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The Importance of Self-love

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Updated: 11 December, 2023

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Works Cited

Baumeister, R. F., & Campbell, J. D. (1999). The Psychology of Self-Esteem: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Understanding that Launched a New Era in Modern Psychology. Jossey-Bass.
Branden, N. (1994). The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by the Leading Pioneer in the Field. Bantam Books.
Chaudhary, H., & Kaur, P. (2015). Role of self-esteem in building healthy relationship among adolescents. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(2), 216-219.
Crocker, J., & Park, L. E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 392-414.
Harter, S. (1999). The Construction of the Self: A Developmental Perspective. Guilford Press.
Heatherton, T. F., & Polivy, J. (1991). Development and validation of a scale for measuring state self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(6), 895-910.
McKay, M., Fanning, P., & Davis, M. (2007). Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem. New Harbinger Publications.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton University Press.
Ruffin, J. (2016). Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Sowislo, J. F., & Orth, U. (2013). Does low self-esteem predict depression and anxiety? A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 213-240.

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Self-Esteem

You cannot love someone else until you learn to love yourself..

Posted November 12, 2019 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

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Most of us know what self-love is but do not understand it. You eat because you understand that you need nourishment. It is sad that most of us are trying to conquer external battles like finding love, finding success, or finding happiness , but we do not understand that self-love is the root from which everything grows.

How can we love the next person effectively before we have learned to love ourselves unconditionally? When you love yourself conditionally, you cannot love another unconditionally, because why give someone else something you do not have? Our understanding of self-love is learned during childhood from those that cared for us. In most cases, it is taught unconsciously; we just got a glimpse from watching those that nurtured us.

Self-love is more than just wearing nice attire and applying bouts of expensive makeup and then claiming that you love yourself. Self-love is an umbrella term for different acts of love we perform toward ourselves physically and non-physically. There are many well-groomed people that I know who have no clue what it means to love themselves. To love yourself is not an act of selfishness, it is an act of kindness toward others because when you love yourself, others don't have to deal with your unresolved problems.

Self-love comprises four aspects: self-awareness, self-worth, self-esteem and self-care.

If one is missing, then you do not entirely have self-love. To have it, we should be aligned with these four aspects. The journey of achieving self-love does not differ from confronting your demons. It is the reason most of us lack it, because no one wants to sit down and have a conversation with themselves. Self-Love is hard to achieve because it means having to do away with certain things and people we are addicted to. Our addiction to people and habits that go against the premise of self-love means that we compromise and hence love ourselves conditionally, in exchange for the momentary rush we get from these distracting things.

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is being aware of your thought processes: your thoughts, how they affect your emotions, and how emotions cause you to act. Are you aware of the thoughts that make you feel angry and make you act impulsively? Where are they coming from, and why are they there? Why do they cause you to act the way that you do? The same applies to what makes you happy. Why does it make you happy? It is stepping out of yourself to examine yourself. Self-awareness is the key to emotional intelligence . What makes you mad might not stop making you mad, but you will know how to respond effectively or how to not respond at all. People with high emotional intelligence have emotions just like we do. But they step out of their emotions to process them effectively. This also includes moving away or avoiding situations that you know will trigger certain undesirable feelings and reactions within you. If you cannot move away or avoid the situation, self-awareness enables you to redirect the energy you are putting in those emotions. One way to improve your self-awareness is to keep a journal of your thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Because of the continuous negative programing that we face in society, we focus on the bad and unpleasant things and project this negativity onto ourselves so often without even realizing it. You are born with an endless sea of potential; You have it now and you will have it till the day you die. Just like we cannot create or destroy energy, we can only explore or hide potential. Self-worth is the beliefs we have about ourselves, and often we struggle to believe in ourselves. This is because of past unfortunate circumstances we have been through that we have not fully shaken off. Self-worth lies in all the good things about you. Everyone has something good about them. If you struggle to find your self-worth, find a day that you can spend picking out the things you have done right or the things that other people have appreciated about you. You may be a pushover because you don’t know your worth. There is never a day that you are not worthy. Self-worth is not determined by anything; you don’t have to do anything to be worth it. You just are. Know that and understand that. Your strengths, talents, and kind acts toward other people are just an expression of your self-worth.

Self-esteem

Self-esteem results from self-worth. A high sense of self-worth results in high self-esteem. Self-worth is the realization that we are valuable regardless of what we have achieved or the qualities we may have; self-esteem is more tied to our qualities and achievements. The exercise mentioned above appeals more to self-esteem but I used it for self-worth because we work better with things that we can see rather than things we can’t. When you develop a sense of self-worth, self-esteem will come more naturally. Self-esteem deals with three factors—how we were loved as children, the accomplishments of the people in our age group, and how well we have accomplished compared to our childhood caregivers. Self-esteem has everything to do with being content and comfortable with who you are, where you are, and what you have. If you want self-esteem, improve your self-worth. Remind yourself every day that you need not justify your existence. Your need to accomplish certain things is often because of your need to justify your existence.

This aspect that has more to do with the physical but it is not entirely physical. Self-care is all the acts we do to keep ourselves healthy, like taking a bath, eating a balanced diet , staying hydrated, and doing things that we love. Self-care can also take form of watching what you consume, like the music you listen to, the things you watch, and the people you spend time with. Compared to the other aspects of self-love, self-care is easier to do. It is best to start here on your journey toward discovering self-love.

Ask yourself this question as often as you can: “What would someone who loves themselves do?” Ask yourself this question whenever you need to make a decision, be it trivial or important. This exercise will come with one tip and one warning.

Tip: Trust your instinct; your inner self knows best.
Warning: You will not always like what your instinct tells you to do.

Sarah-Len Mutiwasekwa is a mental health advocate whose efforts are invested in breaking the stigma around talking about mental health and increasing awareness of these issues in Africa.

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Self-Love and What It Means

Happy woman practicing self love and self care

What is self-love?

Before a person is able to practice it, first we need to understand what it means.

Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others. Self-love means not settling for less than you deserve.

Self-love can mean something different for each person because we all have many different ways to take care of ourselves. Figuring out what self-love looks like for you as an individual is an important part of your mental health.

What does self-love mean to you?

For starters, it can mean:

Talking to and about yourself with love
Prioritizing yourself
Giving yourself a break from self-judgement
Trusting yourself
Being true to yourself
Being nice to yourself
Setting healthy boundaries
Forgiving yourself when you aren’t being true or nice to yourself

For many people, self-love is another way to say self-care. To practice self-care, we often need to go back to the basics and

Listen to our bodies
Take breaks from work and move/stretch.
Put the phone down and connect to yourself or others, or do something creative.
Eating healthily, but sometimes indulge in your favorite foods.

Self-love means accepting yourself as you are in this very moment for everything that you are. It means accepting your emotions for what they are and putting your physical, emotional and mental well-being first.

How and Why to Practice Self Love

So now we know that self-love motivates you to make healthy choices in life. When you hold yourself in high esteem, you're more likely to choose things that nurture your well-being and serve you well. These things may be in the form of eating healthy , exercising or having healthy relationships .

Ways to practice self-love include:

Becoming mindful. People who have more self-love tend to know what they think, feel, and want.
Taking actions based on need rather than want. By staying focused on what you need, you turn away from automatic behavior patterns that get you into trouble, keep you stuck in the past, and lessen self-love.
Practicing good self-care. You will love yourself more when you take better care of your basic needs. People high in self-love nourish themselves daily through healthy activities, like sound nutrition, exercise, proper sleep, intimacy and healthy social interactions.
Making room for healthy habits. Start truly caring for yourself by mirroring that in what you eat, how you exercise, and what you spend time doing. Do stuff, not to “get it done” or because you “have to,” but because you care about you.

Finally, to practice self-love, start by being kind, patient, gentle and compassionate to yourself, the way you would with someone else that you care about.

- Written by Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D. , President & CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. This blog post also appears on the Gravity Blankets Blog .

Find more articles containing tips and advice by clicking here.

7 Ways to Practice Self-Love

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What Is Self-Love?

How to practice self-love.

Having self-love involves having an appreciation and respect for yourself. That includes taking care of your physical and mental health. Although most people are busy, it's important to take time to nourish yourself and treat yourself with the love and kindness you deserve.

Self-love is having regard for our own well-being and contentment according to the American Psychological Association.

While self-care proponents suggest taking baths and getting massages, loving yourself goes much deeper than splurging once in a while on pleasures like these.

Self-love should be a daily activity in which you check in with yourself and treat yourself the way we treat loved ones.

The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation says that self-love comes from actions that support physical, psychological, and spiritual growth.

What Self-Love Is Not

Some critics think self-love is a modern concept and is merely self-indulgence. They view self-love as excessively focusing on yourself and akin to narcissism . But self-love is not about having a grandiose sense of self or being puffed up with self-importance. Self-love means taking care of your needs and recognizing that you have value.

The Importance of Self-Love

Your first relationship is with yourself and it’s the foundation of relationships with others. Loving yourself enables you to live in alignment with your values and to make healthy choices in your everyday decisions. Confidence , self-respect, self-worth, and self-love are all interconnected. As we deepen in love for ourselves, we can deepen the love we share with others.

Sometimes it’s hard to assert yourself and think about your own needs. While it might be considerate to practice self-love here and there, it's important to make it a daily practice .

Here’s how to incorporate self-love into your lifestyle.

Prioritize Your Well-Being and Mental Health

Your physical and mental health are directly correlated and how you feel physically can influence how you feel mentally and emotionally. When you begin loving and caring for your body, you’re directly and positively influencing your mental health, too. Eating and sleeping well is important in maintaining well-being and warding off illness. That means choosing healthy foods and getting adequate sleep every night.

Exercising regularly has a positive impact on your overall health as exercise decreases cortisol, the stress hormone, in your body.

Remember to give yourself time to take care of and value yourself. Struggling with mental health issues might require visiting a therapist, choosing online therapy , or turning to an app .

