'The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem' and Cognition

After reading Nathaniel Branden's The Six Pillars of Self-esteem,  I was struck by the similarities between his six pillars and the process of cognition I had worked out in The Nature of Rationality.  I know it could not be a coincidence, so I investigated further.  Branden's book is written toward expanding our understanding of self-esteem, and is not primarily a scientific treaty.  What's interesting is that these same six pillars Branden finds essential toward building self-esteem hold direct corollary components to the components of rationality.  Even more fascinating is that the order of the six pillars follow very closely with the order of development as of rationality.  This article summarizes my findings.

First, let me review what self-esteem is.  Branden defines self-esteem as  the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and as worthy of happiness.  The two interrelated components are self-efficacy and self-respect.  Self-efficacy means we are confident in our ability to make decision and perform actions.  Self-respect means we think we are worthy of value.

The six pillars Branden lists are living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully, and living with integrity.  What I found most astonishing is that the chapter preceding the six pillars is called  "The focus on Action."   This is astonishing to me because the cognitive counterparts of the six pillars could be called the essence of action.  He describes what we need to do to achieve high self-esteem.  I described what we must do in order to act.  His list of pillars covers what I thought we should do naturally. Obviously, our actions must be volitional for us even to have the concept of self-esteem.  But less intuitively, the six pillars each have an element of choice in them, or else we wouldn't need to be reminded to do them.

The first pillar of self-esteem is living consciously.  In my preceding article, I stressed how important awareness was to the process of action, and even listed places where it is essential.  Branden also lists places where awareness is essential and where it is important (but not essential).  He also calls us to be responsible toward reality.  In other words, we can't fake reality, we must acknowledge that it is real and that we should not doubt our perceptions.  Living consciously is listed first because, we first have to be aware of what we are doing before we can act.  We should also recognize that reality is real.  Although I did not explicitly state this, it was assumed in everything I said.

The second pillar of self-esteem is self-acceptance, of which we lists three levels. The first level is acknowledgement of our life as a need for self-value.  This level is essential to the person who no longer thinks that their life is of any value. Although, we implicitly at birth have value for our life, somewhere along the way, some people convince themselves that their life is no longer of value.  If we don't see our life of value, any goal leading up to that value is meaningless.  Any goal of sustaining life is meaningless.  When we lose motivation for life, we can't possibly want to improve anything or to act.  This motivation is originally pleasure and pain.

The second level of self-acceptance is our  willingness to experience rather that to disown whatever may be the facts of our being at a particular moment    This level of acceptance requires an acknowledgement of our current state and of the state of reality around us.  If the first level is that we have values, the second level says we have something to apply them too, i.e. reality.  In particular, the reality of ourselves.  If we want to change, we must know what exists and not pretend that it doesn't.

The third level of self-acceptance is when we seek the context behind an action. We ask why.  Asking the question  "Why?"  is an assumption that we already know the concept of cause and effect.  For adults, this is as easy concept to grasp, but young children still struggle in understanding this.  It is essential to creating values that we know what are the cause of our pleasures and pains.  If we didn't, we could only value pleasure and pain, and would be unable to enjoy any of the higher level values.  As an adult, however, we also develop goals this way.  If we value our life, the effect, we must find out what causes our life to continue to exist and do it.  The third level of self-acceptance leads directly into the third pillar.

The third pillar of self-esteem is self-responsibility.  It is a call for people to acknowledge the principle of cause and effect.  It tells people the their life is in their own hands.  Take credit for what is yours, and do what you need to do.

The next two pillar, I believe should be switched in order.  I don't know Branden's reasoning for putting them in the order he did, but I will tackle them in the order I believe they should have been listed.  My reasoning for this will be explained as I go.

Living purposefully is the developing of a goal or purpose into a plan.  We have all the elements to do it, the concept of cause and effect, our values and motivations, and the details about reality (including oneself).  Branden leaves off the act of creativity, where we establish a mental image of our value. He is content saying that we need this mental image (goal) in order to act.  This image is what we compare with reality to see what needs changing or explaining, i.e. create a plan.  To live purposefully does not mean that we just have goals, but we also have plans to achieve those goals.  Without a plan, a goal ends up being a boat without oars; a good idea that goes nowhere.

Self-assertiveness is where we actually put our plans into action.  It involves doing, not just thinking.  We have to put our values and goals into use.  We should perform actions for good reasons, and not let bad reasons stop us.  We should not give in to fear, whether its fear of our own ability or the response of others. Self-assertiveness is our call to action.  We can not act without a plan though, and this is why the pillar of self-assertiveness should have come after the pillar of living purposefully.  Every other pillar followed the inherent process to action, these two should too.  Branden's only possible excuse, however, is that he includes productivity with purposefulness and hence places it after self-assertiveness.  Productivity is purposeful action. The problem is that purposefulness and productivity are not the same and should not be included under the same pillar.  Productivity should be placed with or after self-assertiveness.

The last pillar is living with integrity.  To live with integrity means that we integrate our actions and make sure we are living our goals, that our goals do not contradict each other, and that once goals are reached, checking them to make sure they are headed toward our higher goals.  Integrity involves evaluation of our actions throughout the process.  This makes sure our goals get accomplished. It requires patience and perseverance.  It requires memory and deduction;  to remember what you re trying to accomplish and to check to see if you still can.

Even without the few changes I suggested, Branden does a remarkable job not only in helping people develop high self-esteem, but using our natural thought process as the keys to the development.  He doesn't address concept-formation, where we omit measurement from several perceptions in order to form a concept. Nor does he address creativity, where we add measurements back into concepts in order to formulate goals.  I believe he may be right in ignoring the first one, but not the second.  Our knowledge may allow us to do more, but is not a determining factor in self-esteem.  Creativity on the other hand, is an essential part of action, and if self-esteem is, as his six pillars suggest, our ability to act, then creativity should be included in the list of pillars.  More importantly, creativity is volitional, and we do have the ability to increase it.  The particulars to this new pillar would be best left up to Branden to decide, but never-the-less, should be added.

I am very thankful to Nathaniel Branden in writing this book.  The joy a got when I realized his pillars followed so closely to my understanding of action can not be explained in a timely manner.  For anyone who has not read The Six Pillars of Self-esteem, go out and buy it soon.  It is invaluable towards a happier, more active life.