Dennis Prager argues that self-esteem should be earned through moral behavior, not given freely. He cites criminologist Roy Baumeister's finding that serious offenders often have high self-esteem, and traces the self-esteem movement to California funding in the 1980s that blamed poverty and racism for crime.
Because most people don't know the origins of the self-esteem movement. It started in California. The state of California gave a certain amount of money to explore the self-esteem roots of crime, which sounds great, but it was, of course, as soon as it happened, I knew it was stupid. What they really were saying is You know, poverty causes crime, racism causes crime, and now they were adding a third one: low self-esteem causes crime. By the way, poverty is a lie. Racism is a lie. Not that poverty doesn't exist. It's a lie that it causes crime. And low self-esteem. Roy Baumeister, one of the greatest criminologists in American life, professor of criminology, psychologist, he spent his life with criminals. I mean murderers, right? He said to me on my show, Dennis, the people with the highest self-esteem I have ever, uh, counseled, interacted with, yes, are murderers. So related, yes. So, so related is, uh, the high— well, not related, it's the high self-esteem. So you and I have high self-esteem. It's, it's obvious from what you said, but there's a very big difference. Our self-esteem is morally rooted. I, I like Dennis when he does good. I don't like Dennis when he doesn't do good.
I would feel so hollow. That's the point. I feel like a cheat. I would feel like—
so your self-esteem would go lower. Yes. If you cheated to get a disability note.
Yes.
That's the— but vast numbers of people, it would not work that way. If self-esteem is rooted in the moral, in other words, I have to earn my own self-esteem. You know, earn is one of my two favorite verbs.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