Embrace Self-Compassion

When you acknowledge your mistakes and accept your imperfections with kindness and without judgment, you exhibit self-compassion . Dr. Kristin Neff’s widely accepted definition of self-compassion has three components:

Self-kindness : feeling kindness toward ourselves rather than judgment, criticism, or shame
Common humanity : recognizing we are part of a common humanity as everyone makes mistakes rather than viewing ourselves as isolated beings unworthy of love and belonging
Mindfulness : viewing mistakes mindfully by having a perspective and not over-identifying with our failings

In a pilot study on self-compassion, scientists empirically tested the use of a writing intervention to determine if these self-compassion components influenced each other. Findings showed that the three components do mutually enhance each other.

Don’t Compare Yourself to Other People

When we are jealous of our friend’s promotion or feel we are lacking because we gained ten pounds while our neighbor is in great shape, it’s hard not to feel down. Social comparisons can cause stress. Comparison and competition may motivate you in ways that are helpful and not harmful. More often than not, they diminish us by causing stress, anxiety, guilt, and shame.

Social media has affected our mental health in not-so-great ways. We judge ourselves more harshly on a regular basis and don't feel good enough. High social media use has been linked to depression.

Set Boundaries

Drawing the line helps with stress management . Sometimes you have to say 'no' at work or to your family to preserve your energy. One-sided relationships have unequal distribution of energy, control, and thoughtfulness. Recognize your needs and carve out time to be thoughtful about yourself by setting boundaries.

Forgive Yourself

Cultivate ways to stop self-loathing in any form. Forgive yourself for your past mistakes and find ways to heal. To incorporate self-love in your daily life, don’t ruminate over mistakes and regrets. Rather than blame yourself for things that were probably out of your control anyway, turn to self-forgiveness.

A recent study finds that greater forgiveness is linked to less stress and a decrease in mental health symptoms.

Surround Yourself With Supportive, Loving people

Having social support is vital. You could reach out to receive your family’s love for you but if those relationships are strained or they’re not in the picture, invest in relationships with your friends and community and allow yourself to receive care and support from them.

Let go of toxic, draining, and one-way friendships. The goal is to fortify yourself with healthy interactions and people who believe in you, champion you, and support you in becoming more of who you are and want to be, not less.

If you think you’re in love but aren’t sure, remember that healthy relationships involve intimacy and deep emotional connection. Invest your time, energy, and care into platonic and romantic relationships that support, energize, and restore you.

Change a Negative Mindset

Positive thinking doesn’t mean ignoring problems. It means choosing to have a positive outlook as an approach to life that includes gratitude and many possibilities. Maybe it’s time to seek support to process your anger and release resentment and grudges , for example.

Holding onto and fixating on anger and hatred towards others can be damaging to our mental and emotional well-being and it can be an act of self-love and care to address it at the root cause.

Say kind things to yourself. Positive affirmations can boost your self-esteem and reduce your social fears. Remind yourself that you’re a kind person doing your best. Changing your perspective and focusing on things that you are grateful for and appreciative of can be immensely uplifting and is another way to practice self-love.

APA Dictionary of Psychology. Self-love .

The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. Self-love and what it means .

Rudolph DL, McAuley E. Cortisol and affective responses to exercise . J Sports Sci . 1998;16(2):121-128. doi:10.1080/026404198366830

Self-Compassion: Dr. Kristin Neff. Definition of self-compassion .

Dreisoerner A, Junker NM, van Dick R. The relationship among the components of self-compassion: a pilot study using a compassionate writing intervention to enhance self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness . J Happiness Stud. 2021;22(1):21-47.

Toussaint LL, Shields GS, Slavich GM. Forgiveness, Stress, and Health: a 5-Week Dynamic Parallel Process Study . Ann Behav Med . 2016;50(5):727-735. doi:10.1007/s12160-016-9796-6

By Barbara Field Barbara is a writer and speaker who is passionate about mental health, overall wellness, and women's issues.

Self-Knowledge and Self-Love

Open access
Published: 14 March 2015
Volume 18 , pages 309–321, ( 2015 )

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In this paper I argue for the claim that self-love is a precondition for self-knowledge. This claim is relevant to the contemporary philosophical debate on self-knowledge, but mainly because it draws attention to the role of claims of self-knowledge in the larger context of our ordinary practice of rationalizing and appropriating our actions. In this practice it is crucial for persons to open-mindedly investigate the limits of their own responsible agency, an investigation that requires a warm and gentle kindness to avoid both being too easy in welcoming and too merciless in resisting one’s own imperfections as a minded agent. This kindness, I argue, is grounded in an evaluative relation of caring , a type of relation that is incompatible with self-hatred.

Loving Eyes of My Own: Love, Particularity, and Necessity

The Best-Loved Self: Where to from Here?

Self-Knowledge

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When we rationalize our behaviour in ordinary everyday conversation, we do in a significant sense engage in projects of self-knowledge. This is not merely because we try to correctly report the mental states we are in, but also because we try to articulate the reasons for being in those states and – often in response to the questions of our interlocutors – because we intend to appropriate those reasons as our reasons, as reasons that really reveal some truths about ourselves. But self-knowledge does not come easy; an age-old platitude familiar since Socrates explained that to know thyself is the first and most difficult task for those who love wisdom. The advancement of contemporary scientific psychology has not relieved our predicament. Quite the contrary, or so it seems (Wilson 2002 ).

Part of the reason for this difficulty, as I argue in this paper, is that self-love is a precondition for self-knowledge, and it is self-love that is so hard to attain. If we want people to improve their self-knowledge we should encourage them to love themselves. Self-knowledge is not primarily the product of an epistemic relation between a knowing self and a known self, nor primarily the product of a rational relation between an expressive self and the accountable self spoken for. Rather, I argue, self-knowledge is the product of an existential and affective relation between a loving self and the self she loves to be.

The plan for the paper is as follows. In section 1 I discuss a small piece of ordinary conversation that involves questions of self-knowledge. Contrary to some dominant strands in contemporary analytic philosophy, I shall show that in such bits of conversation self-knowledge is not a narrow epistemic issue and is not about the actual mental state of the person in question. Rather, as I argue in section 2, when we talk about a person’s self-knowledge, we talk about the person’s capacity for reflexive self-determination, that is, their capacity for appropriating their thoughts and actions as their own . Footnote 1 Such appropriation requires the person to open-mindedly investigate the limits of their own responsible agency, an investigation that itself requires a warm and gentle kindness to avoid both being too easy in welcoming and too merciless in resisting one’s own imperfections as a minded agent. In section 3 I discuss the objection that my argument is vulnerable to the intelligibility of a person who hates themselves yet knows themselves. In response I argue that we have reason to believe that a truthful relation of self to self is grounded in an evaluative relation of caring , a type of relation that is incompatible with hatred.

1 Self-Knowledge in Rationalising Behaviour

As so-called non-epistemic accounts of self-knowledge have pointed out, bits of self-knowledge occur in ordinary conversations as part of the commonsensical routine to give reasons for one’s state of mind. (Moran 2001 ) Here is part of such an ordinary conversation:

— I am sorry, Frank, but I think I have to cancel our meeting of today. — Oh. Are you sure, Emma? — Yes. I am afraid I am. It is my son’s birthday tomorrow and I still have to buy him a present.

It is obvious for Emma that Frank does not ask her to closer inspect the content of her thought, as if he doubts whether Emma correctly reports what she thinks. Emma rightly understands Frank straightforwardly as inviting her to give him her reasons for her decision. Frank’s question expresses his entitlement to an explanation of her change of mind. It would be weird for her to merely repeat the content of her thought, adding “really” to emphasize that she knows what she thinks. For Emma to know what she thinks means in such ordinary conversations to know her reasons for the state of mind she is in.

This commonsensical focus on a person’s reasons for their state of mind can be used to clarify how a non-epistemic account of self-knowledge analyses the transparency and authority that are characteristic of self-knowledge. Emma’s self-knowledge is transparent because she does not need to inspect her mind in order to discover the evidence she will use to infer the state she is in. She merely needs to inspect the reasons themselves. She thinks about her son’s birthday, the present she still has to buy, the limited amount of time still available and the relative importance of her meeting with Frank. Weighing these reasons allows her to make up her mind and to determine the proper commitment to avow. Her self-knowledge is a feature of her being a rational, deliberative agent, not a feature of her capacity to introspect the contents of her own mind. Emma’s deliberation also elucidates the authority characteristic of self-knowledge. She does not collect solid evidence to make a sound estimation of what she believes about her appointment with Frank. Her first-personal authority is not inferential, not a matter of the reliability of her introspective capacities, but is a matter of her being a deliberative agent, of her being in charge of her mind. Emma’s self-knowledge is authoritative, because she is entitled to undertake commitments in her own name.

Frank’s situation with respect to Emma’s beliefs is, obviously, different. Epistemically speaking, Frank’s perspective is third-personal. He does need the evidence. Rationally speaking, however, Frank’s perspective is second-personal. He is not a somewhat displaced scientist who tries to read Emma’s mind, but a rational companion inclined to invite Emma to share her reasons with him. Frank is a deliberative agent too, disposed to weigh Emma’s reasons, not merely to determine the truth of Emma’s belief, but to make up his own mind about their meeting, and thus to engage with her in practical reasoning.

For Frank to engage with Emma in practical reasoning is – by the same token – for him to engage with Emma’s self-knowledge. Frank is not merely attending to Emma’s reasoning as an impersonal exercise of a general human capacity, namely practical rationality, but as a personalized example of the particular way in which Emma’s mind works. Here is a further unfolding of their conversation that might help to elucidate the point:

— Yes. I am afraid I am. It is my son’s birthday tomorrow and I still have to buy him a present. — I see. But, Emma, when we made this appointment last Friday you knew of course that it is your son’s birthday tomorrow. So why didn’t you plan to buy his present earlier? What went wrong?

Frank’s questions will contribute to a shared attempt of him and Emma to exercise their practical reason. Frank asks for Emma’s reasons to treat the reasons she mentions as sufficient for her conclusion to cancel the meeting. This might bring about an exchange of reasons that leads to the articulation of a tree of hierarchically ordered pro- and con-reasons, a tree that hopefully grows into a substantial set of reasons both accept as conclusively supporting Emma’s decision to cancel their meeting. But it is unlikely and uncommon for this set to be an impersonal and decontextualized set of reasons. Frank asks Emma for her reasons in the present scenario. He wants to understand why Emma considers her reasons to be sufficient for her decision about their meeting later this day.

