Honoring the Self by Nathaniel Branden

Author:Nathaniel Branden [Branden, Nathaniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307790408
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

One of the most important ways in which teachers and parents can lay a valuable foundation for the growth of healthy self-esteem in children is by accepting as natural and normal the process of making mistakes. With or without adult support, when an individual of any age acquires a rational perspective on mistakes—allows him- or herself to err without punitive self-reproach—then self-esteem is nourished and fostered. And fewer mistakes are perpetrated, because the individual’s consciousness is not controlled by fear.

No one who is terrified of making mistakes can attain moral autonomy.

The process of successful growth to psychological maturity—to intellectual and moral autonomy—depends on a person’s accepting intellectual responsibility for his or her own existence. As a human being grows to adulthood, reality presents increasingly more complex challenges in thought, knowledge, judgment, and decision making. At each stage, the responsibility involves both cognition and evaluation; the individual has to acquire knowledge of facts and has to pass value judgments and choose goals. The consequence of accepting responsibility is the self-confident state of a sovereign consciousness. The consequence of responding negatively is a state of intellectual, or cognitive, dependency.

Apart from the environmental factors we have already discussed, there are at least four factors that can motivate—not necessitate—a person’s default on the responsibility of independence and cognitive self-reliance:

Thinking requires mental work.

A policy of responsibility toward truth and facts, practiced consistently as a way of life, forbids one the possibility of indulging antithetical desires or emotions.

If a person makes an error at any step of the thinking process and acts on that error, he or she may suffer pain, defeat, or destruction.

Independent thinking often brings a person into conflict with the opinions and judgments of others, thus provoking disapproval or animosity.

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