Self-Esteem Versus Character

Has the "self-esteem" movement worked?

“The self can’t be both the problem and the solution.”

— Allie Beth Stuckey

While there are things to enjoy about The Lego Movie, (not to be confused with Lego Batman, which is amazing), the message it promotes is profoundly disappointing. When things are looking as bad as they can at the final crisis, when the bad guys are strutting and it looks like all is lost… Emmet, the protagonist, just needs to realize something.

Facing his darkest battle, Emmet needs to realize… wait for it… that he is special. That was what gave him the strength to fight back. “You are the most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe…” Emmet told the villain, Mr. President, “you are The Special, and so am I, and so is everyone.”

Today, kids are being told that they are special in movies, on school posters, and candy wrappers. They hear it from teachers, parents, and hip, eyeliner wearing, youth counselor dudes. “Just look inside yourself and find your strength…” they say. “That is how you win.”

Replacing Character with Self-Esteem

We hear those words so often that we often miss the significance. This shift in thinking—this turn inward has had an incredibly dramatic impact on what is happening in our culture right now. 

Whereas the battle used to be “out there," now the focus is on our own private belly buttons. It is a shift in thinking from, “it’s not about me, I’m nothing special. I have a job to do.” The old way of thinking might be summed up in Malcom Gladwell’s words: “courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through tough times and discover that they aren’t so tough after all” (italics mine).

We have traded courage and character for self esteem—a self-esteem that is not earned. It applies to any wife-beating criminal. Just believe in yourself and then you’ll stop this nasty habit of abducting children!

When children act up—when Luke smacks Sarah across the face, Mom simply reassures Luke that he is loved. And how is that working out for you, Mom?

The “self-esteem” movement has been well underway for a couple of generations now. Its mantras come at us from all directions: “Confidence is the new beautiful,” “Live your truth,” “You can not love others unless you first love yourself!” 

In short, victory over any battle requires turning inward. 

So, Has it Worked?

Have we raised a generation of well adjusted, confident, courageous, kind and happy people? Have you been to Walmart lately? Or walked through downtown Seattle? If it was going to work it should have worked by now. If this teaching could really save, heal, and fix, it should be happening in spades. The cry for inward strength has had its day in the sun. 

Millennials in particular live self-obsessed lives. I recently passed a girl driving through a busy, multi-lane intersection, while taking a selfie. Self focus is actually not that hard. We are all pretty good at it. 

Self-Esteem For the Fail

Loving ourselves has not fixed anything. It might have seemed to for a sec. A feel good movie with a message about how special you are might provide a buzz. That self-help article about learning to love yourself so you can love others seems to promise legitimate insight. And there are grains of truth in those messages that lend credibility. For example, children should not have to earn love from their parents. Nor do we “earn” God’s love. 

But when this thinking is isolated and absolutized it fails again and again. In her book, You’re Not Enough (and That’s Ok), Allie Beth Stuckey chronicles the widespread prominence of the self-esteem, self-love movement. “We are a generation that is keenly focused on ourselves and our needs,” Stuckey wrote, “in an effort to gain the self understanding we hope will bring us guidance and inner peace… we are endlessly committed to finding careers we want rather than taking the jobs we need. We are the “everybody gets a trophy” generation.”

Yet, she goes on to illustrate how massively the movement has failed. Studies in fact, have shown that Americans under forty are more depressed, isolated, and suicidal than ever before. We “report stronger feelings of purposelessness than any other generation,” she said. 

The Lie of Positive Thinking

Psychologist, Keith McCurdy, has been in the counseling industry for a few decades. Throughout this time, he has watched the influence of the self-esteem movement with sobering results. Despite the fact that we have pumped our children with “you are special” teaching across all spectrums, the fact is, there are far more children on psychiatric meds now than ever before. And the numbers just keep growing at alarming rates. Our children today have the highest levels of anxiety and depression in all of history.

McCurdy says that we think “the more positively you view yourself, the better you will do in life. The problem is that the research doesn’t prove that. The leading researchers on this find that the highest self rated, self-esteem populations, are young male adults, and violent offenders who are in prison. As self-esteem rates get higher and higher, regard for others goes down. We teach a preoccupation with your own existence—the research is, it hasn’t worked one bit.”

What About Austen?

You may remember that I am currently deep in a Jane Austen series. Quite understandably, you may wonder what all this has to do with her. I wrote two articles on what inner strength is not and then I was merrily on my way to take a shot at what it actually is. Alas, I just couldn’t resist one more article on what it’s not. 

What does self-esteem have to do with Austen? It may seem like I’ve gone pretty far afield. It is true that the concept of self-esteem as we understand it today did not exist in her time. However, I think I can make a fairly educated guess as to what she would say in response to it—that’s coming up.

Finding Real Victory

For now, do not attempt to fight your battles with self-esteem. Fight your battles… and gain courage and character. It’s not that the search for victory should never turn inward. At times it must. But if we try to love ourselves into growth and maturity, if we attempt to fix our problems with self-esteem, we will find ourselves on a slippery, dark—and rather weird—downward spiral. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at what is happening in the world today. 

The Apostle Paul said, “But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12).

The search for inner strength is always counterintuitive. When we are weak, we are strong. Strength—the saving and fixing of our problems—victory over our battles, can only be found outside ourselves, in Christ.