There are three issues at stake here. First, there is a question about the frame within which Emma’s reasons may be conclusive for her decision to cancel the meeting. Frank seems to question Emma’s reasons for treating this frame as an established fact. Emma may actually have no reasons for this, or at least, no reasons she paid attention to. Perhaps Emma just did not plan her days well enough, and has to acknowledge, with some embarrassment, that it is indeed a fact now that her son’s birthday is tomorrow and that she has no present yet. If she would have been a more attentive person she might have considered this yesterday, as indeed Frank is suggesting. Perhaps her earlier negligence should be added to the balance of reasons which might then turn out to count against Emma’s decision. Frank, we may say, is questioning the rationality of Emma’s background narrative. This is the narrative that explains what it means for her to be a rational agent. This narrative employs Emma’s implicit assumptions about the limits of her agential space, the depth of her moral luck, the degrees of freedom she enjoys and the scope of her need to take responsibility. (Wolf 2004 ) It is, for instance, just Emma’s impulsive and procrastinating way of doing things that puts her and Frank in this uncomfortable situation that she now leniently tries to resolve by confronting Frank with what she suggests is an established fact.

This brings in a second issue. Emma is not merely presupposing the rationality of an isolated narrative of her own life, that depicts her as a particular kind of rational agent, but she is also attuning to Frank’s style of reasoning. Part of her background story is a story about the specific agent she takes Frank to be. Emma apparently expects Frank to accept the frame of her reasons as a fact and the force of her reasons as conclusive. Emma may be right. There may be a history they share in which Frank has given her ample reason to think he is easy-going. No doubt Emma would not expect just anybody to accept her reasons for cancelling a meeting in this relaxed way. If she would know that Frank is a very rigid and neurotic person who needs a lot of stability and structure, she would surely have adapted her reasoning automatically to suit Frank’s style of practical reasoning.

The third issue concerns the quality of Emma’s assessment of the salient features of the scenario as they strike her within the frame she mindlessly assumes to be in place. We don’t know that much about Emma, Frank and their relationship based on this short conversation, but we might plausibly infer that their meeting is not an event of great importance. It seems not much of a serious appointment given that Emma thinks it can be cancelled one-sidedly. Should it have been a job interview or their first meeting after an amazing one-night stand, it would be quite unlikely that Emma would introduce her son’s birthday present as a potentially sufficient reason for cancellation. Their meeting is clearly a casual event, likely to be easily replaceable by another one.

To summarize, Emma’s rationalisation reveals bits of self-knowledge because it builds on her implicit assumptions about (1) the basic narrative of her life as lived by the kind of agent she is, (2) the rational requirements she and her interlocutors are inclined to respect, and (3) the saliency of particular features of the scenario she finds herself in.

Emphasizing these issues allows me to clarify the distinction between self-knowledge as it is commonsensically understood by ordinary people and as it is often discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. Philosophers tend to focus on the single, occurrent state of knowing the content of one’s actual mental state. This implies a serious exclusion on two sides of the self-relation. On the side of the knowing self philosophers tend to restrict their attention to the current subject of a single belief, the actual entity referred to by “I” in a self-report at the moment of its expression. Thus, in the case of Emma the knowing subject is considered to be the actual reflecting person, Emma, who has made up her mind in deliberation and who is now in a mental state of entertaining (as philosophers call this) the balance of reasons for and against cancelling her meeting with Frank. Focusing thus exclusively on Emma’s current reflective state of mind is likely to neglect the role of Emma’s tacit knowledge of the background assumptions that co-determine the balance of reasons in important ways.

On the side of the known self philosophers tend to restrict their attention to the explicit propositional content of the mental state reported by the reflecting person. In Emma’s case this is the mental state she is in in virtue of her deliberately having settled the issue of whether or not to cancel her meeting with Frank. Focusing thus exclusively on the propositional content of the mental state that concludes Emma’s deliberation, and that Emma reports as the state she is in, is likely to neglect the rich significance of the narrative background against which Emma’s decision stands out as meaningful.

However, the ordinary understanding of a person’s self-knowledge is quite different: it is a person’s general capacity to be in tune with herself, to know what kind of person she is and thereby to understand, and to endorse, the mental state she finds herself to be in. Self-knowledge is for ordinary people not the isolated surface phenomenon of being able to speak one’s mind, but rather the grasp of the implicit background narrative, of the rich content of one’s own autobiography that is tacitly assumed by someone who is “at home” in her own life. Incidentally, “home” can be used here by analogy to explain the difference between a ‘subject matter’ and the ‘instant object of a single belief’. If I say that I know my brother’s home it is very unlikely that I have seen it only once. “Home” is not a word used to refer to the instant object of a single belief, but rather a subject matter with which I am well acquainted, both over time and affectively. Footnote 2 The same is true about the way in which ordinary people use the word “self”. Someone who knows herself is not an isolated subject who is capable of accurately reporting only once the propositional content of the current mental state she is in. Knowing oneself implies being well acquainted, both over time and affectively, with the key features of the narrative of one’s life. It is a matter of knowing the protagonist of one’s biography, the person living one’s life.

This means that the self-knowledge Emma displays by rationalizing her behaviour in this specific conversation with Frank, is much more than merely an epistemic relation between a knowing self and a known self. It is also much more than merely a rational relation between an expressive self and the accountable self spoken for. It is primarily, as I shall argue in the next section, an existential and affective relation between a loving self and the self she loves to be. I shall elaborate on this by discussing two alternatives of Emma. Footnote 3

2 Rationalisations: Lovingly Embracing One’s Limits

In the previous section I have introduced Emma and Frank, two people engaged in a rationalising conversation. One of them, Emma, reports a change of mind. Footnote 4 Whereas she initially intended to meet Frank this afternoon, she now wants to cancel their meeting. Frank asks her whether this is what she really wants, which is not a narrow epistemological question, but primarily an invitation to engage in a joint deliberation. That is, Frank’s question is primarily an expression of Frank’s entitlement to expect Emma to give him her reasons for not keeping her appointment. Emma, therefore, does not merely need reasons to justify her change of mind to herself, but she also needs reasons that are strong enough to expect Frank to grant her this change of mind even though this may be a disappointment to him. Footnote 5 Although the situation is obviously not heavily moral, it seems to fit the moral scheme of Emma owing Frank an explanation that he might have reason to consider unsatisfactorily.

This scheme of one person owing another person an explanation will prove useful to elucidate the structure of the self-relation characteristic of self-knowledge. To that end I shall introduce two alternatives of Emma that differ in their inclination to examine the limits of their agential space, that is, the scope of their commitment to take responsibility. For reasons that will emerge from my discussion I shall call them Evasive Emma and Truthful Emma .

Remember Frank’s uncomfortable question:

— I see. But, Emma, when we made this appointment last Friday you knew of course that it is your son’s birthday tomorrow. So why didn’t you plan to buy his present earlier? What went wrong?

Now this is how Evasive Emma responds:

(EE) — Well, I did plan to buy the present yesterday. But a colleague at work needed my attention. She was a real pain in the ass, absorbing all my time. That wrecked me. I just couldn’t reach the shopping mall before closing time.

And this is Truthful Emma ’s response:

(TE) —Well, buying the present was on my mind yesterday. But I had a bad day. A colleague complained about my work, and I guess she was right, which was rather embarrassing. It took away all my energy, so I went home early. I’m sorry.

I am aware of the fact that the possibly poor quality of these fictional replies and their specific details might be an obstacle to the force of my argument. But I take this risk because the argument needs the context of ordinary life and of commonplace excuses.

Evasive Emma does not seem inclined to acknowledge that she has an obligation to apologize for her change of mind. She appeals to an externalizing story that tells itself as a sequence of events, events that happen to her and that simply overrule her willingness to meet with Frank. Despite her good intentions, the world just does not cooperate with her on this occasion. Evasive Emma invokes a quasi-objective perspective that seems to suggest that any reasonable person would have come to the same conclusion. There is nothing special or noteworthy about her. It is only to be expected that Frank will agree that the balance of reasons constrains her in this scenario: there is simply no other option available to her but to cancel their appointment. Evasive Emma suggests that the way the world is gives her a compelling excuse for her change of mind, as if she is really precluded by outside forces from meeting with Frank. She made up her mind, but she did so in this purely outward-looking way by paying attention to the rational force of the salient features of the scenario she found herself in. It would be inappropriate for Frank to be disappointed about her . If he is disappointed he is bound to confirm that she will be disappointed too, disappointed about the world that did not offer her any degree of freedom. Evasive Emma ’s story implies that it is futile to request her to take responsibility for her decision to cancel their appointment. She is obviously willing to do so, if pressed, but she had no choice. There was no reasonable option to do otherwise.

Truthful Emma ’s story is different. She apologizes to Frank without trying to use the way the world is to excuse herself. She personally feels sorry and responsible for changing her mind. She has her reasons, but she definitely recognizes that Frank may find these reasons wanting. She offers her personal perspective on the scenario she found herself in. She acknowledges that her reasons have much to do with her take of things, not merely in the sense of her having to take responsibility for weighing these reasons but also in the sense of her being a sentient, emotional being who is affected by the way the world confronts her and who has limited resources. She feels rather confident that Frank will agree with her because the balance of reasons she considered seems to provide her with a pretty reasonable excuse to cancel their meeting. But she acknowledges that she changed her mind and that Frank may be disappointed. And rightly so. She seems willing to live with that. Truthful Emma seems to endorse her reasons as if they offer herself a justifying excuse, that is, an excuse she may grant herself, self-consciously, even though she acknowledges too that Frank doesn’t owe her to grant her this excuse.

