[HSList] Myth of Self-Esteem
TIMB...@aol.com
In a message dated 6/4/98 6:21:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dho...@Moneynet.COM writes:
<< There is a thing called self perception...Rom 12:3 For thru the grace given
>>
Yes, that is my point. "self-esteem" theorists use the word "self-esteem" and
"self-image"
(same as Self perception) interchangeably. The reason they coined the new
word is two fold. One, to make it seem scientific. Second, in order to take
logic leaps. "Self-image" and "self-perception" are clearly ideas. "Self-
esteem" is never clearly defined (a no, no to real scientists) and it is used
to be three things at once, idea, feeling and cause. This is impossible. A
thing cannot be an idea and a feeling at the same time. It can only be one or
the other. Similarly, a thing cannot be a feeling and a cause. Feelings
happen to us. Causes require an actor. Ideas cannot act. Only a person who
has made a choice and a decision can act. An idea cannot act or feel. A
feeling cannot act or be an idea.
These are three separate things. "Self-esteem" is a product of secular
humanism, the philosophy embraced by left-liberals, when they are not
embracing a strange brand of American socialist. Socialism is atheist.
Secular humanism is a godless religion.
The bankruptcy of Marxist and secular humanist thought is demonstrated
by the desperate
logical gymnastics and verbal slight of hands its ideologues and followers
must resort to in order to explain a universe that is godless. The result is
illogical and thus false scientific concepts such as "self-esteem" theory and
generation gap theory. Actually, the errors begin with the marxist-socialist
and secular humanist basic view of man, namely that people are born blank
tablets (tabula rosa). To claim that is to claim that everyone is born the
same. The second error is the claim that our environment determines who and
what we are. This is the error of environmental determinism. Common sense
alone tells us that people think and make decisions. Both activities are a
great waste of time if we have no choice but to choose as we do because our
environment made our blank page mind to be what it is and to choose as we
choose. From this sandy platform comes the left-liberal (read marxist-
socialist) tendency to blame society (in other words nobody) for heinous
crimes. According to left-liberal (marxist-socialist) explanation for crime,
the criminal, due to his alleged deprived environment, had no choice but to
prey on his fellow man. Allegedly the real criminal are the righteous and the
respectable members of society, who allegedly live better because they live by
holding their foot on the neck of the criminal. This not only defies the
facts; It defies common sense. Supposedly poverty causes crime (again,
environment not individuals are responsible for good and bad behavior).
This philosophy is not only internally illogical, it also contradicts
the facts. Over 85% of all residents in impoverished neighborhoods never
commit a crime in their life. A higher percentage of young members of better
off Americans commit at least one larceny. Some studies indicate 50%! Much
more crime occurs in impoverished neighborhoods but most of the criminals come
from outside the neighborhood. They travel to the impoverished areas in order
to "sin" with less chance of detection and arrest. The modern, scientific
criminologists (the conventional criminologist is either left-liberal or
marxist) have narrowed 85% of all crime to less than 15% of all criminals.
They refer to these career criminals as psychopaths. They even have a highly
accurate, simple to use checklist for judges to use, so they can determine
which offenders they need to lock up as long as possible (less than 15% of
offenders) and which ones with whom they can simply resort to a tether,
restitution, rehabilitation and probation approach.
Tim
TIMB...@aol.com
In a message dated 6/4/98 6:21:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dho...@Moneynet.COM writes:
<< The parent's impact on children cannot be understated but it is not
deterministic.
Parents can do everything right, but apart from God working in the soul
of the
child, the child will be lost. Conversely parents can screw up royaly
and God can >>
My direction and yours are one and the same. Like Paul, I seek to serve a
plate that the Romans and Greeks can identify with.
Tim
TIMB...@aol.com
In a message dated 5/29/98 10:23:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Zehra writes:
<< I don't pay any attention to these types of studies, they change too
much and too fast. Years ago, studies supposedly proved that if you held
your young baby, you would spoil him/her. Studies today now prove
otherwise. So what does this exactly mean for you and me? Absolutely
nothing. I'm still going to go ahead and try and be the best parent I
can be, regardless of any study. I'm still going to try and instill in
my girls that they have great self-esteem. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe
I'm not. As long as I try, who cares about studies that change as fast>>
Zehra,
The point that I am making is that what you say about research is actually
true about advice given by well known therapists and certain pediatricians who
had little or no research behind what they presented with utmost authority.
