I think of self-esteem as a thermometer. It’s a measure of something (Your value as a person? More narrowly, your deserved social status?) A thermometer should be high when it’s hot out, and low when it’s cold.
So should someone who is a famous scientist or entrepreneur have high self-esteem? Definitely. If they don’t, they’re doing something wrong.
But for the same reasons, a 14-year-old who is an idiot and bullies other kids should not be very proud of himself, and should instead be trying to change himself into something worth being proud of.
I think of self-esteem as a thermometer. It’s a measure of something (Your value as a person? More narrowly, your deserved social status?)
What do you mean by “deserved” social status? Status is decided by those that grant it. And if people decide to grant status to Joe because Joe coerces them to, Joe’s status is granted by his peers and thus deserved. That is, self-esteem is your vision of the esteem others give you.
Now, is Joe someone you or I would like to be around? No. But that doesn’t mean he has low self-esteem, or that he isn’t proud of himself.
Along slightly different lines, look at self-esteem as self-description. If I describe myself as “good-looking,” and someone points out that my ears are grotesquely large, that will conflict with my self-description. If I describe myself as “bad-looking,” the same comment with reinforce my self-description. If I describe myself as “assertive” and someone cuts in front of me, in order to maintain that description I need to rebuke them. If I describe myself as “submissive,” then when someone cuts in front of me I might sigh, but if I do more it’ll conflict with the self-description.
Typically, when converting self-description to self-esteem, one would say that good-looking is higher than bad-looking, and assertive is higher than submissive. A bully halts criticism and commands respect- the features of being held in high esteem- but obtains that esteem through violence and domination. At each instant, when someone is deciding how to respond to praise or an insult, they don’t have time to run a calculation of which response will work better for them: they consult their self-esteem and see if what’s happening matches what they expect to happen.
When I say “deserved”, I mean MORALLY deserved. And yes, this is a shorthand for a mind-bogglingly complex set of concepts… but the same goes for most words. If you really want to get into what sort of characteristics would make one deserving of social status, we could do that; but I really think it’s a waste of time.
It should really be enough to point out some obvious examples where actual status does not equal deserved status. Alan Turing deserved more social status than he had: After making some of the most important contributions to scientific knowledge in history and at the same time helping to literally save the world from fascism, he was driven to suicide in prison after being chemically castrated. Donald Trump has more social status than he deserves: He is a famous billionaire and TV star even though he is an incompetent narcissist born into wealth who has never made a real contribution to humanity in his life.
It should really be enough to point out some obvious examples where actual status does not equal deserved status.
If you couldn’t use the word “deserved,” could you still write this sentence? Easily: “Here are some examples of people that I hold in higher or lower esteem than I think society in general holds them.”
You could gloss it that way, but you’d miss something very important: I think I’m RIGHT to do so. I don’t think it’s just some subjective esteem that I randomly happen to hold for some people over others. I think that it is IRRATIONAL to esteem Donald Trump (and yes, I think that most people are irrational; why else would I be on Less Wrong?).
Do capitalized words, and the confidence they represent, result in a more precise map of the territory? Or do they convince us to draw our map to suit them, rather than to suit the lay of the land?
I think of self-esteem as a thermometer. It’s a measure of something (Your value as a person? More narrowly, your deserved social status?) A thermometer should be high when it’s hot out, and low when it’s cold.
So should someone who is a famous scientist or entrepreneur have high self-esteem? Definitely. If they don’t, they’re doing something wrong.
But for the same reasons, a 14-year-old who is an idiot and bullies other kids should not be very proud of himself, and should instead be trying to change himself into something worth being proud of.
What do you mean by “deserved” social status? Status is decided by those that grant it. And if people decide to grant status to Joe because Joe coerces them to, Joe’s status is granted by his peers and thus deserved. That is, self-esteem is your vision of the esteem others give you.
Now, is Joe someone you or I would like to be around? No. But that doesn’t mean he has low self-esteem, or that he isn’t proud of himself.
Along slightly different lines, look at self-esteem as self-description. If I describe myself as “good-looking,” and someone points out that my ears are grotesquely large, that will conflict with my self-description. If I describe myself as “bad-looking,” the same comment with reinforce my self-description. If I describe myself as “assertive” and someone cuts in front of me, in order to maintain that description I need to rebuke them. If I describe myself as “submissive,” then when someone cuts in front of me I might sigh, but if I do more it’ll conflict with the self-description.
Typically, when converting self-description to self-esteem, one would say that good-looking is higher than bad-looking, and assertive is higher than submissive. A bully halts criticism and commands respect- the features of being held in high esteem- but obtains that esteem through violence and domination. At each instant, when someone is deciding how to respond to praise or an insult, they don’t have time to run a calculation of which response will work better for them: they consult their self-esteem and see if what’s happening matches what they expect to happen.
When I say “deserved”, I mean MORALLY deserved. And yes, this is a shorthand for a mind-bogglingly complex set of concepts… but the same goes for most words. If you really want to get into what sort of characteristics would make one deserving of social status, we could do that; but I really think it’s a waste of time.
It should really be enough to point out some obvious examples where actual status does not equal deserved status. Alan Turing deserved more social status than he had: After making some of the most important contributions to scientific knowledge in history and at the same time helping to literally save the world from fascism, he was driven to suicide in prison after being chemically castrated. Donald Trump has more social status than he deserves: He is a famous billionaire and TV star even though he is an incompetent narcissist born into wealth who has never made a real contribution to humanity in his life.
If you couldn’t use the word “deserved,” could you still write this sentence? Easily: “Here are some examples of people that I hold in higher or lower esteem than I think society in general holds them.”
You could gloss it that way, but you’d miss something very important: I think I’m RIGHT to do so. I don’t think it’s just some subjective esteem that I randomly happen to hold for some people over others. I think that it is IRRATIONAL to esteem Donald Trump (and yes, I think that most people are irrational; why else would I be on Less Wrong?).
Do capitalized words, and the confidence they represent, result in a more precise map of the territory? Or do they convince us to draw our map to suit them, rather than to suit the lay of the land?