Jan 23, 2026
Transcript
[RADIOLAB INTRO]
HEATHER RADKE: Hello, can you hear me?
MATT KIELTY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We hear you. We're just ignoring you.
HEATHER: Okay, that's fine. [laughs]
LATIF NASSER: We were not. I was waiting until it was recording.
LATIF: Hey, I'm Latif Nasser. This is Radiolab. And today ...
HEATHER: Do you know what this is about at all, Latif?
LATIF: Only vaguely. Only two words.
LATIF: A story from a pair of friends: producer Matt Kielty and contributing editor Heather Radke.
MATT: You want to say them?
LATIF: Self-esteem?
HEATHER: Yeah.
MATT: Or maybe this is actually really, in fact, a story about Heather's need for constant validation and praise.
HEATHER: [laughs] Hey, Matt!
LATIF: Whoa!
HEATHER: Coming in hot!
MATT: What is the most sort of, like, honest explanation of how this came about? You were feeling bad.
HEATHER: I think—okay, the most honest answer is sometimes—probably, like, more than I like to an embarrassing degree, I feel bad about myself. [laughs] And I am a creative person in a profession that—where there's lots of ways that you can—if you're so inclined, you can find to feel bad about yourself. There's always a list you're not on, always a sales number you didn't reach.
LATIF: Right.
HEATHER: Always a pitch that didn't get accepted.
LATIF: Right.
HEATHER: And ...
LATIF: And Matt is here acting like you're an alien from another planet or something.
HEATHER: Yeah, totally. I know.
MATT: A few days ago Heather asked me if I was proud that she jumped in Lake Michigan when it was cold.
HEATHER: And he was like, "Nope. Not proud. Not interested. Bye!"
MATT: It was jumping into a lake.
LATIF: Wait, Matt. But you—you don't feel—do you feel immune to all of these problems?
MATT: I maybe like to kind of sit in my self-loathing a little bit more.
LATIF: I've been a party to that in the past at one time or another.
MATT: [laughs]
HEATHER: [laughs]
LATIF: Yeah, I've witnessed that.
MATT: I think it's like the seeking out of a sort of affirmation and compliment feels like a means to maybe feeling good. And I don't necessarily believe in the kind of project of the sort of goal of trying to feel good.
HEATHER: But I mean, I don't think it's, like, that weird that I want to feel better about myself. [laughs]
LATIF: No.
HEATHER: Like, I think the question of, like, how might I feel better about myself is pretty normal, like kind of about as normal as it could be.
LATIF: It's like there are whole industries based on this question.
HEATHER: Yeah. It's, like, everywhere. Like, you see it everywhere. Like, it's on reality TV, it's on Insta—you know, it's like everything about Instagram is like, how Instagram is giving us low esteem. Like ...
LATIF: But, like, what are—why are—is this just Matt-Heather therapy hour? What, is there a story here?
HEATHER: A tiny bit. There's a little bit of that. A little. There's a little bit of that throughout.
LATIF: [laughs]
MATT: No, no, no. We do—okay, no, we have a story that Heather and I spent a long time working on.
HEATHER: Years! Years!
MATT: Years working on. But it's about—it's about the fact that this idea, this thing that Heather's talking about, this pursuit of feeling good about yourself, how sort of weirdly it's not that old of an idea.
LATIF: Huh!
HEATHER: Yeah. It's—it's not that old. It's kind of all based on a lie.
LATIF: Hmm! Okay?
MATT: And how so much of this you can kind of really trace back to this one guy.
HEATHER: How do you say his last name?
WILL STORR: I think—I think it's Vasconcellos. That's how I've always said it.
HEATHER: Vasconcellos. Okay.
WILL STORR: I mean, I think.
HEATHER: John Vasconcellos. Or maybe Vasconcellos.
MATT: We could call him—you call him 'Vasco' in the book.
WILL STORR: Yeah.
HEATHER: Everyone calls him Vasco. I just feel like I ...
WILL STORR: Interesting—I mean, this is a weird thing. Robert Pattinson, the Hollywood actor, bought the film rights. Did I tell you about this?
MATT: No!
HEATHER: This is the film rights?
