The bumptious Kimberly Guilfoyle and the master ridiculist Greg Gutfeld were recently in televised disputation over the concept of self-esteem. Guilfoyle asserted that self-esteem is necessary and important. Contrarian Gutfeld pointed out that convicted felons have been known to have very high self-esteem. 

Self-esteem describes an aspect of the psychological connection a person has with himself or herself. High self-esteem reflects a lofty estimation of one's worth, abilities, rights and value; low self-esteem indicates a depressed estimation of those attributes. Self-esteem is a generally stable self-evaluation, but it can drop after a strong disappointment or blow to the self-image. The defining tenets of humanism are that, in the absence of eternal and universal truth, all persons must be their own guide and find their own truth. It follows then, in humanistic psychology, that high self-esteem is indispensable to motivate and energize the self-directed search for gratification and self-actualization.

Self-respect arises from a fundamentally different psychological dynamic. Theistic spirituality holds that all of creation has inherent and immutable value based in its Creator. It follows then that all creatures are deserving of respect according to their place in the natural order. For example, certain classes of persons, such as elders, recognized authorities, and parents, are accorded special respect because of their place in the natural order of things. Self-respect is an individual’s recognition of his or her portion of God-given, universal, inherent value.  Self-respect is a natural experience of God’s unchanging truth. Unlike self-esteem, self-respect cannot be vitiated by life’s slings and arrows, although the expectation of respect by others can be diminished by mistreatment or degradation.

Consider the adage, “No self-respecting person would…” There is no parallel truism regarding self-esteem. The loss of self-respect signals a weakening of connectedness to one's true nature. Self-respect guards against criminality, self-esteem does not. Self-respect is the voice within which says, “I am unique and precious in God, as are all. I am free and capable to behave with respect for myself and for everyone and everything in creation.”

Self-esteem theory, and the movement it inspired, is usually traced to Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs: 1) physiological, 2) safety, 3) love/belonging, 4) self-esteem, and 5) self-actualization. More's the pity. Maslow’s humanistic hierarchy makes a muddle of Alfred Adler’s concept of self-esteem. In fact, it was Adler who coined the term self-esteem, which he emphasized as a defense against the “inferiority complex,” the crippling self-perception of inferiority. In Adler’s thought, self-esteem arises from the fulfillment of tasks of “social interest,” which are activities of objective responsibility and goodness to others.

Self-esteem has come to be regarded as a system of self-appreciation that must be nourished by externalities such as unwarranted praise – for example, every child gets the same trophy regardless of performance. Over time, the detachment of self-esteem (as something to be instilled) from actual accomplishment has unmoored countless minds from realistic self-assessment, and corrupted true self-respect. Because of its origins in humanism, the self-esteem movement functionally degenerated into narcissism, resulting in the Gutfeldian cautionary that people of minimal achievement and maximal harmfulness, such as criminals, often have high self-esteem.

The author congratulates you on completing this little tutorial, which you may use to reinforce either your self-esteem or self-respect. Reader’s choice.