I introduce Truthful Emma and Evasive Emma to explore opposite tendencies we may distinguish in Emma’s dedication to self-knowledge. That is, I introduce these alternatives in an attempt to identify different directions on a continuum between, in one extreme, Emma’s absolute commitment to know herself and, in the other extreme, Emma’s absolute attempt to mask, conceal or obscure herself. In addition to this argumentative artifice I should like to use the interpersonal conversation between Frank and Emma as a frame for Emma’s ‘conversation’ with herself, that is, for her reflexive endeavour to articulate and endorse the reasons she takes herself to have for justifiedly making up her mind the way she does. This means that the picture I should like to suggest is that in exploring the responses of Truthful Emma and Evasive Emma to Frank’s challenge I offer an elucidating analogy for Emma’s self-relation as either contributing to a growth of self-knowledge or to a decrease of self-knowledge. The argument, thus, invites you to imagine what Emma would think of herself if she, rather than Frank, would be the addressee of Truthful Emma ’ s and Evasive Emma ’ s replies to Frank’s questions.

Truthful Emma is paradigmatically motivated to know herself. That is, she is reflexively interested in knowing what makes her make up her mind in the way she does. Note the double level. Truthful Emma has her reasons, and she knows they count in favour of cancelling her meeting with Frank. But in addition to acknowledging the normative import of these reasons, Truthful Emma is interested in knowing what makes these reasons her reasons, or stated the other way around, what makes her appreciate these reasons as sufficiently accounting for her change of mind. This reflexive interest reveals that Truthful Emma is aware of the fact that in making up her mind she is relying on implicit assumptions about (1) the basic narrative of the life she lives given the kind of agent she is, (2) the rational requirements she and her interlocutors are inclined to respect, and (3) the salient features of the scenario she finds herself in.

What does this fact tell Truthful Emma about herself? How should she relate to it? What should she make of it? It is in responding to these questions that Truthful Emma will recognize that her reasons for self-love are crucial to her self-knowledge. Let me explain.

To begin with, Truthful Emma wants to own the decision to cancel her meeting with Frank. That is, she wants to identify herself as Footnote 6 a person who actively makes up her mind, who intended to meet with Frank but now wants to cancel their meeting. Emma changed her mind, but for Truthful Emma this is not just an event that happens to her. It is a mental act for which she is willing to take responsibility. It is a change of mind that she undertakes and that she should be able to give her reasons for. The point is a familiar one for the non-epistemic, deliberative accounts of self-knowledge such as Moran’s. A crucial feature of knowing one’s own mind is after all the awareness of the fact that the mind one is supposed to know is one ’ s own mind. And ownership is not merely a brute factual relation but a normative relation: it is a matter of the person having a certain status with respect to the mind in question. (Brandom 2000 ; Kalish 2005 ; Benson 2005 ) Whatever she encounters in her mind calls for a deliberate and reasoned response.

But in appropriating Emma’s change of mind Truthful Emma will have to acknowledge that she treats the implicit background narrative about her life as a rational agent as offering her an excusatory justification for her change of mind. The idea is this. Emma’s resources to rationally justify her change of mind are obviously limited. This is a global feature of her human condition, involving among other things her dependency on all kinds of physical and biological processes, her emotional vulnerability, and her cognitive, linguistic and communicative limitations. It is for Emma – as for every human being – simply impossible to fully rationally appropriate her own mind. Emma changed her mind, and she has reasons for it, reasons Frank might accept as sufficient. These reasons, however, consist to quite some degree in the recognition of Emma’s limits. Her limitations frame the background narrative of her life as lived by the kind of agent she is. In everything she does and in every rationalisation she undertakes she implicitly assumes this background narrative. She revises it, for sure, adapting and accommodating it to the scenarios in which she enacts her life, but in many ways it will remain implicit and will uncritically reinforce limits that apparently will never be rationally scrutinized. It is unclear, however, how much the mindless reinforcement of these limits can carry by way of rationally justifying Emma’s being in the state of mind she happens to be in. Truthful Emma will therefore know that she takes for granted that the background narrative of her life gives her an excusatory justification to conclude her rationalisations at some essentially contestable point . The existence of such a contingent limit is a crucial, defining feature of her being the kind of deliberating agent she is. Footnote 7

In the case at hand, for example, Truthful Emma recognizes that the complaint of her colleague took away all her energy. Well… that might be a fact. But it is unclear in which sense this is a fact that gives Truthful Emma a reason to cancel her meeting with Frank, or a reason to expect Frank to accept this fact as a sufficient reason for Emma’s decision to cancel their meeting. Truthful Emma could of course offer further support for her contention that the fact does indeed give her a sufficient justifying reason to cancel her meeting with Frank. But whatever she would add in support of her decision, there would necessarily come an end to her rationalisations. And having reached that end, Truthful Emma can only hope, trust or assume that the background narrative of her life will support her contention to treat her reasons as sufficient. This means, in the end, that Truthful Emma will have to accept that she cannot do more than she can. This does not necessarily mean that, in some absolute sense, she has done enough to justify her change of mind. Truthful Emma will have to acknowledge that in the final analysis the background narrative of her life as a rational agent might amount to nothing more than the bare excuse that, as Wittgenstein famously observed, “this is simply what I do.” Footnote 8

Embracing her limits in this way is not a leap of faith. Truthful Emma is not embarked on a narrow epistemic or merely theoretically rational enterprise. Taking responsibility for the endorsement that she is right as a rational agent to cancel her meeting with Frank, is not merely a matter of accepting a proposition as true. Even though Truthful Emma is paradigmatically dedicated to know herself, I have already argued in section 1 that self-knowledge involves much more than merely an epistemic relation between a knowing self and a known self. Part of what more is involved is highlighted by non-epistemic theories that stress that self-knowledge crucially is a matter of avowal, of making true what is claimed to be true by acting on the balance of reasons that present themselves in the scenario at hand. But this balance is not, as we have now seen, merely an objective feature of the scenario an agent such as Emma finds herself in. The balance of her reasons is importantly co-determined by the background narrative that she implicitly accepts in making up her mind. Appropriating her decision as hers , therefore, entails Truthful Emma ’s acknowledgement that she accepts the responsibility to stand for an excusatory justification that her interlocutor, Frank, might have reason to consider insufficient.

Accepting this responsibility cannot be grounded in an impersonal and decontextualized set of reasons, but will be a matter of Emma’s capacity to lovingly identify herself as Truthful Emma . The reasons Frank is asking Emma for are, for Emma, not merely the reasons that make her change her mind. They are also reasons the appropriation of which shows Emma’s care for the person she could love to be. This is not a blind egocentric love. Truthful Emma ’ s ambition to know herself requires self-love, but it does not mean that she needs to proudly and narcissistically recognizes herself to be a lovely person, someone who it is a delight to know. Quite the contrary. Real love implies a warm and gentle kindness to welcome and embrace a person regardless of perceived weaknesses, flaws and imperfections. To be sure, these imperfections are not the reasons for Emma to love herself. They figure in her reasons to change her mind, and her appropriation of them as sufficient reasons for her change of mind discloses the self-love she needs to be true to herself about her imperfections. This is the kind of love Emma should be capable of, and it is the love Truthful Emma evokes by truthfully maintaining the delicate balance between being too kind and too harsh with herself, between being too easy in welcoming imperfections and too merciless in resisting them.

I have argued elsewhere that self-love essentially involves a concern for the quality of one’s own attunement as an agent to the normatively significant features of one’s environment. (Bransen 2006 ) I obviously cannot reconstruct this argument here, but hopefully a rough sketch of some of the highlights will do to explain the role of self-love in self-knowledge. Self-love is a feature of agents , living human beings that interact with their environment in ways that involve not merely the metabolic autopoiesis of living organisms but also a normatively structured self-regulation required for persons to maintain themselves in social and cultural environments. People’s deep and natural drive to care for themselves is a motivational state that is much the same as what Frankfurt has analysed as the volitional necessity that is characteristic of love. (Frankfurt 1994 , 2004 ) We cannot but care for the things we love. But importantly, loving ourselves is not a matter of acting out of self-interest. After all, besides volitional necessity love is crucially characterised by a deep disinterestedness. It is the well-being of the object of one’s love that motivates the lover. Whatever it takes – the lover is willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the object of love. This creates special difficulties but also special opportunities in cases where the lover and the object of their love are one and the same person. Self-love, I argued, requires a rather peculiar kind of self-relation, one that implies the reflexive capacity to discern an alternative of oneself that presents itself as an alternative one is capable of loving. (Bransen 2006 ) The identification of such an alternative requires contrastive knowledge of the different ways of maintaining one’s agency in a world that need not cooperate. Self-love, I argued, entails the capacity to distinguish between different alternatives of oneself and the affective experience of one’s peace of mind in imagining oneself to be this rather than that alternative.

With respect to the argument of the present paper, this short sketch of self-love suggests that Emma, in responding to Frank’s questions, should try to figure out whether she is capable of loving Truthful Emma or Evasive Emma . Exploring such contrasting alternatives is a familiar feature of self-determination. Think of such attempts to imaginatively project yourself into the future, to use Catriona Mackenzie’s phrase, when you try to determine whether you want to pursue a career as lawyer or as musician, or whether you better think of yourself as a banker or a sheep farmer instead (Mackenzie 2008 ; Bruckner 2009 ).

In this section I have explored whether Truthful Emma evokes feelings of self-love in Emma, and I have tried to argue that she does. Truthful Emma is motivated to determine the contours of her responsible agency and this requires her to sincerely and open-mindedly investigate the limits of her own agency in a world that need not cooperate, a world that might ruthlessly reveal her weaknesses, flaws and imperfections. To know herself Emma should not shy away from facing her own limits and shortcomings as a rational agent. Emma therefore needs to love herself to appreciate Truthful Emma ’s reasons as her own , that is, to determine the characteristics of her agency, which includes embracing her background narrative and its essentially contestable rationalising force.

In the next section I shall explore whether Evasive Emma is capable of self-knowledge without a warm and gentle kindness towards herself.

