3 ms·

Earlier this year I had the occasion to do some reading on self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-love. I think this critique is a bit divorced from what the ps

Earlier this year I had the occasion to do some reading on self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-love. I think this critique is a bit divorced from what the psychologists are actually saying. For starters, the "movement" is definitely aware of your dichotomy. The terms of art are contingent and non-contingent. It considers contingent self-esteem to be fragile because real lives contain setbacks. Its position is basically Stoicism: prefer an inner well-being, unperturbed by circumstances. Don't get overwhelmed by the ups and downs. It also contains echoes of Christianity: inherent dignity of all life, unconditional acceptance and love of all God's creatures. Narcissism is in your relationship to how people perceive you... that would be squarely in the "contingent" category. We might argue that of course a highly successful person feels inadequate; if he could be satisfied at all he would have been satisfied many achievements ago, and stopped there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-esteem#Contingent_vs._non-contingent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-esteem#Contingent_vs._non...

waterhouse 6y ago
> divorced from what the psychologists are actually saying Let me throw out the possibility that what the psychologists are saying, and the nth-hand version that teachers pick up and teach to the kids, may differ on key details. I don't think it's even rare for high-minded ideas to be garbled by the time they trickle down into classrooms. Feynman had amusing/dismaying stories about what made it into science textbooks, for example (and textbooks are theoretically written by the experts): https://rangevoting.org/FeynTexts.html https://rangevoting.org/FeynTexts.html
- donw 6y ago
  That's pretty much where I was going. The psychology and underlaying theory looks sound, and is indeed very aligned with the Stoic approach. Problem is that the classroom implementation ended up almost a full 180 degrees out of phase.
taneq 6y ago
Thanks for that link - I'd honestly not thought to read the wiki page on it but it looks quite comprehensive. The discussion of narcissism on that page is a bit different to the one I'd been working with (which was based on a lot of reading about cluster-B personality disorders including Narcissistic Personality Disorder) which might explain the discrepancy. But then, I'm not a professional so I'm happy to be corrected. (Edit: Of course as a professional I'm even more happy to be corrected, that's how you become less wrong!) Edit: I was basing my understanding of "what psychologists are actually saying" on a bunch of kids books we have which have a page at the back written by psychologists (I haven't checked their credentials) which lines up with my 'unfounded optimism' definition of 'good self esteem'. I know there are other interpretations once you get to legitimate psychology and stoicism actually seems fairly effective.

waterhouse 6y ago

> divorced from what the psychologists are actually saying Let me throw out the possibility that what the psychologists are saying, and the nth-hand version that teachers pick up and teach to the kids, may differ on key details. I don't think it's even rare for high-minded ideas to be garbled by the time they trickle down into classrooms. Feynman had amusing/dismaying stories about what made it into science textbooks, for example (and textbooks are theoretically written by the experts): https://rangevoting.org/FeynTexts.html https://rangevoting.org/FeynTexts.html

donw 6y ago
That's pretty much where I was going. The psychology and underlaying theory looks sound, and is indeed very aligned with the Stoic approach. Problem is that the classroom implementation ended up almost a full 180 degrees out of phase.

taneq 6y ago

Thanks for that link - I'd honestly not thought to read the wiki page on it but it looks quite comprehensive. The discussion of narcissism on that page is a bit different to the one I'd been working with (which was based on a lot of reading about cluster-B personality disorders including Narcissistic Personality Disorder) which might explain the discrepancy. But then, I'm not a professional so I'm happy to be corrected. (Edit: Of course as a professional I'm even more happy to be corrected, that's how you become less wrong!) Edit: I was basing my understanding of "what psychologists are actually saying" on a bunch of kids books we have which have a page at the back written by psychologists (I haven't checked their credentials) which lines up with my 'unfounded optimism' definition of 'good self esteem'. I know there are other interpretations once you get to legitimate psychology and stoicism actually seems fairly effective.