Yes, you heard that correctly. That was a man bragging about how humble he is - "More humble," in fact, "than you could understand." If you needed further proof that our understanding of humility has been lost, this had to be it.
Humility is an important virtue. Jesus had it, and he was the one person with the right not to have it. Scripture advises humility from beginning to end. Moses and Aaron admonished Pharaoh for his lack of humility before God in the book of Exodus, and I Peter 5:6 commands to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. In early America, Ben Franklin listed humility among the thirteen most important virtues (We'll ignore, for now, the fact that he didn't practice it himself). Humility was taught both in school and at home. Children who were braggarts were admonished by teachers and parents alike.
This is not to say that no one recognized their own value. David Hume, who died in 1776 encouraged us to recognize those qualities that did indeed deserve recognition. He said, "Though an overweening conceit of our own merit be vicious and disagreeable, nothing can be more laudable than to have a value for ourselves, where we really have qualities that are valuable.... it is certain that nothing is more useful to us, in the conduct of life, than a due degree of pride, which makes us sensible of our own merit, and gives us a confidence and assurance in all our projects and enterprises." While I disagree with him on the degree of importance he places on it, I do agree that a recognition of one's own skills is the first step to exercising them. There is a reasonable ground to be found between thinking we are absolutely worthless and believing ourselves to be great simply for existing. That ground comes in recognizing the gifts that were given to us by God for just that, gifts of God. William James, a psychologist of the 1890's seems to have struck a secular version of balance by defining self-esteem as the ratio of success to pretension. More on this later.
(But, for a hilarious look at how this goes wrong, click here.)
The 1960's caused the swing of many pendulums, and this was one of them. Breaking away from parents and their rules comes with a necessary belief in the ruling of ourselves. The "psychology for normals" movement meant even well-adjusted people were being marinated in the ideas of Maslow, Coopersmith, and Braden. Then, those people became parents. We truly saw the death of humility in the 1980's. These people who had been soaked in the psychology of self-esteem were now told to instill that in their children. California lawmakers decided that the cause of crime and most social ills would be solved if children were taught they were amazing. There was even a taxpayer-funded self-esteem task force.
Despite the fact that no research study (and there were many) ever showed self-esteem to be helpful in reducing social ills, and no research study ever showed low self-esteem to be a risk factor, we went on acting as though the opposite were true. There is even one study that indicates those with high self-esteem are a greater risk to society than those with low self-esteem, but we carry on with telling our kids that they are perfect for no other reason than they were born.
Here's a great breakdown on the history and the studies.
Somewhere along this path, we deemed our kids worthy of worship. If you think I am overstating this, go online and make a statement about your child that is anything short of pure, unadulterated praise; and watch what happens. You will be vilified instantly because you aren't bowing down to the idol of parenthood. There will be a religious fervor to the response of people for a reason; they don't worship God and therefore see themselves, their children, or you in the proper light. Rather than seeing human beings who carry the Imago Dei (image of God) but who are fallen and in need of redemption, our culture views children as god themselves. I have seen many mothers on facebook call their firstborn children "the one who made me a mother." He isn't the one who made you a mother; God did that. The child is the object of the action, not the actor.
You may have a great kid, but he is a lousy god. He isn't equipped to handle the pressure of your worship, which is one of the reasons we have so many kids with anxiety issues. They know they can't be the god you want them to be, and it makes them crazy trying to live up to that. This brings me back to William James. In calling self-esteem a ratio of success to pretension, he gave us two ways to affect it, increase your success or decrease your view of your own potential. This is going to seem to many like I am saying to lower your expectations to make yourself feel better. I guess I am in a way, but not as a cop out. Rather, recognizing our lack of diety will balance the ratio. It will, perhaps, makes us recognize the need for a savior. It will, perhaps, make us stop trying to save ourselves. President Trump obviously needs this, but he isn't the only one who does.
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