3 Is Self-Love Really Necessary for Self-Knowledge?

It may be objected that my argument so far merely supports the idea that self-knowledge presupposes that someone has an affective relation with oneself, but that it seems mistaken, or at least unwarranted, to claim that this relation should be a matter of love. The objection might take the form of accepting that Evasive Emma does not love herself – which I seem to have stipulated – but that it is unclear why she would lack self-knowledge. Evasive Emma might know that she went home early and that she did because she was painfully embarrassed by her colleague’s complaint. She might know that her colleague was right about her failure to perform as well as she should, given the responsibilities of her job. She might even know that she lacked the energy and the mood to buy her son a nice present. And it even seems plausible – why not? – that she knew all along that her failure to buy her son a present would imply that she would have to cancel her meeting with Frank. She might know all this, and precisely because of this self-knowledge, Evasive Emma might have been motivated to avoid reporting these truths, truths she knows but prefers not to share with Frank, perhaps even precisely in order to prevent the pain of one more confirmation that she is not worthy of her love. And, the objection might run, she even knows she is not worthy of her love, because she will disappoint Frank and even chooses to lie about that.

This might seem to be a psychologically plausible picture, perhaps even a convincing picture, so why do I make the ambitious claim that only Truthful Emma is authorized to know herself? Does my argument merely hinge on the question-begging use of the adjectives “evasive” and “truthful”?

Let me focus on Evasive Emma ’s alleged self-knowledge, by adding a confronting reply by Frank to his fictional conversation with Evasive Emma . Remember her original response:

And here is Frank, pressing Evasive Emma to challenge her self-knowledge:

(F) — Nice excuse, Emma. But I have my limits, you know. This has been your pattern for years. You don’t seem to take me serious at all. Just about any reason seems to be good enough for you to push me around. What do you think of me? And, beware, I don’t want you to talk about me, now, but about how you talk about me. What do you think of yourself? What kind of person are you, given that you think it is okay to treat me like this?

Now suppose Evasive Emma bites the bullet and responds quite frankly as follows:

— To be perfectly honest, Frank, here is what I think of you and of myself. I think you are a weak and insignificant person whose feelings don’t really matter. As for me: I am a proud, arrogant and self-involved person, convinced of my own superiority, even while I also can find my self-regard easily deflated by other people’s negative comments. And I despise myself for all of this. Footnote 9

What should be in place to make this a conceivable reply that displays Evasive Emma ’ s self-knowledge?

First, we should distinguish between a situation in which Evasive Emma overtly responds in this way to Frank and a situation in which she explicitly thinks of this reply but decides, for further reasons, not to be that sincere to Frank but to respond in a more shallow and concealing way. My argument, of course, cannot be built on merely the first type of situations. After all, as I said above, the interpersonal conversation between Frank and Emma functions merely as a frame for Emma’s ‘conversation’ with herself. If Evasive Emma is capable of thinking in an articulated manner about the above response, it doesn’t matter for her self-knowledge whether she chooses for additional reasons not to share her thoughts with Frank. But is she capable of formulating the above reply, and if she is, does this show she knows herself? What would it mean, for Emma, to know that everything she thinks here is true?

There are two issues that deserve attention. On the one hand Emma will have to face questions of coherency and on the other hand she will have to face questions of ambiguity. The objection claims that Evasive Emma has knowledge, knowledge of herself, and this means that the picture she has of herself should be coherent. This is an ordinary requirement for knowledge claims. Of course, the object one has knowledge of may be incoherent to a certain degree, but in such a case the incoherence should be a feature of the object, not of the propositions about the object. There are some ordinary limits to this possibility. Objects that are too incoherent lose their conditions of individuation and may turn out to be unintelligible. A tomato may be green and red, but not in the same spot at the same time. If you have knowledge of one tomato that is indeed both green and red your claims about the tomato’s colour should be coherent and they should explain in which sense this tomato is both green and red. You cannot just claim that it is but you should add spatiotemporal indices to specify when and where it instantiates those colours. In Emma’s case, this means that it may be possible that an incoherent set of propositions is true about her. It may, for instance, be true about her that she both believes that she is a helpless victim of an unpredictable world and believes that she is arrogantly using a false excuse because she is an irresponsible agent who does not care at all about other people’s entitlements. But also in this case we would need indices in the propositions that articulate the knowledge to guarantee that the propositions form a coherent set. What indices could these be?

From Frank’s point of view this need not pose a serious problem. Frank could simply think that Emma is incoherent, that she claims both to be a helpless victim and offends him by shamelessly admitting she doesn’t care at all about his feelings. He may add a mood index, thinking that Emma at first cowardly tried to get away with her excuses and later overstated her self-regard due to her anger. In such a way Frank could have a coherent picture of an incoherent person. But what options are there for Evasive Emma ? The difficulty, obviously, is that the coherency requirement for knowledge poses special constraints to instances of self-knowledge. The fact that the knowing self is the same person as the known self makes it quite difficult for someone to form a coherent set of claims that clearly articulate that there is no incoherence in this set of claims even though there is incoherence in the person who accepts these claims. If Evasive Emma really knows that everything she would want to say to Frank is true, then she should also know that her earlier reply was a false and lame excuse, and thus that she is not a helpless victim but a responsible agent with some degree of freedom. But if she knows that she is a responsible agent Evasive Emma needs to explain why she first tried to get away with a false excuse and why she responded with such a fury when Frank addressed her self-regard. She may add mood indices, but then, of course, if she claims to have self-knowledge, she needs to acknowledge the relevance of the right kind of mood for knowledge claims: an open-minded and sincere calmness to inspect, in an epistemologically virtuous way, the incoherence of her thoughts and actions. That is, if Evasive Emma explains her thoughts and actions in terms of her sensitivity to certain moods, she should wonder whether what she takes to be self-knowledge is itself also sensitive to one of her moods. Given that she is an ordinary human being, it is quite likely that she is sensitive to moods. But then she should at least wonder whether her self-hatred is the proper kind of mood for truthful and coherent claims of self-knowledge.

At this point questions of ambiguity arise, and they concern the issue of whether Evasive Emma is inclined merely to mask herself to Frank or also to herself. That she masks herself to Frank is clear. This is perhaps merely obvious in her first response, when she tried to put off Frank with a cowardly excuse, but it might also be true in her arrogant second response, in which her fury might preclude a clear view of the person Emma is. Interestingly, both her first and her second response apparently seem to suggest the same thing to her: that there is no reason for Evasive Emma to inspect the limits of her agential space. Yet the two responses are clearly contradictory with respect to where those limits are located. In ordinary cases such a contradiction would give Evasive Emma definitely a strong reason to at least wonder about the limits of her agential space.

So why doesn’t she inspect the scope of her responsible agency? Evasive Emma can give multiple answers. She simply knows she is a bad person, so there is no need to highlight the obvious. Or she doesn’t want to feel the pain of her blameworthiness. Or she doesn’t want to blame herself again. Or it is just obvious that she won’t get away with a really convincing excuse. Etcetera. All those answers strengthen the suspicion that perhaps Evasive Emma is masking herself not merely to Frank but also to herself , even in the case in which she merely considers the second reply in inner conversation. But if she is, the assumption that Evasive Emma has self-knowledge seems unwarranted, if not simply wrong because of the intrinsic ambiguity of her claims. Evasive Emma ’s self-hatred seems to motivate her to avoid the opportunity to potentially improve her self-knowledge by discouraging her to explore the limits of her responsible agency.

I take this to suggest that Evasive Emma ’s self-hatred motivates her to be too harsh to herself about the distinction between herself and her environment, which is just as bad for her self-knowledge as the narcissistic opposite of being too kind to herself about that distinction. Footnote 10 For self-knowledge Emma needs a firm grip of the delicate balance between being too easy in welcoming imperfections and too merciless in resisting them, a grip Evasive Emma is unable to offer because she avoids striking this balance. But Emma needs it to know herself; that is, to determine the precise scope of her responsible agency. (Tugendhat 1986 ) And she needs self-love for her grip on this balance, the warm and gentle kindness to welcome and embrace her agential space, large or small as it may turn out to be given the person she is – a responsible agent with weaknesses and strengths, flaws and blessings, imperfections and virtues.

If she wants to know herself, therefore, Emma must love herself. In thus knowing herself she will acknowledge that she is not merely an epistemically motivated knowing subject nor a merely rationally motivated avowing agent, but an affective, loving self motivated to care for the agent destined to live her life. It is this self-love that is essentially characteristic of truthful self-knowledge. It is this self-love that is challenged (and reinforced) in ordinary conversations that – at the surface level – mainly seem to challenge our self-knowledge.

My view of self-determination is influenced by Tugendhat 1986 .

This seems to be a convincing observation whatever the ontological commitments implied by our preferred account of personal identity. Cf. Holton 2001 , 55–6.

I am building here on earlier work on the concept of an alternative of oneself. See Bransen 1996 , 2000 , 2008 .

Although the emphasis in my argument shall be on changing one’s mind, the fact that a change is involved, does not restrict the plausibility of the argument to cases of self-knowledge that involve a change. One can of course also know one’s stable convictions, but in such cases my argument will apply too, in the other direction, as it were, as involving reasons not to change one’s mind.

We can imagine situations in which Frank is sensitive to different reasons than Emma. However, this does not play an important role in the argument of the next section, where I shall treat Frank as somehow merely a stand-in to emphasize that Emma needs to appreciate her own reasons from an outsider’s perspective.

As I have argued in Bransen 1996 , in matters of autonomous, responsible agency the preposition ‘as’ fits better with the verb “identify” than the much more common proposition “with”. Using “with” suggests a problematic division within the person that is not needed to account for responsible agency.

Here and elsewhere in my exposition of reflexive self-determination I am influenced by Tugendhat 1986 .

Wittgenstein ( 1953/2001 ), Philosophical Investigations , 217.

This response is suggested by an anonymous referee who was not convinced by an earlier version of my argument in this section.

