Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Inspiring Climb to Supreme Court Nominee

I’m very concerned with President Biden’s court picks, especially for the U.S. Supreme Court. Biden’s constitutional views are contrary and reactionary, as are the views of the Democratic Party more generally. 

But whatever the Constitutional views of Biden's Supreme Court choice to replace Steven Bryer, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s limb to Supreme Court nominee is worth admiring. In PRESIDENT BIDEN’S SUPREME COURT PICK: “HOW KETANJI BROWN FOUND A PATH BETWEEN CONFRONTATION AND COMPROMISE”, Jack Limpert documents her amazing character and courage.

And an inspiring path it was. Her personal philosophy and career journey are quintessentially American Individualist. To sum up her message as I understand it: "Legalized discrimination died in the 1960s. Racism, robbed of its legal backing, has since been rendered culturally impotent. Now, get on with your life. To all dark-complexioned people, understand: Residual racism is 'random ridiculousness!' It can't stop you from succeeding, unless you let it." To give you a sense of what I mean, here are some lenghthy excerpts from Lambert's column:

 

“My parents set out to teach me that, unlike the many impenetrable barriers that they had had to face, my path was clear,” recalled Jackson, now 51 and a federal appellate court judge in Washington. “If I worked hard and believed in myself, I could do anything or be anything I wanted to be.”

 

“She was always the person trying to find the middle ground,” Simmons said. As other Black students at Harvard took to the streets to confront college officials about issues of race and equality, Jackson counseled moderation. “ ‘They’re not going to listen to us if we’re screaming at them,’ she’d say,” Simmons recalled. “She was always asking, ‘What are the facts we can use to persuade?’ ”

In 1988, in her first year at Harvard, Jackson had to choose a path. The college’s freshmen lived together in dorms surrounding Harvard Yard, and one of Jackson’s classmates hung a Confederate flag from his dorm room window.

As a new student who’d signed up with the Black Students Association, Jackson joined in reactions to this “huge affront,” she said in a 2020 speech at the University of Chicago. “We organized rallies; we passed out fliers; we circulated petitions; we planned sit-ins.”

But Jackson wasn’t all in on leaping into protest mode. “While we were busy doing all of those very noble things, we were not in the library studying,” she noted. “I remember thinking how unfair it was to us.” Black students saw the flying of the flag as an attack, and they were angry about what they saw as a lax response from university officials, but now, as a result of their protests, “we were also missing classes and could not just be regular students … like the rest of our peers,” she said.

And that, Jackson decided, was “exactly what the student who had hung the flag really wanted: For us to be so distracted that we failed our classes and thereby reinforced the stereotype that we couldn’t cut it at a place like Harvard.”

 

In that instance and numerous others, Jackson felt pulled in two directions — stand up for what’s right, or buckle down and work. Time after time, in almost every chapter of her life, according to interviews with more than 15 of her friends and colleagues and a review of more than 2,000 pages of her speeches and writings, Jackson refused to be distracted. She would press for her ideals, but she would pick her battles — and choose tactics designed more to persuade others than to announce her opposition.

“I just want to be clear about how I envision thick skin,” Jackson told a Black student group at the University of Chicago in 2020. “I am not asking you to put on blinders. … As a professional of color, there will inevitably be times when you will feel singled out, challenged, questioned, undervalued, and misinterpreted, and you will very much want to call out or cancel people who say and do discriminatory things. … But doing so takes time and effort, and if we are going to get to where we belong … we can’t keep stopping and fretting over random ridiculousness!”

“Random ridiculousness!” This says something profound about today’s American reality. Condoleezza Rice calls it "Somebody else's problem." John McWhorter calls it "Occasional inconvenience" [p. 218]. Racism is dead as a cultural and political force in America. Sure it exists, here and there. And when it is encountered, it can be insulting, offensive, and infuriating. But is it a roadblock to personal progress? Jackson’s attitude reminds me of the attitude expressed by a character in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, Howard Roark, “The question isn’t who will let me; it’s who is going to stop me?”

Jackson understood the power of activism. She’d heard about it from her parents back in Miami. “For Black Americans in particular, 1970 was a time of hope,” she said in 2020. “The hard work of the previous decade — the marches, the boycotts, the sit-ins, the arrests — had finally borne fruit. … Young Black professionals like my parents were finally on the verge of getting to enjoy the full freedom and equality that is promised to citizens of the United States. Change does happen, and that even the most dire circumstances can be overcome.”

