Self-esteem is killing our country, time to end policies which promote it

In our society self-esteem is a highly desirable trait and many policies area focused around improving people’s self esteem. This has principally been because self-esteem is associated with less depression and anxiety, and with greater happiness and life satisfaction. While this is all well-intentioned maybe we should relook at this and the true effect of high-self esteem for society in light of the debate on our society and building a ‘big society’.

Connections between self-esteem and many positive benefits seems to be ‘common knowledge’ and politics has sought to capitalise on these assumptions leading some to coin the phrase ‘the politics of self-esteem’.  This idea is that politicians and policies are designed to make people feel good about themselves — elevating their sense of self-worth and affirming their belief in their moral superiority. However, research has been finding negative consequences to high self-esteem for some time such as here and the more research that comes out the more we see a worrying pattern that high self-esteem

• is associated with a steady rise in narcissism over the last 45 years
• is associated with the need to feel superior to others in order to feel okay about oneself
• encourages us to maintain an unrealistically high view of ourselves in comparison to others. This has a particularly devastating effect when we face failure
• tends to dismiss negative feedback, trivialize their failures, and take less accountability for their own harmful actions
• is associated with a distorted self-view, self-centeredness, and a lack of concern for others

Once instilled with a sense of high self-esteem we form a strong concept of ourselves yet when that self-concept is threatened it is often met with prejudice and even violence and aggression. Indeed, counter to common wisdom, bullies tend to have high self-esteem. In short, self-esteem can create distance between us and others.

If we are aiming for a more tolerant society which is able to understand and provide for the citizens of the country we need a more all encompassing view. In comparison to self-esteem, self-compassion has been seen as an alternative as it has been argued to have nearly all the benefits of self-esteem but with fewer downsides.

Self-compassion does not require that we feel superior to others and is not an evaluation of ourselves, but an attitude we adopt toward our own failure and suffering. Self-compassion promotes tolerance and loving toward ourselves when faced with pain or failure. It allows us to see our own failings and feelings of inadequacy as part of the human condition shared by nearly everyone.

This is in contrast to self-esteem which has been shown to produce self-judgment where people are tough and intolerant toward themselves; isolation where people feel alone in their failure; and over-identification where people obsess and fixate on failure and view it as evidence of personal inadequacy. This is not too distant from the policy objectives of governments – ‘tough’ legislation where some believe it is intolerant, politicians who highlight people’s failures, and political parties obsessing over mistakes leading to expensive reviews and inquiries. Some may say a reflection of society?

So with detrimental effects of self-esteem maybe we should be considering policies which promote self-compassion to build a more tolerant, accepting, understanding society, where people feel they have a voice and it matters, where the country that they live in is a place where they feel proud of. Is that the country people see today? If not maybe it is worth trying something different?