{"id":9585,"date":"2012-07-04T12:41:29","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T12:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/07\/04\/dennis-prager-on-high-self-esteem\/"},"modified":"2012-07-04T12:41:29","modified_gmt":"2012-07-04T12:41:29","slug":"dennis-prager-on-high-self-esteem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/07\/04\/dennis-prager-on-high-self-esteem\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis Prager on High Self Esteem"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like Dennis Prager, but he is sometimes sloppy in his use of language.  He will often say that high self esteem is not a value, or words to that effect. It sounds as if he is against people having high self esteem.  But what he really wants to oppose, or rather what he ought to oppose, is not self esteem or high self esteem, but the silly notion of many liberals that high self esteem is  a value, a good thing, regardless of whether or not it is grounded in any actual accomplishment<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose my high self-esteem, in general, or in some particular respect, is justified by actual achievement.  Then I am entitled to my high self esteem, and my  having it is a good.  When a person of high achievement suffers from low self esteem we consider that an unfortunate state of affairs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another example of Prager's sloppiness is his use of 'Ponzi scheme.'  He said one day on his show that the welfare state is a Ponzi scheme.  I know what he means, and what he means to say is true, but he ought to say<\/em> what he means.  What he means is that the welfare state is economically unsustainable in the long run like a Ponzi scheme.  But if X is like<\/em> Y, it doesn't follow that X is<\/em> Y.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Ponzi schemes are set up by people with fraudulent intent.  But neither the architects of the modern welfare state nor the architects of the Social Security system in particular had fraudulent intent.  Nor do current supporters of the welfare state or SS have fraudulent intent.  They really think that these schemes are good and workable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why is this important?  Well, because one ought not demonize one's opponents, or, less drastically,  impute to them unsavory motives, unless one has very good evidence of the unsavoriness of their motives.  I am not saying that one ought never impute evil motives to one's opponents, but that one ought to be very careful about doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Language matters.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like Dennis Prager, but he is sometimes sloppy in his use of language.  He will often say that high self esteem is not a value, or words to that effect. It sounds as if he is against people having high self esteem.  But what he really wants to oppose, or rather what he ought to oppose, is … Continue reading “Dennis Prager on High Self Esteem”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emotions","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}