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Acknowledgments

This paper has been in the making for too many years. I thank audiences in Oxford, Nijmegen, Rotterdam, Leusden and Modena for their helpful comments on predecessors of the present paper, especially Martin Weichold, Nicole van Voorst Vader, Fleur Jongepier, Michael Kühler, and Katrien Schaubroeck. I should especially like to thank an anonymous referee of this journal for numerous highly useful critical comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Bransen, J. Self-Knowledge and Self-Love. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 18 , 309–321 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-015-9578-4

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Learning to Love Yourself

By Jaclyn Durnil, MSW – Dec. 3, 2019

“If you can learn to love yourself and all the flaws, you can love other people so much better. And that makes you so happy.” – Kristen Chenowith

Why is it so difficult to love ourselves? Basically, the short answer to this question is that we were raised in a society that didn’t teach us about self-love. This may not seem very important to some, but self-love is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

Loving yourself provides you with self-confidence, self-worth, and in general, you feel more positive. If you can learn to love yourself, you will feel happier and will learn to take better care of yourself.

Looking in the mirror, most of us see a lot of different flaws and remember too many past experiences and failings to love ourselves. The less you love yourself, listen to yourself, and understand yourself, the more confused, upset, and frustrated you will be in life. When you begin to love yourself and continue to love yourself more and more each day, things slowly will be a little bit better in every way possible.

Unfortunately, self-love isn’t always easy.

Accepting the pain and allowing yourself to be honest with who you are is a big step to loving yourself. Forgive yourself for past actions and things you are ashamed of doing.

Carrying a lot of negative emotions like jealousy, disgust, and rage can have a negative impact. We need to learn how to accept not only the emotions that create love, joy, and happiness but also the ones that cause fear, insecurity, and anger in our lives.

While we need to learn how to acknowledge and accept the pain with the love, another step is reconciling with a cold and unopened heart. Asking yourself if you fully love yourself can be very difficult because you must accept your flaws and faults.

Love is something we choose, the same way we choose anger, hate, or sadness. We have the power to forgive someone who has hurt us in the past. We can learn to finally heal from something when we can forgive. We can always choose love.

Learning to love yourself leads to better self-care. Examples of this could be taking a break from time to time and accepting that no one is perfect and things happen.

Another example could be saying no to others when you really don’t have the time or energy to say yes. We often do too much for other people because we want to please everyone. We can forget to look after ourselves and then we become overwhelmed.

Today is the day you can love yourself completely with no expectations. Making the choice right now to choose your own love is the most powerful healing force you have.

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Increase Clients’ Self-Love: 26 Exercises & Worksheets

As Nestell Bovee said:

“Both our first and last love is self-love.”

Self-love is empathetic and understanding of flaws, and appreciative of the good within each of us.

Self-love is not only important, but necessary for positive emotional health and various facets of success.

This article will guide readers in nurturing and boosting self-love by providing more than 40 useful activities, worksheets, and resources. By taking advantage of this treasure trove of tools and information, individuals will find themselves on a pathway toward a more fulfilled and joyful life.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself and will give you tools to help your clients, students, or employees show more compassion to themselves.

This Article Contains:

Our 5 favorite self-love exercises, 2 exercises for your group sessions, 4 helpful worksheets, daily self-love: 3 activities and sheets, self-love and self-compassion: 12 useful techniques, a look at radical self-love exercises, science of self-acceptance resources, a take-home message.

While you may want to practice greater self-love, the question of how to get there may feel a bit overwhelming – but it doesn’t have to be. There are many self-love tools available, and we’ve compiled a generous list of them right here.

To begin with, here are five of our favorite exercises:

1. The Self-Esteem Check-up

This worksheet provides readers with greater insight into how they feel about themselves. The exercise contains a list of 10 statements referring to various aspects of self-esteem , which are then rated on a 1–4 scale in terms of agreement.

This instrument is useful to see where a person falls in terms of key indicators of self-love – an essential quality for the enhancement of positive wellbeing.

2. My Love Letter to Myself

This exercise promotes self-love by having individuals write love letters to themselves that emphasize their most valued attributes. The first step is to identify the top eight qualities they love most about themselves.

The reader then lists eight ways in which these attributes have benefited them in life.

The final step is for readers to note several ways to honor the above qualities.

This exercise is a loving way for individuals to practice self-love and self-kindness that will benefit them throughout their lives.

3. Emotional Wellness Quiz

The Emotional Wellness Quiz helps individuals identify the degree to which they recognize, accept, and manage feelings. Readers respond to 16 feelings, indicating how often they have experienced each one over the past month.

Scores are created for positive feelings, negative feelings, and all feelings combined.

This quiz helps readers to recognize their emotional IQ , which is an essential step toward enhancing it.

4. Who Am I?

The Who Am I worksheet enables individuals to enhance self-awareness by responding to six open-ended questions followed by several debriefing prompts. Readers first examine the fundamental question: “ Who Am I? ” In doing so, they can examine their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by responding to three questions, for example:

Other people frequently view us differently from the way we see ourselves. How do you think your closest friend or family member would describe you in one paragraph?

Three additional questions are included to identify external self-awareness, for example:

Now, try to forget others’ perspectives. If you were writing to your past self, what would you choose to include about who you are now?

Finally, readers debrief by considering several aspects of their responses, for example:

What stands out from your answers?
What steps can you take to keep building your self-awareness ?

This tool provides a simple way for individuals to practice introspection into both internal and external self-awareness, crucial for enhanced self-love.

5. Self-validation and Self-respect

The goal of this exercise is to help clients improve their self-confidence and self-esteem. The first step is to list three self-validating statements they have used in the past week.

The second step involves answering some questions that can help the client implement the process of validation on themselves.

A few questions include:

What was the situation?
What did you say?
What was the outcome?

This exercise can help the user become familiar with using self-validation as a positive method for improving self-confidence and self-esteem.

Such exercises, which may be utilized by counselors and teachers, are both fun and beneficial to everyone involved.

Here are two examples:

1. Things I Love

This worksheet involves having individuals share and discuss the things they love. Group members are instructed to work through a list of 10 categories and examples, which are provided in the worksheet.

By going through each category and sharing responses out loud, this exercise supports group cohesiveness and meaningful connections.

2. What I See in YOU

This group exercise is designed to enhance positive self-regard by providing each group member with insight into how others perceive them. This activity is based on the premise that individuals often hold negative self-appraisals that are inconsistent with how others seem them.

Group members are instructed to sit in a circle and, following a moment of reflection, say something positive about each person one at a time. After each compliment, the recipient is then asked to repeat the phrase with an “I” statement, for example:

Positive statement by group member	“I” statement by Mary
“	“
“	“
“	“

Download 3 Free Self-Compassion Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you to help others create a kinder and more nurturing relationship with themselves.

Download 3 Free Self-Compassion Tools Pack (PDF)

By filling out your name and email address below.

Here are four more helpful worksheets designed to promote self-love:

1. My Personal Beliefs

This worksheet helps individuals identify the beliefs and judgments they hold about themselves. The first step is to explore self-appraisals by responding to 10 open-ended questions.

The second step involves debriefing on those responses, which is aided by several prompts.

This exercise adds value by enabling people to first recognize their self-appraisals and then to replace them with those that are more self-loving.

2. I Will Survive

This worksheet helps readers appraise their coping skills and support systems used to deal with stress and adversity. Readers first identify a personal challenge they dealt with in the past. This involves writing freely about the event, as well as any feelings associated with it. They then consider how they survived the challenge and the personal resources they used to get through it.

For the second part of the worksheet, readers reflect on their external social support system. They first consider a meaningful goal or wish and write about it. Lastly, readers then consider a compliment they received that is related to the above goal or wish.

This instrument is a valuable way for people to recognize the strengths they have used in the past to overcome difficulties. In doing so, they will be in a better position to draw upon such strengths when encountering future challenges.

3. Exploring Character Strengths

The goal of this exercise is to help people recognize personal character strengths, which are described in terms of six virtue categories.

After reflecting on how they effectively dealt with past experiences, readers answer 10 open-ended questions designed to reveal character strengths .

Peterson and Seligman (2004, p. 4) noted that “ character strengths are the bedrock of the human condition and that strength-congruent activity represents an important route to the psychological good life. ”

This exercise provides an easy way for individuals to identify and nurture these powerful qualities.

4. Setting Valued Goals

This worksheet supports individuals in identifying personal values and creating goals toward achieving them. Readers first respond to open-ended questions assessing core personal values.

Next, from a list of 10 value domains, readers identify the top three they feel are important.

Readers then provide examples of how each of the values functions in daily life, as well as goals for achieving each of them. This worksheet offers a straightforward and meaningful way for people to reflect upon the values they hold dear and to create actionable ways to bring them to life.

By adding them to your daily routine, you will find that self-love comes naturally and is ultimately internalized.

Here are four ways to make self-love a daily habit:

1. Self-Love Journal

This worksheet guides individuals in engaging in daily journaling that promotes self-love and self-compassion, as well as healthy emotional self-expression . Readers are directed on how to journal and are provided with 10 prompts, for example:

List three things – or people – that you’re grateful for today.
What is one personality trait that you feel proud of?

Self-love journaling is a terrific way for individuals to remind themselves of their unique and wonderful attributes, which often go unnoticed as people go about their lives.

2. Self-Compassion Pause

This simple meditation provides an excellent way for individuals to uncover a more self-compassionate way of relating to themselves. Readers are instructed to follow 15 steps that can be spread out across numerous sessions. A few examples of statements that they can repeat include the following:

May I be filled with love and kindness.
May I be happy and at ease.
May I be safe.”

Several guided meditation instructions are also provided, for example:

Bring awareness to your breath for a few moments, paying attention to each inhalation You may place one hand on top of your chest and feel the warm sensation this may bring.

By regularly practicing this meditation, individuals are more likely to experience self-compassion during difficult times.

3. Catch Yourself Being GREAT

This fun worksheet uses positive reinforcement to boost positive self-regard. Readers are first asked to design a reward jar, using pens, stickers, or other art supplies. In doing so, a simple jar is transformed into a lovely object in which important messages will be stored.

The second step is to print the “ Monthly Good Deeds ” calendar and fill it in for the corresponding month. Then, each time they do a good deed for themselves or someone else, individuals add a gold star for that particular day. Examples of good deeds are also provided.

For the next step, each time a good deed is added to the calendar, a specified amount of money is inserted into the jar. By the end of the month, the money is used toward a special reward.

