March 6, 2008 7:10 PM
Obama and the cult of self-esteem
The other day when I posted Obamessiah: "We are the ones we've been waiting for" I promised an intellectual antidote for you.
Following are snippets from a brilliant analysis of political rock star/phenomenon Barak Obama - by Abraham Katzman for the Jerusalem Post:
His evident charisma aside, a clue to the source of Obama-mania may be found in the demographics of his support: he is far and away the favorite of younger voters and college students, routinely winning over 75% of the votes of Democrats under 30. Obama has tapped into is the first generation educated in schools focused on "self-esteem." Now, the products of self-esteem education have come of political age in substantial numbers, perhaps with profound implications for this and future elections.For the past two decades, America's educational establishment has stressed the inculcation of self-esteem as the supreme educational goal. Self-respect - the product of struggle and achievement - is out; self-esteem - the entitlement to feel great self-worth regardless of actual accomplishment - is in. . . .
Katzman goes on to discuss and document inflation, the everyone's-a-winner ethos, etc.
Inevitably, however, such over-indulgence of students leads to increased narcissism, self-absorption, and sense of entitlement. Those with self-esteem disproportionate to their achievement tend to be less willing to take responsibility for their own failures, shortcomings, or bad behavior.[my emphasis]Coddled children raised to believe that any dream is not only attainable, but an entitlement granted regardless of actual effort and accomplishment are increasingly growing into depressed and stressed young adults as they rudely discover that the post-school world is not so cooperative and doesn't really care about their dreams or their feelings. In the real world, they keep score.
But not in Obama-world. That is a world of Hope; of Action; of Change You Can Believe In; of Yes We Can; of Coming Together; of Moving Forward Into the Future, and of other banalities that can mean absolutely anything to anyone. "I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations." It's all about us and our good feelings of youth and unity. . .
Notably, Obama's rhetorical flourishes never involve policy choices or the big, bad, complex world outside the campaign rally. "In the face of change lies hope, and in the face of hope lies change." Brilliant! Dreams are restored! We're all 14 again! Just close our eyes and hope a perfect future into existence. Problems with the genocidal Iranian neighborhood bully? Simple, we'll use our seventh-grade conflict resolution methods on Ahmedinijad. Those pesky student loans and subprime mortgages we took out? No worries, Obama will make someone else pay for them. Israeli-Arab conflicts and daily missile barrages on civilian populations? No problem, everyone just come together -Obama's very presence will melt hardened hearts and pacify Hamas and Hizbullah. There. Problems solved. No need to think about all that anymore.
It's a brilliant and insightful piece, really worth reading in its entirety - which I hope these snippets have teased you to do - here.
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Comments
Some years ago a friend (Alice) related to me the story of attending a parent teacher evening for her cousins daughter. She was going in lieu of her cousin who is an alcoholic, and who, along with her husband could be fairly described as dysfunctional parents.
Alice has a very good heart but her manner can be quite taciturn and she has an admirable gift for seeing straight through waffle,spin and nonsense.
She was frustrated that this bright young girl was not achieving anything that came close to reflecting her actual ability and felt that the teachers were somewhat patronizingly giving her empty self esteem boosting marks for things like 'punctuality' but neglecting to address the ways in which she was falling short academically.
Alice felt strongly that she had been written off in the minds of these teachers because of her disadvantaged background.
When Alice tried to discuss the child's grades with the teacher, the teacher kept deflecting by pointing out the 'good' grades ( for punctuality and tidiness) Frustrated, Alice placed her hand over the grades and said " I'm not interested in these, I'm interested in those" ( indicating the poor subject grades)
The teacher, looking wounded said "But you must think of her self esteem" Quick as a flash, Alice responded by cocking her eyebrow at the teacher and observing " That's all we need isn't it? A load of idiots with high self esteem"
At the time I thought it was so funny, and typical of Alice's sharp tongue that she had responded like that, but I often think that she had hit on something years back that most of us weren't even thinking of questioning.
I often think of Alice as being the voice of the child in The Emperors New Clothes. She has a gift for completely ignoring the kind of feel good empty hype that I sometimes find myself being seduced by.
It's a great article, I'm going to send her a link!
Posted by: Clare | March 6, 2008 8:24 PM
That's me; I'm one of those children raised on "self-esteem." Let me tell you straight up that it's a load of bunk. It doesn't really feel good to be told how great you are when you know you haven't done anything. To this day I have trouble taking compliments seriously, because I know how often people "just say that" without actually meaning it.
Not to try to pin my failure on anyone else (I was already starting to see through the self-esteem nonsense and should have gotten my act together), but I ended up failing high school math and graduating late because I actually believed that I was so smart that I didn't have to try. I spent an entire semester of Algebra reading the newspaper in class instead of paying attention. Can you imagine that I was actually SHOCKED when I decided I was ready to get my A and found that I was too far behind to understand the current lesson? I assure you, THAT was not good for my "self esteem."
Children don't need empty praise. They need to be encouraged to attain real accomplishments and get their sense of self-worth from that.
Posted by: Michelle Potter | March 6, 2008 9:49 PM
You know who has the highest self-esteem of all? Gang members. They think the world of themselves.
And haven't we all met that insufferable person who thinks they are the best, when they are really merely mediocre?
On a more spiritual note, we are not called to esteem ourselves. Humility is a great virtue. I think a lot of people confuse "self esteem" with "confidence".
Posted by: Milehimama | March 7, 2008 12:35 AM
I have to do some more reading myself on various issues and histories being discussed (I rarely take anything I read for exact truth). BUT, have you seen this article?
Posted by: SmockLady | March 7, 2008 12:38 AM
Thanks for that article SmockLady, and wow, is this the messiah they are putting their hopes on?
Scary!
So the choice for democrats is either Obama or Clinton? Man, talk about a hard choice. I'm really feeling sorry for them.
Posted by: LadyLovas | March 7, 2008 5:17 PM
