The Rhetoric of Self-Esteem: A New Way to Manage the “Sacred Self” in Recovery Books

There seems to spread such a discourse as " high self-esteem makes life happier, so, to the contrary, if your self-esteem is low or absent, it makes some psychological problems " among many people. I name this discourse " the rhetoric of self-esteem. " I consider the discourses of recovery books make the rhetoric popular. So, in this paper, I aim to analyze those discourses to make clear the relatedness between the rhetoric of self-esteem and the social situation that has accepted it. The writers of recovery books claim that the "dysfunctional family" or the "codependent relationship" produces those who have difficulties of living in the contemporary society because of their lack of self-esteem. What social situation makes such discourses plausible? A.Giddens would probably say that in the de-traditionalized, reflexive society, intimacy has transformed into the "pure relationship." In this form of relationship, people must always make a choice of continuing their relationship or discarding it, by referring to their inside. So people must get high self-esteem to be internally referential in such a society, which makes the discouses of recovery books plausible. But I propose to consider the pure relationship as the radicalization of "the cult of the individual." And, as a result of this tendency, many people have tried to manage the risk of hurting the "sacred self" of themselves and others by preserving their own self-esteem depending not on the other's estimation but on their own. The rhetoric of self-esteem presented by the authors of recovery books justifies this "self worship" and teaches many people the methods of this form of worship, which makes the discourse of recovery books plausible.