Two of the most influential alleged "experts" Benjamin Spock and Bethlehem
were completely unqualified to even speak authoritatively. As I have said
already, Spock was just a pediatrician and Bettleheim was a complete fraud.
Over the 1970s and 1980s millions listened to Dr. Joyce Brothers who is still
considered a bad joke by the department where she received her doctorate
degree which was not clinical or research psychology but educational
psychology. Most education psychology degreed persons are not taken seriously
by regular psychology degree or psychiatry license holders. When I was
attended college, I remember psychology majors referring to education
psychology as "psychology light." Education department students in general
are considered the bottom of the student heap. In the past, they were rated
right at the bottom along with Physical Fitness majors. Many jokes were made
about them, especially at the advanced degree level.
On the other hand, psychological research has always had a few great
researchers. Even today we should be aware of and heed what they had to say
about young children. Two excellent examples are Albert Bandura and to a
lessor extent Freiberg. Bandura's work was very precise and scientific. He
reported as early as 1952 that there is no evidence that self-esteem is
connected one way or another to character or behavior.
My whole point in my self-esteem post is that people who believe in self-
esteem theory
are victims of politicized psychology that is really bad philosophy at best,
mere opinion at worst. To accept self-esteem theory is to follow a
psychological fad, no more, no less. No one is responsible for another
person's self-image, feelings, happiness, success or failure, goodness or
badness, or boredom. To assume such responsibility can only rob a developing
individual of fundamental responsibility for themselves. This self-
responsibility is crucial for development of character (character as opposed
to personality. Character is what people need to be good, productive persons.
Personality is mere social lubricant and if anything the cult of personality
undermines character development, as good personality has nothing to do with
character). One cannot reach a goal that one does not have. If a person does
not perceive themselves as having ultimate responsibility for their moods,
feelings, boredom and self-image then one cannot develop them very much.
To say that parents are not responsible for their child's self-image is
not the same as saying that it is all right for parents to treat their
children in abusive ways. Left liberals, who created the myth of self-esteem,
resort to such attacks. If you disagree with them, they attack you as
advocating opposite behavior from the one you criticize. Of course, Christian
teaching is adamant about treating everyone as you wish to be treated, about
treating everyone in a Christian manner. Of course, this includes your
children.
It is not an accident that we have an outrageous degree of teenage and
young adult suicide and self-destructive behavior. This is the youth that our
social engineers played a central role in bringing about. Child therapists
are leaders of American social engineering.
We need to question things like "self-esteem" and this questioning must begin
with the fact that the term "self-esteem" itself is not even defined by the
people who use invented it, namely the public educators and the child
therapists.
To question "self-esteem" is not to follow a new psychological fad.
There are those like myself who have always questioned it and other
mischievous terms like "generation gap." If a professional who claims to be
an expert in a particular science tells us we must stop doing something that
people have done for centuries and start doing something he or she tells us to
do, we have every right to demand scientific evidence for that admonishment.
When the admonishment pertains to something as important as parenting we have
a duty to question anything we are told that runs counter to common experience
and thus counter to common sense.
Again, my point is that research never indicated that there is something
called "self-esteem" that is responsible for a persons academic performance,
good or bad behavior or even their happiness. There never was any evidence
that parents are responsible for their children's self-esteem. What is self-
esteem? Is it a feeling? Is it an idea? It cannot be both. Why coin the
word "self-esteem"? Why was the common word "self-image" not used?
Therapists and educators use the two words interchangeably. Why not use
"self-image" to begin with? "self-image" is clearly defined. Self-image is
clearly an idea. It is a person's idea of themselves. It is not a feeling.
An idea cannot be an idea and a feeling at the same time. It is one or the
other. This point is not a fad. It has been known since Aristotle. I will
go with Aristotle's logic anytime as it has not been successful criticized
since its creation over 2000 years ago.
"Self-esteem" is used as a feeling and as an idea, which means the term
itself is meaningless and its use is highly suspect. Many people would have
known immediately that there is something very wrong with self-esteem theory
if it would have been called "self-image." The word "self-esteem" itself
implies a feeling but the word is clearly used to include an idea, self-image.
When you force the two separate things together, you skip something very
important, namely choice and will. Whenever we run across a word that is
coined and used the way "self-esteem" is we are dealing not with science but
with marketing. When marketing has a political purpose, it is called
propaganda. In other words, acceptance of "self-esteem" theory is acceptance
of left-liberal propaganda disguised as science. .... Or so it seems to me
Tim B.