Self-love used to be a vice,
but nowadays it is the nearest thing to a virtue, as a supposed precondition of
our own mental health (whatever that might be).
An Irish friend kindly forwarded me an article
from The
Irish Times reporting
on a school in County Dublin that, on St. Valentine’s Day, encouraged children
to write Valentine cards to themselves. They were supposed to inscribe in them
what they loved about themselves, on the theory that self-love is a
precondition to success, happiness, and resilience, and should therefore be
taught early and probably incessantly.
My view is that the head
teacher of the school ought to be given hemlock to drink for corrupting youth,
but I accept that some people might think this punishment a little severe.
Indeed, there are some people—the author of the article among them, a
psychotherapist—who think the promotion of youthful self-satisfaction and
conceit an excellent idea, the key to the little ones’ future happiness.
I looked up the school’s mission statement on the internet.
Suffice it to say that it contained few surprises, other than the fact that it
existed at all. It was the expected dreary catalog of modern pieties, among
them the celebration of the uniqueness of the child and respect for diversity
of traditions, values, and beliefs, irrespective of the particular nature or
content of those traditions, values. and beliefs. As for “celebrating”
uniqueness: How is it to be done? By getting the little geniuses to chant “I am
unique, you are unique, we are all unique, everyone is unique!” while holding
hands and dancing round a tree as the teacher beats the rhythm on a tambourine?
“Self-love used to be a vice, but nowadays it is
the nearest thing to a virtue.”
The tide of cliché has been rising for years,
despite (or, as Schopenhauer would no doubt have said, because of) the ever-greater proportion
of educated persons in the population. It requires a certain level of
education, after all, to be able to write the following, taken at random from
the article in The Irish Times:
Self-esteem matters, and as children are still
forming core beliefs about themselves, adults can engage with them to really
tune in to that fact.
No person who had left school
at the age of 12 could have written such a sentence, which of course is a very
powerful argument for reducing, as a preventive measure, the age at which
children leave school. No mere ignoramus, no child sent down the mines at the
age of 6, could ever have uttered these words, which somehow manage to combine
dogmatism with absence of clear meaning.
But let us examine some of
the more easily comprehensible, though not necessarily worthwhile, sentiments
expressed in the article:
A child who develops such beliefs as “I am
kind, I am competent, I am lovable” will likely find themselves [sic] on a path
to good self-esteem. A child who, on the other hand, develops more negative
beliefs about himself, such as “I have no talent, I am not liked by others”
will likely have lower self-esteem and this can affect their [sic] mental
health.
What is most remarkable about
this is that neither here nor elsewhere in the article does the author think it
necessary for there to be some objective correlative of the belief. That is to
say, it is perfectly in order for the child to have a belief about himself that
is completely unrelated to any of his conduct. According to this view of the
matter, a child can, and indeed ought to, remind himself that he is kind while
he is pulling the legs and wings off a fly or throwing stones through an old
lady’s front window. As angels to wanton boys are we to the psychologists.
Criminals, especially the
vicious rather than the merely pathetic ones, have very high self-esteem. They
are generally proud of how awful they have been and positively swagger with
satisfaction at their own competence in the matter of causing misery to others.
They too have “core beliefs” about themselves, all of them highly flattering.
They even think they are lovable as well as admirable.
The author wasn’t just having
an off day such as we all have whenever we try to think. Here is what she wrote
in the same journal just before Christmas last year:
There has been a lot of talk lately, at a
national, local and personal level, about the importance of putting mental
health front and centre. Therefore, as the Christmas season approaches, during
this time of gift-giving, we have an opportunity to focus on what we can gift
to ourselves, in order to impact in a positive way on our mental health.
And what is the gift we can
give ourselves? “Living life authentically, getting in tune with our true sense
of how we wish to be in this world.” And what if what we really, truly, and
authentically wish to be is Caligula? Well, “research” (before which we must
all bow down and worship) shows that “when we are authentic…even if it sets up
to be different from others, it still correlates with increased levels of joy
and wellbeing.” Oh, happy, happy Caligula!
When reading this kind of saccharine
psychological bilge, I feel rather (though not exactly) as I do after having
eaten too many chocolate truffles at a sitting. Alternatively, one might call
the thoughts of the author of the articles psychological kitsch. Kitsch is hard to define
but easy to recognize: It is a kind of sentimental garishness approximating or imitating,
but not attaining, art. These articles are conspicuously sentimental, written
with something approximating or imitating, but not attaining, thought.
I asked a fishmonger what he
thought of the idea of children sending themselves Valentine cards inscribed
with what they loved about themselves.
“Valentine’s Day is bad
enough,” he said, “without bringing children into it.”
Now, that’s what I call a
genuine thought.
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