It’s weird to read nonfiction books written late last century. Often you find writers of the 1980s and 90s quite critical of the state of American culture.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
As I read their negative assessments of societal trends, I always think, “You ain’t seen nothin yet!”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Nathaniel Branden published The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem<\/i> in 1994.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Check out his description of “the times” in the early 90s:<\/p>\n\n\n
The turbulence of our times demands strong selves with a clear sense of identity, competence, and worth. With a breakdown of cultural consensus, an absence of worthy role models, little in the public arena to inspire our allegiance, and disorientingly rapid change a permanent feature of our lives, it is a dangerous moment in history not to know who we are or not to trust ourselves. The stability we cannot find in the world we must create within ours own persons.<\/i> (xi)<\/p>\n\n\n
How do you think we have done with “creating stability in our own persons” over the past three decades?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Was Branden a prophet?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Is it coincidence that with our population’s sense of identity, competence, and worth being anything but clear, the challenges he outlined in 1994 – the fracture of consensus, loss of role models, loss of faith in public institutions, and the disorientation of rapid change – have only grown a hundred times worse?<\/p>\n\n\n
I am anxious to read on and see what Branden says can be done to strengthen individuals’ self-esteem, which he defines in part as “the health of the mind” and “the immune system of consciousness”.<\/p>\n\n\n
Hopefully, he has some answers. We need some bad.<\/p>\n\n\n
Hopefully it’s not too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s weird to read nonfiction books written late last century. Often you find writers of the 1980s and 90s quite critical of the state of American culture.\u00a0\u00a0 As I read their negative assessments of societal trends, I always think, “You ain’t seen nothin yet!”\u00a0 Nathaniel Branden published The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem in 1994.\u00a0 Check […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5824,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5823\/revisions\/5824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}