Review of Other-Esteem by Philip O. Hwang, Ph.D.

Tiffany Birkle

K. Rodenberg

R.W.S. 200

30 April 2002

Other-Esteem

I read Other-Esteem by Philip O. Hwang, Ph.D. It was written to give people a new, non- traditional perspective to life’s routines. He wants people to “learn to see the world anew”(ii). Other-esteem as defined by Hwang, is the respect, acceptance, caring, valuing and promoting of others, who may think, feel and act differently from ourselves. Throughout the book, he talks about how today we are too involved with ourselves and that our self-esteem is too high. We need to work on our other-esteem to counteract all the selfishness that is around us.

Cognitive Development Issues

According to Hwang, our minds can control, direct and intervene in our body’s physiological or emotional functions, but cognitive distortion is the root of our unhappiness. This distortion comes from our overvaluing of our selves and not enough value for others. Our irrational perceptions and culturally biased attitudes are what distort reality. Our other-esteem is much like our self-esteem, our family, and our communities influence it. How we greet, act, and respond to people is all apart of other-esteem. We have to realize that people perceive things differently because of their relationships with their families and socialization. For example, children playing on the playground making silly faces at someone who is perceived to be different, is a reflection of the way that those children have seen either their parents, siblings, or other people in society react to people who are different. Hwang believes that we are who we are because of interrelationships with others in our lives; and that others influence us just as we affect them. However, being friendly and non-offensive all the time is not all we have to do to have a healthy balance of other-esteem and self-esteem. We must learn to climb and that you don’t have to go in any order. Hwang seems to agree with Piaget’s cognitive development theory. He says that we can program ourselves to think positively and that once we have associated with this positive thinking and behavior, then we will begin to see the positive side of everything. We need to see the big picture, not just look at ourselves. There are many parts of other-esteem that we need to learn, like respect for others, the promotion of others, acceptance, forgiveness, and more; but it’s not just memorization of these things that we have other-esteem. We need to be practical about them and use them in our everyday lives. Other-esteem is a creative response to a society that promotes the self.

Physical Development Issues

Physical development is associated with a person’s confidence. Hwang says that we already have a high self-esteem, which relates to our confidence. If you have a high self-esteem then you already have confidence, because they go hand in hand. However, Hwang believes that we gain more confidence when we have good relationships with friends, family, acquaintances, and loved ones. Hwang puts this very simply when he writes,

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Physical Development Issues

“One achieves self-esteem form social values and expectations learned through that individual’s various relationships at different levels. Since each individual is connected to his or her society through this different direct or indirect linkages with others, it is crucial that we now look at a new term that describes your relationship with society-other-esteem.”(13)

Hwang doesn’t look a child’s growth development and how his esteem is affected, but what he has said relates to all ages, all sizes, races, gender, and all the differences that are in the world. There is no superior race and there should not be any quantitative competition or qualitative comparison among the differences. If children learn this before or during their years of adolescence and puberty then they will have a better balance of self-esteem and other-esteem. A child’s confidence effects how they develop their motor skills as well, and with other-esteem and accepting everyone, and being sincere to them then they will feel more comfortable to do things, such as playing sports, and drawing, even if they are not that good at them. The growth in physical development of a child can affect their esteem whether it’s their self-esteem or other-esteem.

Psychological Development Issues

An individual’s mental well being depends in large measure on the many different levels of relationships the individual is involved in, family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, institutions, and even society in general (12). This idea is expended in Hwang’s ideas about a ring of friendship support system, your circle of intimacy, and your work network. He believes that human intimacy in relationships is based on other-esteem, because your relationship with these people in your circle of intimacy is pure and beyond any suspicion of personal gain. Which is what Hwang is trying to do, move us away from ourselves and look at everyone else. Our ring of friendship is much like our circle of intimacy, they are rings of social support and we need them just as they need us. Hwang is ultimately trying to get us to have a balance of I-self and me-self. He says that we should be responsible for what we say not what others hear. Carl Rogers says that we need to be client-centered and teach to individuals, but this goes against arguments that Hwang presented. Hwang believes just the opposite of Rogers in that the best learning for students is when the project is directed away form the self and toward others. He feels that counselors are the worst teachers, because they only focus on the self. This difference reflects how children will act when they older. If we bring our children up through authoritative rearing, where we have a democratic approach and the child’s rights are respected, then the child is less gender typed, more confident, and more likely to be overall happier. This is was a critical point that Hwang makes. If we respect, forgive, value, and praise others then they will do the same back and everyone will be happier. Erickson’s developmental stages include Hwang’s ideas but only if the parents promote other-esteem. We start our circle of happiness and intimacy when we are born, we learn to trust and not trust people in our family and people that come over. Our parents are usually the first people in our circle of intimacy, because we see them and rely on them every single day. Our ring of friends begins as a toddler, but we do not start realizing and developing a stable ring of friends until we are young adults and learn our personal commitments. Even though this ring of friendship is constantly changing, and people will move in and out, by the time we are older adults and preparing for death we can see the ring of friends changing less and becoming more solid.

Language Development Issues

“If we want to view life from a different perspective, it is very important that we thoroughly assess what is stored inside the hard disk of our mind”(27). We need to be aware of the power our minds have over our feelings, and lives. The knowledge of our thinking process enables us to gain the insight into our thinking patterns that critically influence our feelings and direct our behavior. After we have done this we will be able to focus more on what others think say and feel and less on the “I” think say and feel. The words we choose everyday affects how we are perceived. If we want to achieve the first step of other-esteem, then we need to avoid verbal abuse such as put downs, insults, the tone of the words we use, and all other pragmatics of language. If we do this then our presence is welcomed and we are not a pain to be with. There are also some very simple ways of balancing our self-esteem with our other-esteem, like saying “thank you” when someone opens the door, or when the waiter refills your glass of water, or holding yourself back from cutting in line with your friend to see a movie, and not interrupting people. “Rudeness has no place in society”(16). What we say, how we say it and even what we don’t say affects how people perceive us and if we want people to perceive us for a person that’s not self-centered then we should learn to be courteous, friendly, and non-offensive. We need to be a little more aware of what we say when we are talking to people that speak different than us, because they may not understand what we are saying and they may take it the wrong way. This goes for people that are bilingual, people with different dialects, people that talk in slang, or jargon. Also we need to watch out when talking to different genders. Everyone can be misperceived, but if we are careful I think it will be less and easier to acquire Hwang’s goal of other-esteem. We need to acquire a healthy balance of other-esteem and self-esteem if we want people to perceive us differently and one place to start is by watching what you say and to think about what you are saying before you saying.

This book got me thinking about myself and how I was being perceived and if what I said was coming out the way that I wanted it to. It got me to wonder if I had a healthy balance of other-esteem and self-esteem. I would definitely recommend it to students taking this class in future because it gets you thinking about yourself, and I think that once you begin thinking about how you are reacting and what you are doing, then you will be more aware what others are doing, and so you will be more aware in the classroom. Which is why I think that other teachers may enjoy reading this book.