary that for a long time one did not see or perceive the changes in things. The beings that did not see so precisely had an advantage over those who saw everything "in flux." At bottom, every high degree of caution in making inferences and every skeptical tendency constitute a great danger for life. No living beings would have survived if the opposite tendency--to affirm rather than suspend judgement, to err and make up things rather than wait, to assent rather than negate, to pass judgement rather than be just-- had not been bred to the point where it became extraordinarily strong."

Brant:

"Humans have moral agency denied thereby by him and as a contradiction comes back to eat up this "TRUE self-esteem," which is as phony as anything you'll find in So. Cal."

I think the recent discussion here concerning free will and the factors which condition the

"acceptance of belief" have something to say about "moral agency."

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Brant:

"Thinking you are great is not self esteem which is an unconscious, positive evaluation of competence and lack of self-denigration--that is, a bad or wrong act is not the same as being a bad actor. Thinking you are (a) bad (actor) is just the other side of the coin as thinking you are great."

I agree. Perhaps "great" was a poor choice of words. I was merely using it as a shorthand for the phenomenon of "positive self-regard". I also agree that both self-loathing and narcissistic grandiosity are different sides of the same coin. But this goes to my point that ultimately, much of what we think of ourselves is simply mental epiphenomena...

I prefer Nietzsche's succinct proposal which I quoted upthread: that ultimately, Life -- that phenomenon which Branden himself said is a process of moving forward (for after all, stillness is death) depends on...

Casuistry about one's own self-talk and personal narrative is merely a soporific. We need to become more like animals in this respect. Watch your dog or cat when they get injured. They feel pain but ascribe no moral judgement to it. They just keep going...

My dogs and cats have always had 100% self-esteem all the time. (Like all animals; but

distinctive from their moods, and their good/bad treatment.)

Because they "feel worthy" of life. That's all they have, lacking alternatives.

It is the primary factor which is always being over-looked, I think. It precedes what we 'do', what we think and achieve - now.(Which is self-efficacy.) What we consciously think we are capable of, and

the measure of confidence we have, is often contradicted by what we subconsciously feel we are worthy of.

Men must re-gain it (selfworthiness) the hard way**,since it is a self aware judgment passed on ourselves- in every act, thought and feeling, going way back.

Like animals we all 'had it' when very young.

**[ I may be a little excessive here: not "hard way" in the sense of revisiting every past thought

and action, to the point of immobilizing, navel-gazing. But introspection, sure - with the intention of balancing one's subconscious account books, from the red into the black - as I see it.

"Did I really want to MURDER my little sister that time she drove me crazy, when I was 15! Ha.

Hm: no wonder I still feel guilty around her today..." Not every, single instance needs to be rehashed like that. But a broad 'self-acceptance' of one's past eventually emerges. "I was never SO bad - nobody was ever THAT bad to me". (excluding instances of severe trauma, of course.)

"Self-acceptance is quite simply, realism. That which is, is. That which you think, you think. That which you feel, you feel.

That which you did, you did." (N. Branden).

Once one has brought those 'books up to date', and largely recovered one's worthiness to life, it becomes an easier matter of keeping them balanced - in my perhaps simplistic view. But I'm no psychologist.]

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Brant:

"Thinking you are great is not self esteem which is an unconscious, positive evaluation of competence and lack of self-denigration--that is, a bad or wrong act is not the same as being a bad actor. Thinking you are (a) bad (actor) is just the other side of the coin as thinking you are great."

I agree. Perhaps "great" was a poor choice of words. I was merely using it as a shorthand for the phenomenon of "positive self-regard". I also agree that both self-loathing and narcissistic grandiosity are different sides of the same coin. But this goes to my point that ultimately, much of what we think of ourselves is simply mental epiphenomena...

This need to have a personal narrative, a mythology about ourselves is the root of the problem. Unfortunately, my impression of the Oist/Branden conception of self-esteem is that it seems to feed into this problematic dynamic.

