Self-esteem : ordinary differences and the difference they make

Abstract

I was still in my teens when I learnt that self-esteem was connected with social justice. Martin Luther King was to preach in St. Paul's Cathedral, and I was fortunate enough to be there to hear his sermon - somehow my mother had got tickets for the two of us. He preached a sermon on the text 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'. I had expected another exhortation to unselfishness. Instead I heard him explain that unless you loved yourself, you could not love your neighbour and vice versa. He explained that it was hard for many black people in the United States to love themselves and they had to learn to do so. It was a sermon I still remember nearly half a century later, and it is part of the theme of this chapter, and this book. So this chapter is about respecting and valuing oneself and others: about what is usually referred to as 'self-esteem'. (To put this another way, and using a term borrowed from the black culture of the United States, it is also about getting an attitude, and valuing it in others).