Is the Gospel at Odds with
Self-Esteem?
(Meridian Magazine Myth of the Month, March 1999)
Picture a person with high
self-esteem. Probably that person is talented and confident. Ironically, one of
the ways that we may be sure that that person has high self-esteem is that we
always feel inferior around him or her. We wish we were as impressive. And we
are told we should be.
For over thirty years, the
psychological imperative has been: You must love yourself. You must celebrate
yourself. One man who seemed to have such self-assurance expressed it this way:
“I happened to catch my reflection the other day when I was polishing my
trophies, and, gee, it's easy to see why women are nuts about me” (Robert
Byrne, 1911 Best things anybody ever said, New York: Fawcett Columbine,
1988).
But how does such self-regard
fit into a gospel perspective? Is it a necessary core to our personalities?
Without it are we unable to serve others? Or is self-esteem is simply Satan’s
attempt to clean up pride and make it respectable-even desirable? A closer
looks shows us that in its worldly version, self-esteem is dangerously close to
arrogance, boastfulness, cocksureness, conceit, condescension, egotism,
haughtiness, narcissism, piousness, pomposity, presumption, self-centeredness,
self-righteousness, smugness, snobbery, superiority, and vanity.
Let’s take Jesus Christ as
our test case. Did He have high self esteem? He clearly knew who He was. He had
confidence that He would succeed in His mission. Yet, when called “Good
Master,” He protested: “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one,
that is, God…” (Matthew 19:17).
What does it mean for us that
the most righteous person who lived on this earth deflected all praise to His
Father? “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but
what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth
the Son likewise” (John 5:19).
Popular thinking tells us
that we gain self-esteem by being unique, by being the best, by being
assertive, by being the person who stands on top of the pile. Scriptural
thinking provides a different mindset. Consider the following antonyms of pride
and their application to Jesus and his disciples in all ages: common, humble,
lowly, meek, mild, modest, plain, simple, submissive, unassertive, unassuming,
unpretentious.
Scriptural descriptions of
Jesus could be amassed to support the point. But His own words were: “I can of
mine own self do nothing…I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father
which hath sent me” (John 5:30). Jesus simply fails as the model of the
amazing, self-assured, modern man. In fact, a modern psychologist might have a
diagnostic heyday with a person who said the things Jesus said. By our
standards, He appears to have no self-esteem.
But doesn’t someone without
self-esteem struggle? Isn’t the alternative to self-esteem a life of misery and
depression or at least an inability to be productive? Only in the world’s
misguided system. The person who told me, “I am continually keeping my thoughts
centered upon the great worth of my soul,” is no better off than the egoist
admiring his own image in his trophies. It is Satan who is obsessed with
appearances and perceptions.
Rather than self-love and
self-hate being polar opposites on a psychological continuum, they are really
the same thing. Both are self-absorption. At the opposite end of the spectrum
from self-absorption is self-forgetfulness. Even such respectable forms of
self-absorption as self-esteem are nothing more than munching Saltines to
quench a thirst. The more we focus on celebrating ourselves, the further we
find ourselves from the goal.
Countless times I have heard
people say of struggling teens: “They’re having trouble because of poor
self-esteem. We need to build them up.” But when we build them up in the
world’s way, we are only distracting them from the Power that can change them,
refine them and perfect them. It is self-forgetfulness that they need and that
God recommends. Jesus said:
Let
thy bowels also be full of charity [Ah! Charity! That pure love that comes only
from Christ.] towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue
garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in
the presence of God [This is a very special kind of confidence; not
self-confidence but divine confidence!]; and the doctrine of the
priesthood [What in the world is the doctrine of the priesthood? Could it be
the power to bless as He blesses?] shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from
heaven.
The
Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion [Now that is a gift that provides
unparalleled serenity!], and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness
and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without
compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever. (D&C 121:45-46,
emphasis added).
Unknown to most people in the
general population, the scientific community has had serious concerns about the
self-esteem movement for more than fifteen years. Research now verifies that
improving children’s self-esteem does not motivate toward better school
performance (Harter, 1983). Teens with high self-esteem may be so resentful of
an attack on their self-regard that they are more likely to be violent in
response to an insult (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). In the massive
California study of self-esteem and its effects, self-esteem was found to be as
predictive of bad behavior as good behavior ( Mecca, Smelser, &
Vasconcellos, 1989). Very often it did not predict anything.
Self-esteem has simply failed
us in its promise to deliver us from self-hate and unproductivity and may
create serious problems (Cudaback, 1992). In a thoughtful and insightful book, Meanings
of Life (1991), psychologist Roy Baumeister observes that the modern American
inclination to base the meaning of lives on the self has left us with a badly
shrunken meaning in life.
In other words, self-esteem
is a failed messiah.
It should be no surprise. The
world’s fads are not well-suited to our eternal growth. Because we live in a
world with a logic so different, so disconnected from the logic of heaven,
irony seems to always be woven into our discoveries of Truth. To find ourselves
we must lose ourselves. To live, we must die. To conquer we must surrender.
The Book of Mormon is
especially powerful and clear in its invitation to become healthy through the
Lord’s unique process.
For
the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and
will be, forever and ever, unless he yields [We do not take charge, we
surrender.] to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural
man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord [We
become fine and refined by Him!], and becometh as a child, submissive,
meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the
Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
(Mosiah 3:19, emphasis added)
Those who have had even a
modicum of success in this process of submitting can testify that “the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,”
(Galatians 5:22).
And that is infinitely better
than self-esteem.
Part 2: The world will flounder for decades trying to patch
up the failed notions of self-esteem. But Latter-day Saints do not need to
wander in the wilderness. In April we will review a program of gifts revealed
by the Lord that is succinct, wise—and even supported by modern research.
Baumeister, R. (1991). Meanings
of life. New York: Guilford Press.
Byrne, R. (1998). 1911
best things anybody ever said. New York: Fawcett Columbine.
Bushman, B. J., &
Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self‑esteem,
and direct and displaced aggression: does self‑love or self‑hate
lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, (1),
219‑29.
Cudaback, D. (1992).
Self-esteem: Rhetoric and research, Part III. Human Relations, XVII,
(1), 1-6.
Harter, S. (1983).
Developmental perspectives on the self-system. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.), P.
H. Mussen (Series Ed.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 4, Socialization,
personality and social development (pp. 275-385). New York: Wiley.
Mecca, A. M., Smelser, N. J.,
& Vasconcellos, J. (1989). The social importance of self-esteem.
Berkeley: University of California Press.