From: Alex Ramonsky (alex@ramonsky.com)
Date: Sat Jun 22 2002 - 03:18:30 MDT
>
>
>
>A *recent* study, I believe, found the self esteem
>of juvenile delinquents to be too *high*. Has anyone
>else heard this? It certainly goes against the long
>standing conventional wisdom (which I never believed).
>For sure, if you do a web search, you'll only find
>the usual studies pointing to a *negative* relationship
>between self-esteem and troubled youth. I'll lay money
>that this is a bad meme, just as you say.
>
...I've heard of this, (can't find it yet, but...) the juvenile
delinquents study was claiming that there is a fine line between
self-esteem and arrogance. 'Self-esteem' was defined as 'rightful pride
in oneself and one's achievements', and 'arrogance' was defined as
'over-confidence; a belief about oneself and one's accomplishments which
is not justified or proved in actual fact and behaviour'.
So self-esteem is being portrayed as 'justified' confidence and pride.
Perhaps the ability to assess this accurately is a feature of
intelligence...'know thyself'...
>
>>When we are given honors for nothing, deep down inside
>>we *know* we have accomplished not one damn thing.
>>
...unless we are arrogant?
>
>Yes, but not necessarily disdain in every way. One does
>see the society, the teacher, the group... whatever...
>as *nice*. The medium is sometimes the message. You
>may come away thinking that art is meaningless or stupid,
>but you'll also remember that the teacher was *nice*.
>
...or easily manipulated into giving you good grades? ('nice but dim')?
>
>In our kinder and gentler new world, nothing, it seems,
>is so important as being *nice*. Tag, or anything where
>there is the least excitement or competition, isn't *nice*
>and so must be banned.
>
Maybe people feel such an urgent need to prove they're nice because it's
socially taboo to admit that you're not? Because their 'altruistic'
behavior is based on false emotion (sentiment) there's a sense of guilt
attached to it and a need to justify and confirm nice behavior.
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