I have a confession to make. I am a victim of low self-esteem. I need a therapist. It takes almost three pages for the National Association for Self-Esteem to provide a definition for what exactly “self-esteem” is. The interesting thing is, after reading this three-page definition I still don’t know what it is.

So let me rephrase this: I don’t need a therapist – I need someone to hold me back from pummeling every person that uses the phrase, “Oh, he or she suffers from low self-esteem.”

A product of the 1960s, “self-esteem” is used on a daily basis to describe anything that makes someone feel bad. It is defined as “favorable appreciation or opinion of oneself,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. I didn’t know people actually held opinions about themselves.

Regardless, this highlights a distinct problem in our society. Preoccupations with the way people feel about themselves make society very inwardly focused. The bigger problem is that low self-esteem is often seen as an excuse for horrendous crimes – criminals just have low self-esteem.

The NASE seems to love this. “A close relationship has been documented between low self-esteem and such problems as violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, eating disorders, school dropouts, teenage pregnancy, suicide and low academic achievement,” they write.

Maybe John Wilkes Booth was just having a bad day when he decided to kill Lincoln. Or even better, maybe all Hitler and Saddam needed was a little Snickers bar to put a cheery smile on their faces.

Self-esteem is overrated and has been faultily emphasized and exaggerated as a cause for problems in our politically correct society. We want people to feel good about themselves and we blame all our problems on people not liking themselves when we should look to individuals’ upbringing, values and sometimes just plain insanity.

Those who take drugs or have eating disorders are not victims of low self-esteem. They are pressured by society and not taught correctly by parents. The self-esteem phenomenon makes matters worse by convincing these people that they have an inherent psychological problem when all they need is some discipline and a proper upbringing.

In the mid-1980s, California was the scene of extensive self-esteem advocacy. Then-Governor George Deukmejian and Assemblyman John Vasconcellos organized a task force to examine issues of self-esteem that aimed, according to Scientific American agazine, to “reduce crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, school underachievement and pollution” and even to “help balance the state budget.”

The published results of the governor’s task force asserted that “many, if not most, of the major problems plaguing society have roots in the low self-esteem of many of the people who make up society.”

Meanwhile the authors of the Scientific American article came to the conclusion that, “We have found little to indicate that indiscriminately promoting self-esteem in today’s children or adults, just for being themselves, offers society any compensatory benefits beyond the seductive pleasure it brings to those engaged in the exercise.”

Amidst all the feel-goodness of today’s pop culture, self-esteem has become a beacon of hope for those who thrive in a make-believe, emotional paradise.

But the world is not concerned with an individual’s opinion of himself or herself, nor is it pertinent for children growing up to be so inwardly focused. This is the attempt of the selfish generation of the ’60s trying to leave a lasting impression other than drugs and promiscuous sex.

Self-esteem has become a common term in today’s society, and unfortunately the self-esteem revolution has led to the term’s everyday use as an excuse for any sort of problem. Criminals have found an excuse for their actions, and people are now delusional about the value of their self-opinion.

When I say that I am a victim of low self-esteem, it is not that I am a criminal, but rather that I am subject to the stupidity and empty-headedness of that phrase and the people that use that phrase everyday.

Self-esteem is overrated.

Michael Birrer is a sophomore in the College.