There is no god. We are not all equal in the eyes of the Lord. Some are weaker, some are stronger. Some are smarter, some are dumber. How to live with this reality? Branden proposes that we trust in the competency of our mind. But not all minds are equally competent, even assuming best practices are followed. This notion of everyone having the potential to have equal self-esteem is a chimera.

I prefer Nietzsche's succinct proposal which I quoted upthread: that ultimately, Life -- that phenomenon which Branden himself said is a process of moving forward (for after all, stillness is death) depends on...moving outward...reaching out...expanding...absorbing more of one's environment...in essence, acquiring more power, no matter one's station in life.

Casuistry about one's own self-talk and personal narrative is merely a soporific. We need to become more like animals in this respect. Watch your dog or cat when they get injured. They feel pain but ascribe no moral judgement to it. They just keep going...

People are not equal save in one respect: as moral actors and moral agency. That's one of the basis of individual rights' philosophy. What you have a right to do and no right to do have nothing to do with brains or power. Thus: "All men are created equal ...." Etc. That's how people live properly together in a society whether one is a moron and another a genius, one rich and one poor, male or female, gay or straight. For self-esteem we all have our inner stories or "myths" if you will. A phonied up story can feed a pseudo self-esteem. When that collapses, for whatever reason, what's left over is real self-esteem. The problem is the phony eats the real and one can end up like Peter Keating ended up.

--Brant

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Self esteem is true knowledge of your capabilities and lack of capabilities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Self esteem is true knowledge of your capabilities and lack of capabilities.

Not true, but your statement might work thusly: capability generally speaking--but it also has to do with past right actions. That I stopped smoking 44 years ago apropos a conscious, rational decision, has been one source of my self-esteem, albeit hardly the only one or the most important. How you build and maintain the house that is you is where self-esteem comes from. Knowing you are capable would be one summing up. I can do a lot of disparate things, but not having a talent or desire to be a brain surgeon doesn't subtract from my self-esteem, nor does a lack of ability for higher math nor that my father had 55 or 60 more IQ points than yours truly.

--Brant

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Self esteem is true knowledge of your capabilities and lack of capabilities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Uh, no.. That's well - "knowledge of your capabilities..."etc.

Necessary to have, but not self-esteem.

Inasmuch as s-e is knowledge, it is intimate knowledge of yourself and your past, and all

your past judgments on yourself.

You're talking of the visible part of the iceberg.

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Self esteem is true knowledge of your capabilities and lack of capabilities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Uh, no.. That's well - "knowledge of your capabilities..."etc.

Necessary to have, but not self-esteem.

Inasmuch as s-e is knowledge, it is intimate knowledge of yourself and your past, and all

your past judgments on yourself.

You're talking of the visible part of the iceberg.

For me that is is the only part. I can't do invisible.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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What you have a right to do and no right to do have nothing to do with brains or power.

Brant,

I'm with you on this, but with one caveat.

This is a part of a system that only works when people are concerned with thier morals, and possibly being civil to each other (at the bare minimum of not attacking each other with force).

Otherwise, the system doesn't work.

(Imagine a bunch of hardened convicts set loose on a deserted island with only a Constitution and Bill of Rights as their social authority. Then come back in a few monthsand see what they did. :smile: )

In other words, neither the law nor the rights are the components that make the system work. It's the willingness of people to judge and accept morality, not power, as the basis of rights, in other words, accept rights in terms of good and evil. And then make their laws and enforcement accordingly.

And this is like eating. You can eat a good meal now, but you need another later. Likewise, you can make and accept a moral judment now (I'm speaking about general life issues, not a specific event), but you need constant booster discussions, images, thinking, reading, lectures or sermons, rituals, etc., to keep it relevant to your life.

This is where churches have ratioinal philosophies beat hands down. I'm not talking about correctness, but instead about effectiveness. They not only do this stuff with regularity, they do it in colorful, emotional and interesting ways. Hell, they even get everyone singing. And the stories that carry the morality! Great stories...