WILL STORR: Yeah, he bought the film rights, because he wanted to make the film of Vasco. And I spent a—had a three-hour meeting with him about it. And he was like, "Who do you think should play Vasco?" And I said, "I think it should be the guy—Magnum PI." And he was like ...
MATT: Tom Selleck?
WILL STORR: "What? Tom Selleck?" Yeah.
HEATHER: [laughs]
WILL STORR: It was like, I said to him, "I thought he'd be good."
MATT: I can see the similarities, because ...
HEATHER: It's the mustache!
WILL STORR: Yeah. And the big, like, bear-like thing.
HEATHER: Okay, so John actually died back in 2014. And so we ended up talking to the author Will Storr.
MATT: So Will wrote a book about the self—like, how we think of ourselves.
LATIF: Okay.
MATT: Called Selfie.
LATIF: Selfie. All right. Like it.
MATT: Which has a whole chapter on John.
HEATHER: And then we also spoke to ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: Okay, well I've got all kinds of curiosities and questions, so ...
HEATHER: ... Mitch Saunders.
MATT: One of John's closest friends.
MITCH SAUNDERS: But I think those will emerge as we get going, yeah.
HEATHER: And before we get started, I guess I just want to say in reporting this story, I've always kind of thought of John as, like, an Icarus figure.
LATIF: Hmm.
HEATHER: He's a kind of modern-day Icarus, where he wanted so much to feel good. He wanted everyone in the whole world to feel good. But he did fly maybe a little too close to the sun.
MATT: So what drew you to John initially?
WILL STORR: What I thought was so interesting about John in his early life was that he was born into a very strict Catholic family.
MITCH SAUNDERS: Oh yeah. A big, big influence was the Catholicism that he grew up in.
MATT: So if we back up a little bit. John was born in 1932.
HEATHER: In San Jose.
MATT: The oldest of three kids.
MITCH SAUNDERS: His father was superintendent of schools in the East Bay.
MATT: His mom mostly stayed at home.
HEATHER: She could be pretty stern.
MITCH SAUNDERS: She'd give my wife a hard time about the meal we had prepared, you know?
HEATHER: And John as a kid, he was clearly very bright.
MATT: Never really got in trouble.
HEATHER: And was also ...
WILL STORR: A very strict Catholic.
HEATHER: ... a good Catholic boy. And the kind of good Catholic ...
WILL STORR: That kind of fetishized self-loathing.
HEATHER: Because this was the sort of Catholicism that was heavy on ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Bible: Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man ...]
HEATHER: ... original sin.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Bible: ... and death through sin.]
HEATHER: The idea that we're all born sinners.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Bible: And in this way, death came to all people, because all sinned.]
WILL STORR: He was raised ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Bible: Behold ...]
WILL STORR: ... never to think well of himself.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Bible: ... I was brought forth in iniquity.]
WILL STORR: To never think about "me," the "I."
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Bible: And in sin did my mother conceive me.]
MATT: To not show pride, to not show anger.
MITCH SAUNDERS: That you are a horrible person if you touch yourself, if you engage with anybody else in any kind of sex whatsoever outside of marriage. It was this upbringing of being told so many times in so many ways that you're less than, not good enough, fundamentally flawed.
WILL STORR: He used to tell this story. Who knows whether it's true, because it's so—it's such a great story—where he ran for class president in the eighth grade and he lost by one vote.
HEATHER: And do you know whose vote it was?
LATIF: His own.
HEATHER: His own vote.
WILL STORR: That one vote was his.
LATIF: Ah!
MATT: He voted for the other person.
WILL STORR: He was so self-hating that he couldn't bring himself to—to vote for himself.
HEATHER: The poor guy.
LATIF: But he believed in himself enough to run, but not enough to—what a puzzle there!
HEATHER: Yeah, he's a tangled web.
WILL STORR: When I was looking through his personal archives, I found a letter from an early girlfriend that actually said to him, "The thing I love most about you, John, is your absolute humility."
MATT: But ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: You know, this was one of the things that animated him was his own lack of confidence in himself.
MATT: ... he would later become class president.
HEATHER: Attended this fancy private school in the Bay.
MITCH SAUNDERS: He was valedictorian.
MATT: He got into Yale and Harvard.
HEATHER: But he chose to stay in California.
