Posted by finelinebob on August 19, 2006, at 22:53:18
In reply to Self esteem? And humility..., posted by Racer on July 20, 2006, at 0:12:26
Bah! on continuums. or continua, if you prefer.
I loved how the "most renowned expert on bipolar disorders" Kay Jamison wrote in An Unquiet Mind how she disliked "bipolar" as opposed to "manic-depressive", the implication of "bipolar" being that depression and mania are at opposite ends of a continuum. So, how do you explain mixed states if "bipolar" is truely bi-polar?
Besides, Racer, you're already thinking in multiple dimensions if you're seeing graphs. Most people think of lines and Likert scales when "continuum" rears its nasty little heads. Especially research psychologists who popularize these views. Makes for easy hypothesis testing, easy questionnaire design and you don't have to pay extra for the multivariate and non-linear analysis packages for SPSS (stats program, for those who don't know it).
What if all these different character traits were independent variables, so that if one went up or down, nothing need happen to any of the others? (Well, for one, I'd be oversimplifying in an equal but opposite direction to putting things on continua.)
I've long had a great deal of faith in myself. For much of that time, I also despised myself. I recall a time when that faith in myself earned some "public" (within my "community", not in general) noteriety and anonymous justification. My humility plummetted as a result and, when I saw that happen, my self-loathing lept to new heights.
The funny thing is that self-vilification made me step out of the spotlight. Doing so was an act to restore the humility I valued, but it didn't make much of a dent on my self-loathing. All throughout this, I lost no faith myself regarding my abilities and accomplishments in what drove this whole soap opera.
You can't map that to a line or a plane. Sounds more like at least a 3-dimensional, non-Euclidean space.
Continua are nice conventions for simplifying complex issues. More often than not, tho, they're fictions. If you want to set up a continuum to examine a relationship, be careful of what you choose to oppose. If narcissism and humility are on a continuum, you can't have a "positive" "balance" of both.
But you know that already, Racer. End of paragraph 2. Being "Good Enough" is neither narcissism nor humility. And that means you're a couple steps ahead of your T on this one ;^).
poster:finelinebob
thread:668502
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/esteem/20060725/msgs/678306.html