When she ran for class president in high school (she won three times), when she traveled the high school debate circuit and won a rack of prizes, or when she applied to Harvard despite her high school guidance counselor’s suggestion that she set her sights a bit lower, she felt “slings and arrows” of bias, yet decided not to care about “slights and misperceptions and underestimations that came my way. What I do remember is often thinking, ‘Hmm, well, I’ll show them.’ ”

“I’ll show them!” I love that. She has no sympathy for self-imposed victimism.

 

“There were always more-radical people who wanted to push her off the middle,” arguing for more-in-your-face confrontation, Simmons said. But Jackson argued against protests that might alienate the very people she wanted to persuade. And she would not let anyone steer her away from her studies, the roommate said.

“As a dark-skinned black girl who was often the only person of color in my class, club, or social environment, my parents knew that it was essential that I develop a sense of my own self worth that was in no way dependent on what others thought about my abilities,” Jackson said.

 

Another profound truth: ". . . my own self worth that was in no way dependent on what others thought about my abilities.” Her parents were wise people, indeed.

I probably will have deep disagreements with many of Jackson's judicial decisions, given she was chosen by Biden. But if her SCOTUS impact is anywhere close to consistent with her personal philosophy--and that of her parents--she would be a surprisingly powerful voice against Woke Nihilism. As a radical for American Ideals, I'm not expecting miracles. But the Left may be gravely disappointed. The last thing they need is a voice for self-responsibility. Based on her personal philosophy and trust that, in America, positive change can happen through rational argument and persuasion rather than activist disruption or "canceling", she has the makings of a great Supreme Court justice.

We’ll see -- and I’ll keep my fingers crossed. But one thing is for sure. Jackson is a great role model, not just for dark-complexioned young people, but for anyone who imagines "the system" is rigged against them.

Related Reading:

Joe Biden—the Real Protégé of Jefferson Davis

Identity Politics: America’s ‘Pre-Existing Condition’, and the Cure

AMERICA: A RACIST NATION? BY ANDREW BERNSTEIN

Leftist Supremacy, Not White Supremacy, is the Gravest Threat to Black Lives by Andrew Berstein

We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People by Jason D. Hill

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Related Viewing:

John McWhorter: America Has Never Been Less Racist -- Reason interview

On the Purpose of a Corporation by the Business Roundtable, PART 1

In a classic case of big business pandering to their anti-capitalism enemies, the Business Roundtable, a group of big business CEOs, put out a statement titled Purpose of a Corporation. The Roundtable claims to “redefine” the business corporation. It lists five primary objectives:

• Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

• Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect.

• Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers. We are dedicated to serving as good partners to the other companies, large and small, that help us meet our missions.

• Supporting the communities in which we work. We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.

• Generating long-term value for shareholders, who provide the capital that allows companies to invest, grow and innovate. We are committed to transparency and effective engagement with shareholders.

Notice what comes last—“Generating long-term value for shareholders, who provide the capital that allows companies to invest, grow and innovate.” That statement comes across like a campaign ad for Elizabeth Warren, who has a fascist-like plan to have government dictate the governance of large private corporations, along the lines of guild socialism.

Yet Franklin J Parker, a “free enterprise analyst” at the Lone Star Policy Institute, lauds the statement, if you can believe it, as “a textbook example of free markets operating as they should.” How so? In an article run on the FEE (Foundation for Economic Education) website, of all places—Should Corporations Consider Any “Stakeholders” Other Than Shareholders?—Parker opens with:

CS Lewis, the famed author of The Chronicles of Narnia, once discussed the distinction between advancing ethics and advancing knowledge of facts. In Lewis’ view, ethics changes remarkably little over the years. What changes, and changes rapidly, is our knowledge of how the world works. This advancement of knowledge informs our application of ethical norms, and it is advancing knowledge of facts, argues Lewis, not ethics, that tends to change through time. 

My emphasis. Parker continues::

With respect to the operation of businesses, it was famed economist Milton Friedman who laid down the foundational ethic: Businesses should seek to maximize shareholder value only. Working toward any other end, asserts Friedman, is an unjustified exercise in “spending other people’s money.” 

