In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government

6. Dignity, Self-Esteem, and Self-Respect

[ 86 ] 6 Dignity, Self-Esteem, and Self-Respect We turn now to a concept that has shaped much of contemporary thinking about social policy but that remains oddly obscure and unexplicated . In editorials and speeches, the concept commonly goes under the label of dignity. Thus it is said that some policies “give dignity” to people, while others “let people keep their dignity” and still others “deny dignity” to people. Welfare is often at issue. Should people be required to submit to detailed eligibility investigations? No, it is argued, because such investigations are demeaning: They strip the recipients of dignity. Food stamps are argued to be a better way of providing help than doling out food at soup kitchens, because the stamps let people retain more of their dignity. To live in impoverished circumstances is in itself said to be destructive of one’s dignity. It is not just matters of welfare that have been shaped by considerations of dignity. Drug rehabilitation programs, job training programs, services for unwed mothers, prison reform, educational reform— virtually all services designated for poor people—have been designed and evaluated, examined and criticized, according to the effects they are purported to have on the participants’ dignity. Employment policy has been decisively affected by attitudes toward dignity. On the one hand, having a job is often argued to be essential to dignity; on the other, being asked to take a menial job (a “dead-end” job in the current phrase) is often argued to be destructive of dignity. “Dignity” used in this context is a generic label. One might substitute “self-esteem” or “self-respect” in any of the examples I gave and it would carry the same message. And whatever one thinks of the argument regarding any particular policy, the underlying concept dignity, self -esteem, and self -r espect [ 87 ] is unquestionably important. Indeed, that is why Maslow made selfesteem one of his five essential needs and why it is being included in this short list of enabling conditions for the pursuit of happiness. From the perspective of a different theoretical system, Gordon Allport has written, “If we are to hold to the theory of multiple drives at all, we must at least admit that the ego drive (or pride or desire for approval—call it what you will) takes precedence over all other drives.”1 The classic defense mechanisms of psychoanalytic theory— rationalization, projection, displacement, reaction formation, and repression—“have as their most important single objective the protection of self-esteem.”2 Theorists of all kinds have recognized that the need for self-approval lies at the heart of human behavior. Thus it is not surprising to find a large empirical literature demonstrating that people who feel low self-esteem suffer thereby. Low selfesteem is one of the distinguishing features of clinical depression.3 Low self-esteem has been found to be associated with impulse aggression , negative affect states, and somatic symptoms;4 with submissiveness , autonomic anxiety, and general maladjustment.5 People with low self-esteem tend to be unimaginative,6 dependent upon others,7 less creative and flexible,8 more authoritarian,9 and disposed to deviance and criminality.10 High self-esteem, on the other hand, is associated with “positive mental health,”11 expressed satisfaction with life,12 and avowed happiness.13 But in a sense these data are superfluous. Morris Rosenberg, one of the most prominent contemporary analysts of selfesteem , put it this way: Few activities engage our lives so profoundly as the defense and enhancement of the self. The self-esteem motive intrudes on many of our daily activities, influencing what we say, how we act, what we attend to, how we direct our efforts, how we respond to stimuli. The individual is constantly on the alert, dodging, protecting, feinting, distorting, denying, forestalling, and coping with potential threats to his self-esteem.14 The thing that psychologists call self-esteem is not something that we need to be told is important. All of us prove it to ourselves every day. But there is more to the pursuit of self-esteem than scratching a psychological itch. There is at issue some construct closely related to [ 88 ] when ther e is br ead “self-esteem” but encompassing more. For the process whereby one feels this whatever-it-is is in part a process of self-evaluation. To think oneself deserving of self-approbation is as important as self-approbation...