Self-Esteem: Reactive or Proactive?

Self-Esteem: Reactive or Proactive?



If instinct is no longer the primary force driving the human species, i.e. this animal that is more than just animal, what is the motivating factor driving the life of wo/man?

The "clinical theories of Adler, as well as Sullivan, Rank, Fromm, Horney, and a growing number of young and undogmatic Freudians" identify "that the basic law of human life is the urge to self-esteem".

As the infant matures s/he becomes the passive captor of a need to be accepted, first, by the mother, and then society. The maturing child has shaped herself into the very person who can take for granted that he meets or exceeds what is demanded; s/he gains self-esteem and a growing sense of belonging, with confidence in a developing sense of self-righteousness as a growing natural systematic continuation of the early ego efforts to handle anxiety.

Maturation becomes an extension of the infant's ego struggle against anxiety. Self-esteem becomes the core of human adaptation; this human self-adaptation replaces the animal's biological instinct as the means for adaptation to a changing world. The maturing child discovers that s/he cannot earn parental and social approval, i.e. self-esteem, by continuing to express himself with his body. S/he discovers that he must conduct himself in strict accordance to symbolic codes in order to find approval.

The maturing child's growing sense of self-worth has become artificialized; self-worth is now dependent upon "linguistic contrivances". "He has become the only animal in nature who vitally depends on a symbolic constitution of his worth." The remainder of this creature's life is animated by the "artificial symbolism of self-worth".

Our character has become social as it becomes more and more a symbolic one. The survival of the Homo sapiens species is no longer a result of natural selection but is a result of artificial selection; it is dependent upon the nature of the symbolic codes we select to live by.

How can we become proactive; rather than reactive as we have been schooled? I think we can do so when we have taught our self to recognize the difference. What do you think?

Ideas and quotes from "The Birth and Death of Meaning? by Ernest Becker