So right off the bat, we automatically take established ethics on its face, without question. The established ethics of our time is altruism, the ethic that holds self-sacrificial service to others as the standard of moral behavior. From that premise, Parker goes on to put words in Friedman’s mouth:

But our knowledge of both economics and corporate management has advanced over the years. Through experience, we have learned that a singular focus on quarterly profits makes for unhealthy long-term businesses, which is bad for shareholders. 

My emphasis. Did Friedman really equate shareholder values with dogmatic focus on short-term profit? When did the accepted “knowledge of both economics and corporate management” ever hold that as its standard? From that strawman starting point, Parker claims, we now know differently. Instead of “singular focus on quarterly profits,” Parker agrees that corporations should  prioritize other “stakeholders’” interests over its own shareholders. Why? Because that’s what “society” demands. Such “social responsibility” will be “good” for shareholders. Parker writes:

For those who are unconcerned or unable to make the sacrifice, free markets allow for that, too. We should be careful, then, in our calls for new regulation. After all, if you are unwilling to make the marginal sacrifice required to express your value with your own money, how can we hope to make the required sacrifice at scale? Prices are, in effect, a mirror to society. Though we may find the mirror’s display distasteful, the problem is not solved by breaking the mirror.

The message from Parker: Sacrifice is moral. A healthy long-term business is built on sacrifice. Therefore, business should sacrifice. If it doesn’t sacrifice, the government will force it to sacrifice. Another word for this is, extortion. Is this how free markets actually work?

I'd like to know Parker's definition of "sacrifice". Rationally, a sacrifice is the giving up of a value in exchange for a lesser value or no value at all. It means making one’s situation worse off. If giving up a short-term (or any) value is in and of itself a sacrifice regardless of whether or not it is geared toward advancing one's long-term well-being, then the word "sacrifice" has no use. Sacrifice can’t be both good for you and bad for you. A tradeoff that results in a net gain is not a sacrifice, it is the opposite—rationally selfish. Yet that's how Parker seems to be muddling the term. On the one hand, he claims that "a singular focus on quarterly profits makes for unhealthy long-term businesses." If so, then if accepting a temporary lower quarterly return leads to a healthier business long term—that is, higher profits and thus higher shareholder value later on—then accepting a lower quarterly return is a net gain, not a sacrifice. On the other, he lauds the Business Roundtable for "prioritizing several other corporate commitments ahead of generating long-term value for shareholders." My emphasis. That would be a sacrifice--of the corporation’s shareholders. But, he claims, “The ethic is still the same: corporations should maximize shareholder value. We are simply witnessing a shift in the execution of that ethic.” Really? Then how does one make sense of this statement—“corporate executives have only now realized shareholder value is maximized through more than a focus on their next quarterly bonus is rather embarrassing for them.” How does one maximize shareholder value by "prioritizing several other corporate commitments ahead of generating long-term value for shareholders?" 

So, which is it? Parker is arguing completely contradictory premises, which boils down to, corporations should sacrifice for the “social good” regardless of whether it maximizes shareholder value. 

This contradiction points to the fundamental flaw in Parker's viewpoint. The core ethic of capitalism is the individual pursuit of rational self-interest coupled with respect for the rights of others and facilitated by trade; which means, no conflict between the rational interests of other stakeholders and shareholders, since all stakeholders (individuals whose choose the deal with the corporation), including employees, shareholders, consumers, suppliers,, deal with each other by mutual consent to mutual self-advantage. Since rational self-interest is by definition oriented toward one's "awareness of one's long-term well-being," making personal or corporate choices that prioritize long-term well-being over short-term gain is not sacrificial for anyone involved, since a rational perspective places a higher value on long-term well-being over immediate gratification.  

I have always thought of maximizing shareholder value as a long-term proposition that incorporates consideration of all relevant facts as one sees them affecting one's interests, long and short. As with an individual, a corporation foregoing short-term gratification in exchange for long-term shareholder betterment is hardly a sacrifice. So why the focus on sacrifice?

Parker opens with the observation that ethics doesn't change, but the facts do. This has been largely true. But is it right? Sacrifice means altruism, which is the opposite of how capitalism operates. Capitalism operates based on self-interest, not altruism. Yet Parker uncritically accepts the premise that ethics shouldn't change, so he jumbles the term sacrifice to fit capitalism. It can’t be done. Altruism--self-sacrifice for the benefit of others--is the long-accepted standard of ethics. But that contradicts capitalism's moral basis. Parker's got it backwards. Our "knowledge of how the world works" has indeed changed with the rise of capitalism. Parker's error is in not recognizing that these changing facts should lead us to question the established ethics. Instead, he twists the logic of capitalist ethics to fit the established ethics of altruism. 

