06 Sep So our self-esteem in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. (ALAIN DE BOTTON)
For James, satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every area of endeavour. We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement, and then do not reach it. Our goals determine what we will interpret as a triumph and what must
count as a failure. James, a professor of psychology at Harvard, had invested his pride in being a prominent psychologist. Therefore, if others knew more psychology than he did, he would, he admitted, feel envy and shame.
However, because he had never set himself the task of learning ancient Greek, that someone could translate the whole of the Symposium whereas he struggled with the opening line was a matter of no concern. ‘With no attempt there can be no failure and with no failure no humiliation. So our self-esteem in this world depends entirely on what we back
ourselves to be and do. It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities. Thus:
Self-esteem= Success/Pretensions’
James’s equation illustrates how every rise in our levels of expectation entails a rise in the dangers of humiliation. What we understand to be normal is critical in determining our chances of happiness. Few things rival the torment of the once-famous actor, the fallen politician or, as Tocqueville might have remarked, the unsuccessful American.
The equation also hints at two manoeuvres for raising our self-esteem. On the one hand, we may try to achieve more; and on the other, we may reduce the number of things we want to achieve. James pointed to the advantages of the latter approach: ‘To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them gratified. There is a strange lightness in the heart when one’s nothingness in a particular area is accepted in good faith. How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young or slender. “Thank God!” we say, “those illusions are gone.” Everything added to the self is a burden as well as a pride.’
Unfortunately for our self-esteem, societies of the West are not known for their conduciveness to the surrender of pretensions, to the acceptance of age or fat, let alone poverty and obscurity. Their mood urges us to invest ourselves in activities and belongings that our predecessors would have had no thought of. According to James’s equation, by greatly increasing our pretensions, these societies render adequate self-esteem almost impossible to secure.
STATUS ANXIETY
Alain de Botton