This exercise is guided by classic behavioral research by B. F. Skinner (1948), who demonstrated that desirable responses are increased when associated with meaningful rewards.

Subsequent studies have found an abundance of evidence supporting the power of positive reinforcement in increasing prosocial behaviors in both children (e.g., Lucyshyn, Dunlap, & Albin, 2002; Ramaswamy & Bergin, 2009) and adults (e.g., Martin, 2005; Robison, 2006).

How to practice self love – Psych2Go

There are many ways to bring more self-love and self-compassion into your life. Many of these practices are easy and even free, with invaluable benefits.

Here are 12 ideas:

Avoid labeling yourself : We often go through life with self-defeating labels that we may have connected with ourselves long ago (e.g., I’m not lovable, I am unsociable, etc.). Think about any labels you may be carrying and work toward substituting them with positive ones.
Don’t deprive yourself : If you are trying to diet or do something else difficult, be careful not to cut out too much pleasure from your life. This often leads to feelings of self-deprivation, which may sabotage your goal.
Listen to your gut/establish boundaries : If something doesn’t feel right deep in your gut, LISTEN!!
Make your needs clear : Few of us are mind readers. If someone in your life is letting you down, make sure they are fully aware of what you need.
Nurture yourself : This may be done a thousand ways. Think of what brings you peace and do more of it.
Prioritize your health and happiness : It is often the case that people are so busy caring for others that they place their own needs on the back burner. Don’t do this. You are of no value to anyone else if you are sick or miserable.
Remind yourself of your positive qualities each day : By using positive affirmations , you will feel better about yourself and your ability to take on the day.
Make peace with your past : By letting go of old hurts, you aren’t letting those who caused you pain off the hook. Instead, you are allowing yourself to move forward in a way that enables you to embrace the present.
Reward yourself : This is psych 101, as we are all guided by positive reinforcement. If you want to do more of something, reward yourself. The reward doesn’t need to be significant, just meaningful.
Don’t sabotage your health and happiness : Watch for destructive thoughts or behaviors that you may use unconsciously (e.g., causing chaos in a relationship out of fear of abandonment ).
Watch out for black-and-white thinking : Do not fall into the black-and-white trap. For example, if you’re trying to eat better and have a piece of cake, that’s okay. You are not a failure. Enjoy your cake, and continue to nurture yourself with healthier food next time.
Take care of your body through healthy eating : Remember that everything you put in your body is either fighting disease or feeding it. Do the necessary meal planning to ensure that you have plenty of healthy food on hand that will nurture your body and soul.

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Radical self-love is the purest form of self-love.

Taylor (2018, p. 6) described it as “ deeper, wider, and more expansive than anything we would call self-confidence or self-esteem… Including the word ‘radical’ offers us a self-love that is the root or origin of our relationship to ourselves. ”

Here are four ways to enhance radical self-love:

1. Self-Love Sentence Stems

This exercise may be used as a way to either inspire self-love journaling or as a standalone practice for those who prefer not to journal. Instructions are simple; the reader simply fills in the blank in a series of 20 statements.

By responding to these statements, individuals are better able to nurture and practice greater self-love, self-kindness, and self-compassion.

2. Spotting Self-Love

Each of the responses is then rated on a scale. Once they assess the responses, readers note their preferred responses and rates, and then write down the steps they might take to respond more consistently with their favorite answer in the future.

The vignettes provide readers with challenging situations.

For the final step in the exercise, the readers consider their reactions to the vignettes by responding to several questions.

By including vignettes, this worksheet provides readers with realistic, relatable examples of ways to enhance self-love.

3. Stacking the Deck – Radical Self-love Cards to Brighten Each Day

With this fun exercise , individuals create self-affirmation cards as a way to inspire, motivate, and enhance self-love. Readers are instructed to collect a stack of blank cards, art supplies (e.g., pens, stickers, photos, cut-outs, etc.), and positive affirmations, for example:

“ You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” (Buddha)
“You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” (Brené Brown)

Readers then decorate each card using a positive affirmation on each, along with artwork. The beauty of this exercise is that it results in creative and unique positive affirmation cards that individuals may take with them to promote self-love wherever they go.

17 Exercises To Foster Self-Acceptance and Compassion

Help your clients develop a kinder, more accepting relationship with themselves using these 17 Self-Compassion Exercises [PDF] that promote self-care and self-compassion.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Helpful resources to improves self-acceptance.

To support clients in enhancing self-acceptance, PositivePsychology.com offers the Science of Self-Acceptance Masterclass© . This innovative program provides practitioners with a research-based approach that will help clients divert their unhealthy attempts to increase self-esteem (an often unachievable goal) toward the much more useful construct of self-acceptance.

Taught by a highly experienced psychologist and researcher, Dr. Hugo Alberts, this course promotes healthy relationships with the self by acknowledging that low self-acceptance is the basis for many psychological and emotional issues. Dr. Alberts notes that despite high self-esteem , achieving a meaningful and contented life is an unrealistic objective in the absence of self-acceptance.

The masterclass contains eight modules of live recordings; a comprehensive science-based handbook; and numerous audio files, worksheets, exercises, illustrations, PowerPoint slides, and other useful resources. Overall, by guiding individuals in how to change approval-seeking narratives, the masterclass promotes a deep and long-lasting sense of worthiness.

Along with the masterclass, several self-awareness books substantiate the importance of self-love.

Here are five examples:

1. The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook

This science-based workbook provides readers with numerous resources and activities aimed at enhancing greater self-kindness and self-compassion.

It contains an eight-week mindful self-compassion program, which includes guided meditations and practical exercises, and various vignettes focused on common issues.

The goal of the book is to provide readers with valuable tools aimed at promoting self-compassion and the numerous positive outcomes associated with it.

Available from Amazon .

2. The Strength of Self-Acceptance

This book acknowledges the link between self-acceptance and positive mental health outcomes. It includes a comprehensive collection of research supporting the benefits of self-acceptance.

Insight from numerous leaders in the area of self-acceptance is included (e.g., Maslow, Rogers, Ellis, etc.), as well as knowledge drawn from Buddhist philosophy and Christian scripture.

The book provides a valuable research-based tool for practitioners intending to enhance positive fulfillment and self-acceptance in their clients.

3. The Happiness Trap

The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living

This book describes the research-grounded psychotherapeutic approach of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Rather than trying to change oneself, the technique outlined in the book guides readers in how to develop mindfulness that will allow them to live in the moment. In doing so, ACT helps individuals to minimize self-doubt and stress, thereby enhancing life satisfaction and meaning.

4. How to Be an Imperfectionist

This book contains simple science-backed techniques and is based on the premise that continuously striving to be perfect is a damaging mindset fueled by self-doubt and the need for approval.

The author describes the freedom that comes with being an imperfectionist. In doing so, individuals can remove the limits of perfectionism, enabling them to achieve positive wellbeing by accepting their flaws and mistakes.

5. The Self-Acceptance Project

This book contains a powerful collection of essays aimed at helping readers avoid the endless self-judgment and lack of satisfaction associated with low self-acceptance.

Numerous experts and spiritual guides contributed to the book, providing insights into such areas as removing the trance of unworthiness (Tara Brach), reconnecting with a sense of aliveness (Mark Nepo), moving from self-criticism to self-compassion (Dr. Kelly McGonigal), and practicing compassion for the self-critic (Dr. Kristin Neff).

With its 19 essays, the book provides readers with the inspiration and practices needed to establish meaningful, loving, and compassionate relationships with themselves.

Rockwell (2019) speaks of the necessity of creating a radical self-love movement with the power of mindfulness and love as the healing balm .

Unfortunately, without this healing balm, many of us grapple with feelings of low self-worth, guilt, and inadequacy that do nothing but enhance misery. Yet, we can turn these thoughts around in a way that is both kind and loving to the self. Doing so is worth the effort, as the benefits of practicing self-love are well supported by scientific literature.

This article has provided numerous worksheets, activities, resources, and ideas to get you started on your journey to greater self-love. Remember, not only is there is no selfishness in self-love, but as the Dalai Lama said:

we can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free .

Bernard, M. (2013). The strength of self-acceptance: Theory, practice and research. Springer.
Gaskell, A. (2017). New study finds that collaboration drives workplace performance. Forbes . Retrieved on July 9, 2020 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2017/06/22/new-study-finds-that-collaboration-drives-workplace-performance/#693118213d02
Guise, S. (2015). How to be an imperfectionist: The new way to self-acceptance, fearless living, and freedom from perfectionism. Selective Entertainment.
Harris, R., & Hayes, S. (2011). The happiness trap: How to stop struggling and start living: A guide to ACT. Trumpeter.
Linley, P. A. (2008). Average to A. Realising strengths in yourself and others. CAPP Press.
Lucyshyn, J., Dunlap, G., & Albin, R. (2002). Families and positive behavior support: Addressing problem behavior in family contexts. Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
Martin, A. (2005). The role of positive psychology in enhancing satisfaction, motivation, and productivity in the workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management , 24 , 113–133.
Neff, K., & Germer, C. (2018). The mindful self-compassion workbook: A proven way to accept yourself, build inner strength, and thrive. Guilford Press.
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.
Ramaswamy, V., & Bergin, C. (2009). Do reinforcement and induction increase prosocial behavior? Results of a teacher-based intervention in preschools. Journal of Research in Childhood Education , 23 , 527–538.
Robison, J. (2006). In praise of praising your employees: Frequent recognition is a surefire — and affordable — way to boost employee engagement. Gallup . Retrieved on July 9, 2020, from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236951/praise-praising-employees.aspx
Rockwell, D. (2019). Mindfulness in psychotherapy and love as the healing balm. The Humanistic Psychologist , 47 , 339–343.
Simon, T. (Ed.). (2016). The self-acceptance project: How to be kind and compassionate toward yourself in any situation. Sounds True.
Skinner, B. F. (1948). ‘Superstition’ in the pigeon. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 38 , 168–172.
Taylor, S. (2018). The body is not an apology: The power of radical self-love. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

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Great Resources, very useful. Thank you so much for sharing them.