That’s the problem that is steadily eroding capitalism and liberty. Capitalism is based on universal individual self-interest, not sacrifice. Universal self-interest in turn spawned modern business, which is built on maximizing shareholder value, which in turn led to the betterment of consumers, employees, investors, communities--in essence, all relevant stakeholders. What should be done is to let these facts, this "new knowledge", lead us to question our established ethical norms. Trying to shoehorn capitalism into the 2000 year-old ethics of self-sacrifice will not advance capitalism. It will destroy it, and lead to the actual system of sacrifice, which is socialism. What our advancement of knowledge tells us is that self-interest, not altruistic sacrifice, is the proper goal of morality. The tremendous rise in the general human standard of living since the emergence of capitalism is the proof.

If capitalism is to be successfully defended, we should do exactly the opposite of what CS Lewis suggests, let our knowledge inform our ethics. The rise of capitalism resulted from the Enlightenment, which discovered that the individual can use his reason to accomplish a better life for himself, and the corollary discovery that trade, not conflict, infinitely enhances that individual’s flourishing, and thus broader society’s well-being. That is why capitalism, which is based on self-interest, is the only path to general betterment. Parker sincerely tries to defend cap[italism. But until Parker and his ilk learn that sacrifice is out, trying to fit capitalism into a sacrificial straightjacket will only result in its destruction.

So, do the other corporate commitments listed by the Roundtable’s Purpose of a Corporation—Delivering value to our customers, Investing in our employees, Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers, and Supporting the communities in which we work—warrant any concern of the corporation? Of course they do. But proper prioritizing is key. Those commitments are not inimical to shareholder interests, or vice versa. I’ll explain myself in my next post. Here are a couple of FEE articles with a better perspective:

Milton Friedman Was Right on Corporate Guidance, and "Woke" CEOs Ignore Him at Shareholder Peril by Jon L. Pritchett: “It is the fiduciary responsibility of the directors to protect such assets…and maybe even the entire free market system, too. The resources these CEOs propose to spend in the pursuit of social good are not their own. Those resources are capital invested by shareholders; not by the growing category of “stakeholders” these modern CEOs seem so intent on pleasing.”

Shareholder Interests and Stakeholder Interests Are Not Mutually Exclusive by Gary M. Galles: “Trying to create added stakeholder rights, ex nihilo, violates the rightfully owned property of shareholders.”

Related Reading:

Why businesspeople need moral principles--Jaana Woiceshyn

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal--Ayn Rand

Elizabeth Warren’s Plan — We’ve Seen This Before--Stephen Hicks

The Capitalist Manifesto--Andrew Bernstein

Elizabeth Warren wants to weaponize and federalize corporations for social justice activism--Mary Chastain      

Elizabeth Warren Plans To Destroy Capitalism By Pretending To 'Save' It--SCOTT SHACKFORD: Warren's plan would overrule corporate leaders' control over their own businesses. This is also known as "socialism."

Caring vs. ‘Wanting’

The following was posted on a  Facebook page titled “I’m just sayin’. . .”

As an Objectivist, it immediately struck me as corrupt. Not for the concern for others: Who would not want those things? But for the moral inversion implicit in the hierarchy of “I WANTS”.

The first principle of caring for one another is to respect other people’s moral right to live by their own judgement, for their own sake, in pursuit of the values that can make their own lives the best they can be. These are the only lives any of us will ever have. One’s primary concern should be to make one’s own life the best and happiest it can be, without guilt and apology. There could be room for concern for other concerns, of course. The first moral principle is to achieve one’s own wants, and that principle should be reflected in how one treats others. To say otherwise is to foster envious, predatory exploitation. After all, what does it mean to “never have to worry about food and shelter and heat?” Those basic necessities don’t grow in the wild, ready to be picked. They must be produced by human work. Can we imply from that “I want” that other people owe me those things so I don’t have to “worry” myself about them?

