Summary

The third chapter opens with the story of a man named Jimmy who was "all positivity all the time" and who was full of self-aggrandizement. However, Jimmy never truly accomplished anything and lived off the charity of others. Manson uses this example to segue into a discussion of how fostering high-self esteem in people became all the rage in psychology in the 1960s and 1970s. Now that those generations have grown up, we can see the negative consequences of practices like grade inflation, participation awards, and the propagation of the idea that everyone is special. Manson argues that feeling good about oneself is meaningless "unless you have a good reason to feel good about yourself" (44). He also believes that a true measure of self-esteem and self-worth is not how positive one feels about oneself, but how one feels about the negative aspects of oneself...