The Self-Esteem Industry

As I am about to start writing this chapter, I can hear the background noise of a TV news commentator reassuring British viewers after the knockout of Andy Murray from the early stages of the Australian Open Tennis Championship. Although Murray's dream of Grand Slam glory may have faded away this time, he is bound to bounce back because of his positive mindset. Or as the commentator puts it: ‘Those who believe can achieve’.

I sometimes wonder if media pundits are all born anti-self-realists. Or perhaps they are systematically exploiting a view that has lately been deeply ingrained in the public consciousness: You are what you think you are; you are as good as you esteem yourself to be. Recall that an essential part of the ideological ‘inward turn’ of modernity has been the exaltation of the self from a mere subject of value (a value-recorder, if you like) to an object of value: an object to be prized and valued independently, esteemed, respected and nourished. Without first valuing oneself or one's ‘self’, as the theory goes, one cannot learn to value other things. This assumption may not seem novel; even Aristotle posited that other-love presupposes an ability to love oneself (1985, pp. 252–56 [1168a5–1169b2]). In the last few decades, however, the idea of self-valuing has assumed a life of its own, taking on new forms and dimensions.