So count me out. The implication is that it’s more right to put other people’s needs above our own. This has the fingerprints of Judeo-Christian ethics all over it, and I find that moral premise cruel and inhumane and a reversal of cause-and-effect. Judeo-Christian ethics holds that morality has nothing to do with self-interest, but concerns only your actions as they pertain to the benefit of others. What you need to do to make your own life good deserves no moral guidance, say the Judeo-Christians.

Don’t believe me? I was watching a segment of Fox News. The subject was private businesses aiding victims of Hurricane Harvey. One guest said the self-interest of the businesspersons drove their benevolence. Another responded that self-interest is not enough: It must be grounded in Judeo-Christian ethics. In other words, one must pay penance in terms of self-sacrifice to atone for the sin of self-interest. The other replied—and I’m paraphrasing from memory—“No. Self-interest is enough. The businessperson doesn’t need morality”[!] Well, why isn’t a self-interested motive moral? This is the corruption of Judeo-Christian ethics at work. (Both, by the way, are advocates of capitalism and regulars on Fox News. No one challenged their implicit assumption that the self-interest of businesspersons, as such, is immoral, or at best amoral. But that’s a subject for another day. In the meantime, I suggest Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal and The Capitalist Manifesto.).

But there are all kinds of decisions that require an answer to the question—good or bad for me. Should I do recreational drugs—or not; what kind of career best suits me; how do I balance the need to financially support my family with their need for my time and attention; the list is open-ended. Yet Judeo-Christian ethics tells you need no moral guidance—that you need to “tame” your self-interest with “doing good”—self-sacrificially serving others. Self-interest, we’re told, is a necessary evil. It is something low or dirty or sinful. True, they say, you have to be self-interested to live. But that is man’s original sin.

I couldn’t disagree more. “Good or bad, right or wrong?”: Why does that moral question only apply to others, but not to oneself? In fact, Judeo-christian ethics implies a corrupt moral inversion: that living off of others is the good, but self-support is immoral. Think about it. If being moral means the unrewarded duty to serve others, then it stands to reason that others must live for you. Who wins? Obviously, the moocher. One “jus’sayin” correspondent captured the essence of the corruption: “All those things you want just happen to be what I need, when can I expect them from these people who care?”

Of course, nothing about self-interest—the real kind, rational self-interest—forbids good will, compassion, or charity toward people or causes that are consistent with one’s capabilities and values. There are all kinds of self-interested reasons for doing “good works.” But the good of others is logically not, and in reason should not, be the moral standard for our life choices. The sooner people recognize that and respect that in others, the better our world will be. Experience has shown this to be not only good morals, but good practically.

Self-interest is the driving force of life and flourishing. It is self-interest—“I WANT -I WANT -I WANT”—that drives people to work and produce to enrich their own lives. And self-interest has a wonderful derivative effect; through trade, we enrich the lives of others. Self-interest fosters win-win relationships, with people getting better together, each in pursuit of her own self-interest. “I WANT” leads people to become doctors to heal the sick; to achieve the affluence to satisfy their WANT to adopt orphan children; to become farmers and grocery store owners to provide food; to become builders and tradesmen to provide homes; to seek a career in energy production to provide fuel for heating systems. It is the “I WANT -I WANT -I WANT” that incentivizes people to work in a field of choice to be able to buy all of those. There is no dichotomy of “I WANTS.” With everything you buy, you are benefitting from the self-interest of someone you don’t even know seeking to fulfill the “I WANTS” that helps him flourish. Self-interest is all around us. It should not be a guilty endeavor. Judeo-Christian ethics, a.k.a. altruism, requires lose-win—someone must lose, that the other must win. Self-interest is built on win-win; people getting better, not at others’ expense, but together. It is the greatest good.

Self-interest is integral to human nature, as it is in some sense for all life forms. All life forms, including the most simple and primitive, must act to gain the values their lives depend upon. People are no different. To live, people must act to gain values. Self-interest is not a necessary evil that must be justified by cheap slogans—especially slogans backed by compulsion of government welfare that forces others to pay for the luxury of those wants (where’s the “care for one another” in that?) The goods we need to live and flourish don’t just happen. They must be created by effort. When you hear someone say “I WANT” and is willing to work for it, you have encountered the most virtuous type of person. This is a person who doesn’t fantasize about living in some Garden of Eden where every need is miraculously provided for. Nor does he expect others to provide it. The virtuous person does worry about how he will fulfill his needs and wants, because that is what his nature and responsible living demands. He doesn’t fantasize about a world where “people . . . never have to worry about food and shelter and heat” and everything else life requires, because he knows that such a world doesn’t exist.

