re: Self-esteem & the “Crisis of the Young”

Coming from an educated Democrat like yourself, this should be a slam dunk to figure out.

People can't become shite or have shite unless they give their loyalty to the Federal Government and vote Democrat.

Self-esteem and needs, another slam dunk. No non-white person will ever reach their full potential until we capture all of Elon's wealth and redistribute it.

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I think one of the great failings we have is that we've adopted a mindset of the "noble victim" (the belief that being a "victim" of something makes one noble due to surviving it) and thus so many rush to seek out their own "victim" status so they can be celebrated.

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This feels very performative. Not your observation but the mindset of the noble victim, or the “honoring” of the noble victim. There’s only one Nelson Mandela. Maybe some people are performing victimhood as a way to achieve status and purpose, especially in the aftermath of the hollowing out of traditional pathways to meaning.

As an aside, how did you get so smart? How do you know so much?

Wise words in this post. Perhaps one of the best posts I’ve read on this board. Thank you for sharing. I hope people read it in the spirit it was given.

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No one can "find" you, for you.
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Au contraire, I am already found. I know who I am, and I even like her.

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Just for clarity, the "you" in my post was generic.

Your response is demonstrative of the conclusion though, which is great.

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If you're being serious, glad I could help.

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Super serious. You helped me understand what years of therapy in my 20s did not

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i thought the whole premise of the entire thread is that it's nowhere to be found.

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The premise was an exploration of where meaning was once found, why it is no longer found there, and if/how/where people can find meaning now.

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And you didn't answer my questions. Who is Christ and what is His relationship to humanity?

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I'm hesitant to get into theological discussion on this board. I honestly can't recall one that ended productively.

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The premise was an exploration of where meaning was once found

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In my opinion, people derive meaning from having a clear goal to strive for and a clear place within society. Parents may have the goal to provide for their kids and get them to graduate from a good college and start a successful career. They may feel a clear role in society by working a job that provides them with respect or accomplishes things that they see as meaningful. They may volunteer for causes that they feel matter. They could derive meaning from their role in their family structure. These aren’t the only options, just examples.

Religion, particularly Christianity, is a good option because it offers a clear lifelong goal: go to Heaven. It also provides people with opportunities to be a part of service opportunities that can give them feelings of accomplishment and a role in society.

If one doesn’t have a job, they might feel guilt or shame for not providing for themselves. If one has no job (or works a job that they see as meaningless), they may struggle to feel like their existence is justified, or that their efforts serve no higher purpose. Religion offers an easy shortcut for both of those things even if one’s career cannot give them a sense of place and purpose in their community.

I read the chapter on Kierkegaard last night. It connected to what has been brought up a few times in this thread about man's only hope for finding meaning is through God or Jesus.

This is the first and only content about Kierkegaard that I've ever consumed, so my interpretations could be completely off base. It seems that he believed man's deepest anxiety stems from his inability to accept his own creatureliness—his finitude, mortality, and dependence. Grappling with the awareness of our finitude while simultaneously possessing the capacity to imagine infinity, permanence, and God is our defining existential challenge.


He also said that we can only find peace or contentment by transcending our creatureliness.

This is starting to sound a lot like Christian teachings. Roman Catholic teachings emphasize "dying to yourself" being "in the world, not of the world."

I didn't know much about Søren Kierkegaard or his religious beliefs before reading this chapter. I initially assumed he was an atheist, but none of what Becker attributes to him points in that direction. As it turns out, he was deeply religious.

It seems like many of us, despite approaching this from very different perspectives, keep arriving at conclusions that resemble Kierkegaard's: that meaning ultimately requires some form of transcendence beyond the self.

A quick observation about the first passage I quoted in this post:

"what an undignified and pathetic creature man can be when he imagines that by living unto himself alone he is fulfilling his nature."

Doesn't American culture seem to glorify this? I think this gets at what I meant earlier when I said we've created a society that increasingly manufactures misery. For all our celebration of rugged individualism, humans are profoundly social creatures. We thrive in community, not isolation. Prioritizing our individual desires above our obligations to one another, or to God, only compounds that misery.