George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 8 April 2015.]

We have all been to award ceremonies for academics and sports where the moderator intones, ‘We’re here to honor and recognize the marvelous achievements of our young champions who have demonstrated their drive and talents.  But in reality, in our eyes all of the participants in the contest are champions no less than those who won the competition.  Every student who took part deserves to be equally recognized, for they also put forth their best efforts, and so should also be counted as winners.’

For the last two generations self-esteem has been accepted as the gateway to learning and accomplishment in life.  Even parenting was politically corrected and given the prime goal of assuring that their little darlins never had a bad thought about themselves.  The received wisdom was to make sure that Johnnie and Susie first developed a high regard for themselves and their abilities, for they would then go on to become well socialized and productive citizens.  But over the years reality has seeped in to make many question that paradigm, both in education and on the job.  You see, the performance data on our Johnnies and Susies didn’t pan out to support ‘Self-esteem über alles!’

In recent years researchers like Dr Roy Baumeister, social psychologist at Florida State, and colleagues at other universities have been studying self-control in rigorous clinical environments.  Today their results are deemed revolutionary, and that would be accurate were their discoveries not exhumed knowledge that long lay buried.  Nevertheless, these results are worthy enough to be picked up by publications such as Nature and Scientific American.  In the latter’s April edition Baumeister’s piece, entitled ‘Conquer yourself, conquer the world’, opens with the now demonstrated idea that “self-control is not just a puritanical virtue.  It is a key psychological trait that breeds success at work and play – and in overcoming life’s hardships.”

Today a shift in perspective is taking place.  Baumeister reports that thirty years ago sociologists and educators “mistakenly regarded cultivation of self-esteem as a panacea for personal problems and social life”.  But “when analyzed more closely, the data suggested that self-esteem does not itself lead to success.  It is less a cause than an effect.  When researchers tracked students over long periods, they found that getting good grades results in better self-esteem later.  But having higher self-esteem does not produce stellar report cards.  Self-control is the real deal.”

The research shows that we all have the ability to employ self-control, and have discovered that it is like a ‘mental muscle’ that can be trained, becomes fatigued with over use, and can be husbanded and even resuscitated with certain foods.  As importantly, “new findings suggest that any brain changes occurring in addicts do not lead to a loss of self-control.”  People are often able to “choose whether to give in to a craving or resist.”  It turns out that those who publicly snickered at First Lady Nancy Reagan’s hallmark anti-drug exhortation – ‘Just say NO!’ – did the country a disservice.

What now appears critical is for people of all ages to realize again that character counts, and self-control, even if it must be determinedly cultivated, is a paramount component of character.  Appropriate self-esteem naturally results from achievement, and achievement in any field requires first and foremost self-control.  What are the schools in your neighborhood teaching our next generation?

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on georgerebane.com where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum]  People’s resumes and curriculum vitae are more often than not embellished expressions of self-esteem and achievements that may or not be relevant to employer of the currently sought job.  Most certainly these documents are known to contain personal puffery reflecting not only the applicant’s self-esteem, but also a statement of capabilities of uncertain face value.  More and more companies today are heavily discounting the resume or dismissing it altogether.  These leading (especially high tech) companies have adopted the ‘show me’ attitude.  They make a necessary condition for their hiring decision to be the applicant’s demonstrated skill required in the job’s description – in short, they put the applicant through a rigorous test of what he will encounter when hired.

Companies like Google, H-P, Apple, … raise the bar pretty high when bringing in new talent.  For instance, by just looking at the raw numbers, it is easier to get into Harvard than land a job at Google.  (The well-read reader knows that the so-called prestige schools also apply a heavy dose of mitigating politically correct background requirements to their applicant populations.)

To get a fuller picture of this sea change in the job markets, I refer you to the just out ‘Insights from Google’s Work Rules’ by Lazlo Buck.  In there he documents how top companies assess job performance through tests during the interview process, and de-emphasize how a well-wordsmithed resume impacts the hiring decision.  I invite the reader to consider all this in light of the country’s growing systemic unemployment that is discussed extensively in these pages.  (more here)