This is why religions have such influence in politics and I believe they will have it for a long, long time to come.

Michael

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Exactly, Dglmut...self-esteem ultimately comes down to power, and how much power one has over ones environment. Nietzsche had something to say about TRUE self-esteem, (not the kind espoused by New Age charlartans in Southern California):

"What is good? -- All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? -- all that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? -- The feeling that power increases -- that a resistance is overcome.

Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but proficiency (virtue in the Renaissance style, virtu, virtue free of moralic acid)"

Why do you suppose MSK has become so enamored of the whys and wherefores of marketing and advertising and the psychology which underpin such procesees? I tip my hat to him. In more ways than one. :smile:

Well, you're right about the "New Age charlartans (sic)," but Nietzsche's self esteem ideas are like someone with no moral moral agency, for power without right actions is power dictating "right actions" which is both circular and ultimately destructive with denial of free will too boot. Humans have moral agency denied thereby by him and as a contradiction comes back to eat up this "TRUE self-esteem," which is as phony as anything you'll find in So. Cal.

--Brant

and you go to war

This seems circular: If man's moral purpose is the pursuit of his own happiness, then his happiness cannot depend on his being "moral"--but rather his being honest.

If we are being destructive by our own estimation, we are not increasing our sense of power, but decreasing our sense of self-control. Destruction as a display of power does not work, and is a contributor to "phony" self-esteem.

So I would argue that acting morally is not a means of establishing self-esteem, but that acting to gain self-esteem is the only moral course of action.

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MSK:

"This is where churches have ratioinal philosophies beat hands down. I'm not talking about correctness, but instead about effectiveness. They not only do this stuff with regularity, they do it in colorful, emotional and interesting ways. Hell, they even get everyone singing. And the stories that carry the morality! Great stories...

This is why religions have such influence in politics and I believe they will have it for a long, long time to come."

Excellent comment Michael. I've had similar thoughts for some time now. You do realize of course this casts you beyond the realms of Approved Objectivism, I take it? Objectivism's lopsided focus on the individual is to the detriment of our evolved social nature, and therefore has a blindspot regarding community and social cohesion. The extreme lengths Objectivism goes to in venerating individualism makes it a great philosophy for autists...and sociopaths. Not so much for well-adjusted people.

Of course, balance in all things, yadda yadda yadda.

With the coming disintegration of this country, the economic implosion, etc., I predict people will find themselves in need of some organizing principle to control the social chaos. Among the competing factions, I despair that the Objectivist contingent preaching the Good Word of Reason will be nothing more than a reed in the howling winds. Appeals to a Higher Authority will hold more sway over the masses. We can only hope that should it come to that, the religious rituals involved have been informed to some extent by Objectivisms influence in the culture, producing perhaps a more *refined* Christianity rather than a devolution to reactionary Islam for instance...

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Self esteem is true knowledge of your capabilities and lack of capabilities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Uh, no.. That's well - "knowledge of your capabilities..."etc.

Necessary to have, but not self-esteem.

Inasmuch as s-e is knowledge, it is intimate knowledge of yourself and your past, and all

your past judgments on yourself.

You're talking of the visible part of the iceberg.

For me that is is the only part. I can't do invisible.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Can you "do" induction? If you see a shadow, you induce "light", right?

Good for you that nature does its own thing regardless of what you decide is visible, otherwise you'd topple over like that iceberg.

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Can you "do" induction? If you see a shadow, you induce "light", right?

Good for you that nature does its own thing regardless of what you decide is visible, otherwise you'd topple over like that iceberg.

Tell me scout. Do you mock the blind because they cannot see.

Yes. I can deduce, induce, and abduce. What I cannot do is ascertain the intentions of other people. I am mind blind. That comes with being an Aspie.

I see what is visible. I detect what is physically detectable. Everything else is pure guesswork.

Can you know more than what passes through your senses. If so, lucky you.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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