Red pens and dodge ball

I don't have cable. But I wanted some background noise and something to look at as I ate my cheese and crackers during a study break yesterday. Saturday afternoon network tv is not great, so I found myself stopped at PBS, watching Tucker Carlson, the man who looks like a giant doll and has something to say about everything. He was interviewing psychiatrist Sally Satel, author of a book called, One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance. It was actually really interesting. See excerpt below:

Satel: ...we talk about children and in fact we talk about the myth of the fragile child. This notion that children can't take competition, can't take grades, can't take second, third, fourth or even last and in response to protecting them and shielding them from these disappointments and preserving their fragile self-esteem, some schools now have stopped offering competitive sports, apparently dodge ball is black listed. Red pens were black listed in fact.

Carlson: Red pens?

Satel: Red pens because red marks are apparently traumatizing. And so -- Papermate executives will tell you the demand for purple pen is now all the rage. But the idea is that this is damaging to kids' self-esteem. It's not damaging to their self-esteem, it's necessary for their development and for learning, and we do think that these kinds of practices in aggregate can have the effect of dulling our competitive edge. Our students, our kids now, you know, in 10 to 20 years will be competing with kids from China and India where they do use red pens and pretty soon they'll probably be outsourcing red pen making to us.

Carlson: I must say I've noticed almost every successful person I know is driven by insecurity. Is actually not driven by self-esteem. There haven't studies shown there is an inverse relationship, the better you feel about yourself, the more likely you are to stay home and smoke pot?

Satel: It's been debunked. It doesn't relate in any reliable way to what we think it should. People with high self-esteem are often sociopaths or criminals or just not particularly accomplished pokes folks. Highly narcissistic of course and people who are highly self humanitarians are riddled with self-doubt. Of course self-esteem is not something you teach someone or can infuse into a kid. It's a byproduct of achievement.

I thought the woman was a bit over the top with some of her remarks throughout the interview, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the red pen/dodgeball bans and fragile child line of thinking.

Aaaand.... go!