Self-interest is a vital good—and by logical extension the foundation of a free, progressive, prosperous, benevolent society of win-win relationships. Self-interest is life. Anti-self-interest is anti-life. I am pro-life. So I won’t repost this. As I said at the outset, the first principle of caring for one another is to respect other people’s moral right to live by their own judgement, for their own sake, in pursuit of the values that can make their own lives the best they can be. And that principle should be reflected in both our private lives and in our politics.

Related Reading;

Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It--Craig Biddle

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

The Spectator’s Devious Equivocation of Rand’s Benevolent Egoism with Nietzsche’s Predatory ‘Egoism’

Via For the New Intellectuals, I discovered an article Why do Tories love Ayn Rand? in The Spectator. From this article by Alastair Benn:

Rand promoted a cult of amoral selfishness and ruthlessness that is certainly not conservative in any traditional sense – certainly not Burkean, but quite emphatically Nietzschean.

It’s certainly true that Rand’s ethics is not conservative. The rest of the statement is not mere ignorance: That would be too generous. It is an outright lie. “Amoral”; “ruthless”; “Nietzschean”? A “cult?” Rand’s selfishness, the Objectivist Ethics, is the exact opposite, being grounded in Observable facts of reality, defended logically, and thus open to rational scrutiny--unlike religious ethics, which come at you in the form of unchallengeable commands from a being said to be above reason. Which is the cult morality, and which isn’t? Benn, and the editors at The Spectator, I’m sure, know--or should know--better. Shame on them.

Amoral and ruthless certainly applies to Nietzsche, who advocated a predatory, zero-sum concept of egoism that applies only to “the strong,” and expressed socially in the win-lose master-slave relationship. Rand’s “rational selfishness” is a benevolent egoism, applicable to all, and expressed socially in the win-win trader principle and equality of individual rights. They couldn’t be more opposite in theory or in their political implications.

It’s not a secret what these two philosophers advocated. Rand’s view is readily available in her fiction and nonfiction. Her views have been thoroughly contrasted by scholars. Check out Stephen Hicks, Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand in The journal of Ayn Rand Studies, or John Ridpath, Ayn Rand Contra Nietzsche in The Objective Standard.

As to conservatism, I would argue that their Christian ethics of altruism is ruthless and predatory. According to Christianity, need is the standard. If the world owes you simply because you need it, then who is ruthless, the Christian or the Objectivist, who believes that what you earn is morally yours, not the needy’s who wants to take it from you? Amoral? That would be altruism.

I suspect that conservatives in general don’t want to sincerely portray Rand’s concept of selfishness for fear that it would blow Judeo-Christian ethics out of the water. That fear has consequences, as it is a major reason why the allegedly pro-capitalist conservatives keep losing to the socialist Left.

Related Reading:

Ayn Rand Fear @ The New Republic

Does Evil Come From ‘Threatened Egotism’?

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

Gary Moore vs. Ayn Rand: Or, the Battle for America's Soul

Self-Esteem, not Other-Esteem, is Vital to Teaching

A short letter appeared in the New Jersey Star-Ledger on May 7, 2018 that included this excerpt:

Tuesday [5/8/18] is National Teachers Day. As a retired teacher, I remember teachers feeling great joy in getting recognition from parents, administrators and students. In fact, a study indicates that recognition is the most important of all human needs.

The letter was written by a teacher named Joseph. I emphasized that sentence because a person whose most important need is to seek the approval of others is not equipped to teach children.

Gaining recognition and esteem from others is of course great to have. It can be pretty lonely without it. But that’s when you need self-esteem--the self-recognition of one’s own worth--the most. If one’s sense of self-worth is primarily tied up in others’ judgement, that is not a psychologically healthy state. And that is not a good place for a teacher to be.

The most fundamental purpose of education is to teach a child to think independently, which requires the self-confidence to rely on his own judgement regardless of what others think or recognize. Another primary purpose is to instill in the child a love of learning, so she can become a self-learner. This is important because most of what a person learns occurs outside of any classroom, and self-learning also requires independence and the self-confidence to go it alone: Thinking, after all, is the most selfish of human attributes because it’s the one thing that no one can do for you.

