Monday 4 April 2005

Pic of the day: Welcome to Paragon City, where everyone is above average! (Screenshot from City of Heroes.)

Self-esteem and capitalism

I have written about self-esteem in the past. I don't like it. Or rather, I distrust self-esteem that goes beyond what is needed to face each new day with the will to live. Humility is simply a subset of realism: We are not important in the grand scale of things. Sure, if you have kids, you are important to them, so please make an effort to stay alive. But in 100 years, you are probably forgotten or at best misunderstood.

Sometimes I see advertisements that are painfully blunt, saying: "Don't you deserve the best?" Hell no! Why should I deserve the best when I am not the best and don't do the best? And what kind of sick delusion is filling the people who consider themselves "the best" without even a Nobel prize to show for it? Sure, I am the best Magnus Itland in the world, since I am the only Magnus Itland in the world. But I'm certainly not the best human, or even the best Norwegian, the best Christian, the best journaler ... I'm like a snowflake, precious and unique just like all the billions of other snowflakes, and just as easily forgotten. Very few of us get into the history books, and even then kids resent having to read them.

But the wave of self-esteem that has washed over the western world over the last decades is very convenient for our current incarnation of capitalism, which some of us also call consumerism. By making everyone feel that they deserve something better than average, you make sure most of them will spend above their means. After all, on average people can only buy average stuff, otherwise it would not be average. When most people consider themselves above average, they enter into an endless competition. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is one way of saying it. Constantly measuring themselves against others, they work ever longer hours and borrow ever more money to spend on above-average stuff.

The result is that the hamster wheel is running full throttle. The imagery from the "Matrix" movies of humans being fed illusions and used as living batteries is technically nonsense, but as a metaphor it is frighteningly accurate. The cold and calculating machinery of capitalism is putting as many as possible onto the treadmill and feeding them delusions of grandeur.

***

It is perfectly possible to live a fairly good life without these delusions. In Eastern societies, arrogance is not considered a grace. Instead of living in a dream world, people are encouraged to do their best with what they have. For instance, as pointed out some years ago in The Economist, East Asian children spend as much time on homework in a day as American children do in a week. But the vast majority of western parents believe their children to be above average in school.

Here in Scandinavia, we are lagging behind The World's Greatest Nation in self-esteem, but we are getting there. Here it is still considered rude to brag, boast and flaunt. But the young generation is more accepting of such things than their elders. And there are very few indeed who step off the treadmill voluntarily.

But as for me, I prefer to have my virtual reality in computer games. In real life, I will not insist that I am the true prince, and use my credit card accordingly.