In The Birth and Death of Meaning, Ernest Becker devotes a major portion of his analysis of the human condition to the problem of self-esteem.
By self-esteem, Becker does not mean an overinflated ego or a flippant variant of self-esteem that might be promoted in a 10-step book in the self-help section of Barnes and Noble.
Nonetheless, “feeling good about yourself” is in fact an important element of the healthy self-esteem which Becker analyzes. But the question of whether one has healthy self-esteem–or lacks it–goes all the way back to a person’s infancy. Was she nurtured consistently and adequately by a loving parent or parents? Was there not just regular sustenance provided (i.e. milk), but also warm and tender care? Was a strong sense of attachment provided between the parent and the child?
If that strong sense of attachment was provided, then the child’s anxiety was alleviated. These anxieties derived from internal but immediate worries (would the next feeding come? would the child be abandoned or protected from harm?).
Recognizing the source of sustenance, as the child develops, her main strategy is to remain in the good graces of the parent, so as to not lose the protection of the parent as well as the buttressing against the anxiety that would otherwise flood in. The child learns to sense that she is doing what she needs to do to remain attached to the parent–and thus safely protected from her potential demise (and from the debilitating anxieties that come from reflecting on that possibility).
Becker writes,
Self-esteem becomes the child’s feeling of self-warmth that all’s right in his action world. Thus, the seemingly trite words “self-esteem” are at the very core of human adaptation. Self-esteem is the warm inner feeling of self-righteousness that arms the individual against anxiety.
But as the child grows into an adult, a problem emerges. She realizes she cannot depend on the parent, in the
same way as before, for continual sustenance. There comes a time that the child grows up and must make his or her own way in the world. The parent and child both (usually) recognize this, and so a relationship of decreasing dependency begins. I hear expressions from anxious parents who have left their child at the school bus stop for the first time, or who send their kids off to summer camp, at great peril of losing their minds to anxiety!
As the child grows out of absolute dependency, she is increasingly set loose in the world–but is not without tools at her disposal. A primary function of culture, Becker says, is to provide conceptual and symbolic tools whereby persons can create significance for themselves in a world that is meaningful. Again, hear Becker:
Therefore, if the function of self-esteem is to give the ego a steady buffer against anxiety, wherever
and whenever it might be imagined, the function of culture is to make continued self-esteem possible. The main task of culture, in other words, is to provide the individual with the conviction that he is an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action (81).
But the question of healthy self-esteem is so dependent on what happens in the earliest years of human development (where healthy attachments are first formed), that it is nearly impossible for a child who did not have the good fortune of those healthy attachments to “make up for lost time” by making use of the mechanisms of culture to develop healthy self-esteem. And sometimes–or for some people–culture doesn’t work in their favor; culture can work against positive self-esteem (think of the much-discussed problem of racism and prejudice in so much of our own contemporary U.S. culture). So he warns,
When culture falls down in its job of constructing the self as an object of primary value in a world of meaning, life grinds to a halt (82).
In The Worm at the Core, a recent book which elaborates on Becker’s theories–and on their development of those theories in the field of Terror Management Theory, the authors describe the difference between genuine self-esteem and false self-esteem. The latter is not deep and abiding and consistent–but is inconsistent and “wildly fluctuating.” They write,
Self-esteem does not ensure a successful life or great achievement; that requires innate abilities, excellent training, high levels of motivation and commitment, and persistent exertion [and, I might add, a bit of luck and social privilege]. But self-esteem is a key to psychological security; as we have seen, it helps buffer anxiety, blunts defensive reactions to thoughts of death, makes people more resilient, and fosters physical, psychological, and interpersonal well-being. (55)
Those who severely lack genuine self-esteem reach for other, often psychologically unhealthy approaches, and sometimes self-injurious, or even violent means of dealing with the anxieties of life and of death. Those who lack it are:
…persistently apprehensive, terrified by novel and unexpected events, in poor physical health, and prone to self-destructive and aggressive outbursts. Conversely, braced by self-esteem, we are encouraged and enthused–and thereby able to parry both psychological and physical adversity.
Once you begin to appreciate the importance of self-esteem for well-being, it’s easy to imagine the ways that the lack of it might factor in to all sorts of social problems and “self-destructive and aggressive outbursts,” which our society seems to be experiencing with increased rapidity and intensity. Are we failing, as people and as a culture, to provide people–all people–with the mechanisms, symbols, and opportunities necessary for acquiring healthy self-esteem?
Unsystematic Theology
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In