It’s not that recognition is not important. It is, in that it provides added fuel for the soul. It’s that a person’s self-confidence should be strong without the external recognition, not dependent on it; indeed, dependence is lack of self-esteem.

A teacher for whom recognition and praise from others is his most important need is not equipped to properly educate a child, for whom fostering an independent self-confident adulthood should be the primary goal. Self-esteem, not other-esteem, is vital to proper teaching, because self-esteem is the most vital of all human psychological needs.

Related Reading:

Pseudo Self-Esteem vs. the Real Thing

Tenure and Self-Esteem--Part 1

Tenure and Self-Esteem--Part 2

Related Listening:

Yaron Brook on Self-Esteem

Is Science Catching Up to the Objectivist Ethics?

An interesting article appeared in the Washington Post. In Being empathetic is good, but it can hurt your health, Jennifer Breheny Wallace reports:

Empathy — the ability to tune into and share another person’s emotion from their perspective — plays a crucial role in bringing people together. It’s the joy you feel at a friend’s wedding or the pain you experience when you see someone suffering.

It’s an essential ingredient for building intimacy in relationships, says Robin Stern, associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. “When someone feels seen and heard by you,” she says, “they begin to trust you.”

But this seemly positive emotion can also have a downside, particularly if someone gets so consumed by another’s feelings that they neglect their own feelings and needs. Stern says those who regularly prioritize others’ emotions over their own are more susceptible to experiencing anxiety or low-level depression. [emphasis added]

Another researcher quoted in the article, Jamil Zaki, offers, “Being supportive of those we care about is among our most cherished and important roles, but it’s also one that’s fraught: We want to be there for someone but not lose ourselves.” [emphasis added]

If this sounds like a [partial] plug for rational selfishness, you’d be right in my view. I think what these people have in mind is rational selfishness, although not necessarily consciously. Also not mentioned is the term altruism. But that’s what Wallace has in mind—again, probably not consciously—when she talks about when “someone gets so consumed by another’s feelings that they neglect their own feelings and needs.” Self-neglect is exactly what altruism demands. And rational selfishness is what Zaki has in mind when he urges us “not to lose ourselves.”

Of course, altruism saps one’s self-esteem, as well. In fact, lack of self-esteem is probably a deeper, “root” cause of the anxiety and depression.

But the point here is that empathy does not and should not require putting other’s well-being above one’s own. Yet that’s precisely what altruism demands—not mere concern for others, but self-neglect and ultimately, if unchecked, self-destruction. Checked altruism—you believe in it but can’t practice it consistently—leads to another bad psychological outcome, unearned guilt.

Another researcher, Anneke Buffone, states:

“People assume that any kind of empathy is associated with positive health benefits and behaviors, but for the first time we have physical evidence that not all empathy is alike, that its positive or negative effects depend on the perspective you take.” [emphasis added]

Two perspectives offered are,

• Emotional empathy, you actually put yourself in someone else’s shoes and feel their emotion. This is the type of response that, left unchecked, can lead to caretaker burnout, says Zaki. 
• And then there’s compassionate empathy, where you feel concern about another’s suffering, but from more of a distance and with a desire to help the person in need. 

I would label the alternative perspectives self-sacrificial ‘empathy’ vs. selfish empathy, or altruism vs. rational selfishness. There’s more to this interesting article. It’s worth a read.

Objectivists know that altruism is self-destructive, and that rational selfishness is the only basis not only for achieving personal happiness but also for healthy, respectful, human relationships, including relationships that involve helping others (all of which is, actually, the same thing). Is science catching up to the Objectivist ethics? If so, it’s a positive moral sign for the future. Altering the conventional understanding of what moral action entails—replacing self-sacrificial service to others with prioritizing one’s own selfish flourishing—is key to reversing the political trend toward some manifestation of totalitarian socialism.

I’m not saying that these researchers are full-blown advocates of the Objectivist Ethics. Whatever the moral conclusions, if any, of the authors, this research is a good sign because it provides—“for the first time,” according to the authors—physical evidence of altruism’s self-destructiveness.

Related Reading:

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice is Unjust and Destructive—Peter Schwartz

Related Viewing:

ACHIEVING HAPPINESS: AN INTERVIEW WITH TARA SMITH—Yaron Brook