by Is there anything more masturbatory in the world than primping your self-esteem? Self-esteem is an ugly, condescending, cudgel forged to create a larger persona against a condensing world. Self-esteem paralyzes the player as self-interested, selfish and awkwardly inward — where only they matter and no one else exists — in their nihilistic world of a loathing, but barren, self-love.
A new scholarly study confirms the “Me Generation” is all about the self — and let intimacy with others be damned:
Given the choice, young bright college students said they’d rather get a boost to their ego — like a compliment or a good grade on a paper — than eat a favorite food or engage in sex, a new paper suggests.
The researchers question whether the so-called “me generation” of baby boomers has spawned a nation of self-absorbed young people hooked on their own self-esteem. The inflated sense of self in students, they argue, could lead to trouble in the work world and in personal relationships.
I saw the results of that study coming way back on August 21, 2005 in my article, “Why Adjuncts Matter:”
The unfortunate universal history of American university education is — on the undergraduate level at least — students remain a bit dumber than their instructors from generation to generation. I include my early undergraduate experience in that wash.
The result is a cheapening of the shared social mind as students wish for straight “A” grades while their in-class performance rarely rises to the “B” level. Students will press professors and the administration for grades they feel they deserve even if they did not earn them because they were raised in the self-esteem generation where their parents taught them they are special merely for being born.
On August 7, 2008, in the comments stream for my article, “Marrying an Ugly Girl,” I expounded on my previous “self-esteem” argument:
That’s interesting that the ugly know they are so — I guess people don’t mind telling them how ugly they are — though I know a few stereotypically “ugly” people who do not seem unaware of their status… either that, or they don’t care because their parents embedded them with high self-esteem and a total lack of caring about what others think.
So now what? What’s next for these self-infatuated, self-pleasurers that slink amongst us? Do they continue to spin and vampirically exist without any social responsibility or evolutionary landscape in front of them?
How is it possible for them to continue the force of life when the meaning of such is so deeply embedded in their untouchable individualism that it can have no memeing beyond the selfish mind?
It’s pretty sickening, David. If the people are so self-absorbed that they only care about how things impact them, how can they possibly sustain meaningful relationships — especially if their relationship is with another me-first person?
Right, Gordon, and those people don’t vote or volunteer or donate — they just emotionally leech off the rest of us without providing any benefit whatsoever in return.