MITCH SAUNDERS: Santa Clara University, went on to Santa Clara Law. Was valedictorian everywhere he went.
MATT: Graduates top of his law class.
WILL STORR: Becomes this quite successful young man.
MATT: Working at this law firm in the Bay.
HEATHER: Tall, broad-shouldered, clean-cut.
WILL STORR: Black suit, black tie, neat hair.
MATT: And in 1962 ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: He needs no introduction to any Californian.]
MATT: ... he decides to join the reelection campaign of ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Governor ...]
MATT: ... Democratic governor ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: ... Pat Brown.]
HEATHER: And he would say this later in an interview that it was like this moment on this campaign where politics became, quote "etched in his heart."
MATT: And so in 1966, at the age of 34, he runs for a seat in the California State House.
HEATHER: On November 8, 1966, he wins.
MATT: And then ...
WILL STORR: Well, he has this spectacular nervous breakdown.
MATT: ... he completely collapses.
WILL STORR: The way he describes it, he says, "I found myself and my identity and my life coming utterly apart."
LATIF: Was there something that precipitated this? Or what—like, what—why?
HEATHER: Well, at the time no one knew what precipitated it.
MATT: Like, he publicly never talked about the details of what happened.
MITCH SAUNDERS: Well ...
MATT: But the way that Mitch would describe it to us was it was kind of as if John had felt like he'd been handed a script his whole life.
LATIF: Hmm.
MATT: Like, a script from his family, from his church, from society of, like, this is how you're supposed to dress, this is how you're supposed to behave. And he was suddenly kind of coming up against the idea that maybe he didn't want to live by that script.
MITCH SAUNDERS: And it left him feeling like he—he had no place to go.
HEATHER: And after that, John realizes, he says in his book, that he has to find some help. And so he finds this Catholic priest who's also a therapist, who starts to ask him questions like ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: Tell me how you see the world, John. You know, what matters to you? When that happened, how did you experience that? What's the feeling for you? I'll bet you that was the first time he'd ever had that kind of encounter.
HEATHER: The first time somebody's relating to him.
MITCH SAUNDERS: With genuine inquiry about who he really is.
HEATHER: It was these therapy sessions with this Catholic priest that would kind of crack John open and send him down a new path that would eventually lead him to this place called Esalen.
WILL STORR: The Esalen Institute.
LATIF: I feel like this is a famous ...
MATT: It is.
HEATHER: Yeah.
WILL STORR: Yeah. I mean if you're a fan of Mad Men, that's where Donald Draper ends up at the end of Mad Men.
MATT: Oh, that's where he is.
LATIF: A-ha!
WILL STORR: That's where the future was born, really, Esalen.
HEATHER: So the Esalen Institute ...
WILL STORR: Is this place in Big Sur in California.
MITCH SAUNDERS: With unbelievable natural beauty.
HEATHER: Mitch, like John, spent a lot of time there.
MATT: And if you could just imagine, like, this big mid-century house on a cliff overlooking the ocean, that's Esalen.
MITCH SAUNDERS: And there are these amazing hot mineral baths right on the edge of these cliffs.
MATT: There were these baths that you had to get in naked.
MITCH SAUNDERS: John said the first time he discovered that we're supposed to go into the tubs with no clothes on, he actually turned around and left.
LATIF: Ah.
MATT: Because, like, he just has so much sort of shame around his body, discomfort around it.
LATIF: Yeah.
MATT: But Mitch says this was the point of this place, of Esalen.
MITCH SAUNDERS: It was a place where you could go to climb out of the—what I think John and certainly I believe was a—a dark pit of misguided beliefs. You know, there's something—you're fundamentally flawed at birth. There's something wrong with you.
MATT: The promise of Esalen is that it was a place to help you finally kind of realize ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: Your true self.
MATT: And that in doing so, you could find liberation, freedom, maybe even deep happiness.
HEATHER: What a promise!
LATIF: Yeah!
MATT: [laughs]
LATIF: When you say it like that, I don't know if I want to meet my true self.
HEATHER: I am—whenever people say that, that "find my true self" thing, there's a way that it's just sort of confounding, because it's like well, what are you talking about? Like, my ...
MATT: How am I not myself?
HEATHER: What is the self that's not me?