These worksheets don’t help me at all. It’s literally impossible for me to think positively about myself because I know I’m just lying to myself. Almost everyone I meet actively dislikes me too, so it’s not like it’s all in my head. Just gonna off myself I think. Been trying to years to not hate myself and I haven’t made any progress at all. Wish I was aborted

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Hope that you found the Mental Health support that you need Bb.

excellent resources available here! thank you

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In this paper, I argue that Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of self-overcoming has been largely misinterpreted in the philosophy of education journals. The misinterpretation partially stems from a misconstruction of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, and leads to a con- ception of self-overcoming that is inconsistent with Nietzsche’s educational ideals. To show this, I examine some of the prominent features of the so-called ‘‘debate’’ of the 1980s surrounding Nietzsche’s conception of self-overcoming. I then offer an alternative con- ception that is more consistent with Nietzsche’s thought, and provides a more nuanced understanding of Nietzsche’s ‘‘anti-democratic’’ pedagogy. Ultimately, I argue that while Nietzsche’s educational philosophy is not egalitarian, it can be effectively utilized in ‘‘democratic’’ classrooms, assuming his concept of self-overcoming is properly construed.

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Thomas Merton, prolific spiritual and monastic author, is well known and studied; yet the influence upon Merton's thought of his teacher from Columbia University, Daniel Clark Walsh, is not taken into account by Merton scholars. A knowledge of the teachings of Walsh on the notion of the person helps to reveal the metaphysical depths in Merton's thought and to clarify

Study of Changing Societies: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Focus, Vol. 2'(4) 2012

Tanja Dibou

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The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator

Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others.

A photomontage illustration of Donald Trump.

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When a madman hammered nearly to death the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump jeered and mocked . One of Trump’s sons and other close Trump supporters avidly promoted false claims that Paul Pelosi had somehow brought the onslaught upon himself through a sexual misadventure.

After authorities apprehended a right-wing-extremist plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump belittled the threat at a rally. He disparaged Whitmer as a political enemy. His supporters chanted “Lock her up.” Trump laughed and replied , “Lock them all up.”

Fascism feasts on violence. In the years since his own supporters attacked the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election—many of them threatening harm to Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence—Trump has championed the invaders, would-be kidnappers, and would-be murderers as martyrs and hostages. He has vowed to pardon them if returned to office. His own staffers have testified to the glee with which Trump watched the mayhem on television.

Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well. The attempted murder of Trump—and the killing of a person nearby—is a horror and an outrage. More will be learned about the man who committed this appalling act, and who was killed by the Secret Service. Whatever his mania or motive, the only important thing about him is the law-enforcement mistake that allowed him to bring a deadly weapon so close to a campaign event and gain a sight line of the presidential candidate. His name should otherwise be erased and forgotten.

It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence “has no place” in American society. Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016 , and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election. Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. The Mussolini movement in Italy built imposing monuments to its fallen comrades. The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance.

Christopher R. Browning: A new kind of fascism

The 2024 election was already shaping up as a symbolic contest between an elderly and weakening liberalism too frail and uncertain to protect itself and an authoritarian, reactionary movement ready to burst every barrier and trash every institution. To date, Trump has led only a minority of U.S. voters, but that minority’s passion and audacity have offset what it lacks in numbers. After the shooting, Trump and his backers hope to use the iconography of a bloody ear and face, raised fist, and call to “Fight!” to summon waverers to their cause of installing Trump as an anti-constitutional ruler, exempted from ordinary law by his allies on the Supreme Court.

Other societies have backslid to authoritarianism because of some extraordinary crisis: economic depression, hyperinflation, military defeat, civil strife. In 2024, U.S. troops are nowhere at war. The American economy is booming, providing spectacular and widely shared prosperity. A brief spasm of mild post-pandemic inflation has been overcome. Indicators of social health have abruptly turned positive since Trump left office after years of deterioration during his term. Crime and fatal drug overdoses are declining in 2024; marriages and births are rising. Even the country’s problems indirectly confirm the country’s success: Migrants are crossing the border in the hundreds of thousands, because they know, even if Americans don’t, that the U.S. job market is among the hottest on Earth.

Yet despite all of this success, Americans are considering a form of self-harm that in other countries has typically followed the darkest national failures: letting the author of a failed coup d’état return to office to try again.

One reason this self-harm is nearing consummation is that American society is poorly prepared to understand and respond to radical challenges, once those challenges gain a certain mass. For nearly a century, “radical” in U.S. politics has usually meant “fringe”: Communists, Ku Kluxers, Black Panthers, Branch Davidians, Islamist jihadists. Radicals could be marginalized by the weight of the great American consensus that stretches from social democrats to business conservatives. Sometimes, a Joe McCarthy or a George Wallace would throw a scare into that mighty consensus, but in the past such challengers rarely formed stable coalitions with accepted stakeholders in society. Never gaining an enduring grip on the institutions of state, they flared up and burned out.

Trump is different. His abuses have been ratified by powerful constituencies. He has conquered and colonized one of the two major parties. He has defeated—or is on the way to defeating—every impeachment and prosecution to hold him to account for his frauds and crimes. He has assembled a mass following that is larger, more permanent, and more national in reach than any previous American demagogue. He has dominated the scene for nine years already, and he and his supporters hope they can use yesterday’s appalling event to extend the Trump era to the end of his life and beyond.

The American political and social system cannot treat such a person as an alien. It inevitably accommodates and naturalizes him. His counselors, even the thugs and felons, join the point-counterpoint dialogue at the summit of the American elite. President Joe Biden nearly wrecked his campaign because he felt obliged to meet Trump in debate. How could Biden have done otherwise? Trump is the three-time nominee of the Republican Party; it’s awkward and strange to treat him as an insurrectionist against the American state—though that’s what Trump was and is.

David Frum: Biden’s heartbreaking press conference

The despicable shooting at Trump, which also caused death and injury to others, now secures his undeserved position as a partner in the protective rituals of the democracy he despises. The appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life have the additional effect of habituating Americans to Trump’s legitimacy. In the face of such an outrage, the familiar and proper practice is to stress unity, to proclaim that Americans have more things in common than that divide them. Those soothing words, true in the past, are less true now.

Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life.

The Republican National Convention, which opens this week, will welcome to its stage apologists for Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its aggression against U.S. allies. Trump’s own infatuation with Russia and other dictatorships has not dimmed even slightly with age or experience. Yet all of these urgent and necessary truths must now be subordinated to the ritual invocation of “thoughts and prayers” for someone who never gave a thought or uttered a prayer for any of the victims of his own many incitements to bloodshed. The president who used his office to champion the rights of dangerous people to own military-type weapons says he was grazed by a bullet from one such assault rifle.

Conventional phrases and polite hypocrisy fill a useful function in social life. We say “Thank you for your service” both to the decorated hero and to the veteran who barely escaped dishonorable discharge. It’s easier than deciphering which was which. We wish “Happy New Year!” even when we dread the months ahead.

Adrienne LaFrance: Thoughts, prayers, and Facebook rants aren’t enough

But conventional phrases don’t go unheard. They carry meanings, meanings no less powerful for being rote and reflexive. In rightly denouncing violence, we are extending an implicit pardon to the most violent person in contemporary U.S. politics. In asserting unity, we are absolving a man who seeks power through the humiliation and subordination of disdained others.

Those conventional phrases are inscribing Trump into a place in American life that he should have forfeited beyond redemption on January 6, 2021. All decent people welcome the sparing of his life. Trump’s reckoning should be with the orderly process of law, not with the bloodshed he rejoiced in when it befell others. He and his allies will exploit a gunman’s vicious criminality as their path to exonerate past crimes and empower new ones. Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable—and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.

About the Author

George Clooney argues in new op-ed that Democratic Party needs a new nominee

WASHINGTON - American actor George Clooney, a high-profile supporter of President Joe Biden, argued in an op-ed that the Democratic party needs a new nominee.

“We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate,” wrote Clooney in a New York Times piece published Wednesday.

“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.” he added.

Clooney, a self-described lifelong Democrat, was among a group of A-list celebrities that co-hosted a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser last month for Biden’s campaign that brought in $30 million.

But in his op-ed, Clooney said Biden was not the same person at the fundraiser in Los Angeles that he’s known for years, writing that the one battle Biden can’t win is the “fight against time.”

"It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “ big F-ing deal ” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney wrote.

Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner wrote on X, formerly Twitter , that Clooney "has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying."

"We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside," he wrote.

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Guest Essay

‘One of the Truly Awful and Self-Indulgent Performances of Our Time’: The Best and Worst Moments From Night 4 of the Convention

A photo illustration of Donald Trump in black and white, with colored circles around him.

By New York Times Opinion

Did the night help Trump?

Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for Night 4 of the Republican National Convention. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers rate the evening on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 means the night was a disaster for Donald Trump; 10 means it could lead to a big polling bump. Here’s what our columnists and contributors thought of the event, which culminated in Trump’s acceptance speech.

Best Moment

Kristen Soltis Anderson, contributing Opinion writer Donald Trump gave a compelling and moving description of what it was like to be under fire and pledged to represent all of America, not just half of America. That may be easier said than done.

David Brooks, Times columnist The first 20 minutes of the Trump speech. If he’d done the story about the assassination attempt and then added 15 minutes of policy, he would be cruising toward victory. He could have plausibly argued that he is a changed man.

Jane Coaston, contributing Opinion writer Hulk Hogan’s speech was his best performance since he beat Macho Man Randy Savage at WrestleMania V.

Matthew Continetti, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Trump’s account of the attempt on his life was gripping. He displayed a vulnerability and humility that most people had never seen before. And when he kissed the fireman’s helmet of Corey Comperatore, the husband and father who was killed during last weekend’s shooting, Trump created yet another indelible image. It won’t be soon forgotten.

David French, Times columnist Trump’s tribute to Comperatore was touching and appropriate. Placing his uniform on the stage was a powerful visual reminder of the loss.

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partner's Love Language and you start giving love in the way they receive love, the relationship quickly strengthens and the people in the couple feel more loved. My theory is that the Love Languages also work on your relationship with yourself. Given that, you can then use your Love Language to ﬁgure out what self-care looks like for you.
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