LATIF: When I was taking out the garbage, was I not my true self?
HEATHER: Yeah.
MATT: Well, don't worry. We got to the bottom of it.
HEATHER: Indeed we did.
MICHAEL PETTIT: So yeah. So no ...
HEATHER: So we ended up talking to this guy, Michael.
MICHAEL PETTIT: Michael Pettit, professor at York University in Toronto.
HEATHER: Where he studies the history of psychology.
MICHAEL PETTIT: So ...
MATT: And Michael told us that what was going on at Esalen in the '60s is that it was sort of representative of this huge shift that was happening in psychology.
HEATHER: Because up until this point, a lot of what psychology was came from ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Sigmund Freud.]
HEATHER: ... Freud.
MICHAEL PETTIT: And Freud ...
WILL STORR: Similar to the Catholics, really.
MICHAEL PETTIT: ... the thing was that he had a very pessimistic view of nature.
WILL STORR: ... which is the ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Subterranean horrors of the subconscious.]
WILL STORR: We are ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Primal, inherited, ugly.]
WILL STORR: ... full of horrible dark secrets.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Festering impulses and compulsions.]
WILL STORR: That we are covering up from ourselves.
MATT: And that even if you go and seek treatment, you seek help ...
HEATHER: Through therapy.
MICHAEL PETTIT: You will still be left with everyday unhappiness.
HEATHER: What he called "ordinary unhappiness."
LATIF: Pfft!
MATT: Oh, I like that. I like Freud.
HEATHER: Yeah, of course you do.
MATT: Oh, shut up, Heather! [laughs]
LATIF: But okay, so basically Freud is like, "Yeah, we're all suffering here. This is what we're doing together."
MATT: Yeah. And the best we could hope for ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: Is contentment, maybe?
HEATHER: But a little bit after Freud and a little bit before Esalen ...
MATT: This is around, like the '40s and the '50s ...
HEATHER: ... there come these new psychologists ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: Who think we can be happy.
HEATHER: Who think we can be free from our suffering.
MATT: And one of those psychologists was this guy ...
WILL STORR: Basically the anti-Freud.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Now Dr. Rogers, something of yourself?]
MATT: Carl Rogers.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: I'm Carl Rogers.]
WILL STORR: He's the second most influential psychotherapist ever after Sigmund Freud.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: I hope ...]
MATT: And Rogers believed that sure ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: Of course we're all of us a little bit crazy, including me.]
MATT: ... people are messy, they're impulsive. But fundamentally ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: People are good.
WILL STORR: And the reason that people suffer, the reason that they feel pain and anxiety ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: I have found the same yearning theme emerging time after time after time.]
MATT: ... is because ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: A person would be saying, "I'm not really me."]
MATT: ... people aren't being themselves.
MICHAEL PETTIT: Your true authentic self.
HEATHER: Instead, people were suffering because they were trying to be ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: Here's a rather typical statement ...]
HEATHER: ... who they thought they were supposed to be.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: ... from a young woman. She says, "I think that I began to lose me when I was in high school."]
HEATHER: There's the young woman who's always trying to please everybody.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: "Trying to make people feel at ease around me, or make things go along smoothly."]
MATT: Or the young man ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: "Why am I afraid of her?"]
MATT: ... who tries to never disappoint his mom.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: "This is silly. I know it, but I can't seem to fight it."]
HEATHER: Or the guy ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: "I think that I have always loved people."]
HEATHER: ... who always buries his emotions.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: "But I've never dared put it into words."]
MATT: Rogers said when he got down to it, patient after patient would tell him ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: "I feel like I've been just playing a sort of false role."]
MATT: And that is what causes our suffering.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: "This picture you present to the outside world."]
MATT: Our pain.
HEATHER: You could see how this was John.
LATIF: Yeah.
HEATHER: Suit and tie, normie haircut. Kind of playing the role of the good Catholic boy.
MATT: And so for people like John, Rogers had developed this way out.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: To leave behind this false role.]
MATT: This type of therapy ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: And get closer to being one's real self.]
MATT: ... that would become this huge part of Esalen.
MICHAEL PETTIT: And that was the encounter group.
MATT: So could you just walk me through, like, what was an encounter group at Esalen?
MICHAEL PETTIT: Yeah, so encounter groups, it would be kind of this break from the everyday.
MATT: You would go to Esalen.
MICHAEL PETTIT: You would be with a group of strangers.
MATT: Maybe five people, maybe fifteen people.
MICHAEL PETTIT: Who don't know you.
MATT: Who have no expectations of you, so that you can maybe be ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: As vulnerable as one can be.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: The—the primary ideas in an encounter group are the things I mentioned this morning.]
HEATHER: So John went to a bunch of these.
WILL STORR: I think he went to eight encounter groups at Esalen.
HEATHER: And how it worked was ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Be open and honest and to talk about your feelings.]
HEATHER: ... this group of strangers would come together.
WILL STORR: For hours and hours, sometimes days and days and days on end.
MATT: There would be a group leader.
WILL STORR: A therapist or a kind of charismatic leader.
MATT: To guide everybody.
HEATHER: And what you're hearing now is a documentary that was filmed in 1972. It was a week-long encounter group at Esalen.
MATT: And how it starts is the group leader ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Things like, "I can't do something."]
MATT: ... lays out these kind of ground rules.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Is usually just a way of not taking responsibility. So try to say, "I won't do it," rather than, "I can't."]
HEATHER: Also, don't ask questions.
MATT: Instead, be direct, be honest.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: And one other thing is the most important thing you can do here I think is the thing you're most afraid of. That's the thing that will help you to grow most.]
HEATHER: And so these 10 strangers are sitting in a room at Esalen in a circle on this carpeted floor.
MATT: And they just sit there in silence.
HEATHER: Glancing at each other.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: If we're not supposed to ask questions, I'm not sure what to say.]
MATT: And then things shift.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Hit this as hard as you can. Keep going and scream at each other as you do it.]
HEATHER: And it is wild!
[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screaming]]
MATT: Like, the group leader will get some of these people to punch pillows.
HEATHER: To let out these primal screams.
MATT: Or if they see conflict they'll be like, "Hey, how about the two of you wrestle each other?"
HEATHER: They'll also do these exercises ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Hey, something bothers me about you.]
HEATHER: ... try to get these people ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: That you're afraid to be real, to be feeling.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Like, I get the idea that so much of you is just ...]
HEATHER: ... to tell each other ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: That you're so cool.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: ... an act.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I get bored when you talk to me.]
HEATHER: ... how they really feel about each other.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: You know, there's just no question. I'm fucked up.]
HEATHER: How they feel about themselves.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm really a schmuck.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm jealous of that.]
MATT: As Will puts it, the whole point of all of this ...
WILL STORR: Was to create an atmosphere of radical authenticity. And actually, what we need to do is sort of dig down deep into the—the core of who we are.
HEATHER: And this is the whole idea behind Rogers' philosophy.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: I hope you can appreciate the fact ...]
HEATHER: That if you can feel accepted ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Carl Rogers: ... that I feel an acceptance of you as you are.]
HEATHER: ... for who you really are, flaws and all ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: We're born absolutely right, perfect, divine.]
HEATHER: ... then you can find a way ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: And I pound on a pillow and I get it straightened up a little bit. And I found out that what I always thought was true is true. I am good.]
HEATHER: ... to begin to love yourself.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm not really sure that I want to be married to the man I'm married to.]
MATT: For example, in the doc, there is this woman, probably in her late 20s, long, dark hair.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I allow myself to believe everything he tells me about me. He says, "You're too—you're too heavy. You need to lose weight." And I buy that as being so.]
MATT: Who tells the group how she often feels fat, unattractive.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm pretty. That's very hard for me to say.]
MATT: And the group leader ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: At the risk of this reputation, would you take your clothes off?]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yes.]
MATT: ... asks if she would stand in front of the group naked. And so she does.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Would you look at your body and feel it for a moment?]
MATT: Totally naked in front of these 10 strangers.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: And tell us how you feel about it?]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: It feels very soft. I like the curves in my body. I don't feel embarrassed about standing here and I like that.]
MATT: And they have her look at herself in this mirror.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Take a look. Who do you see in there? What about the girl you see there?]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I like her—love her. And I like you. I love you.]
MATT: And what all was John learning about himself back then?
MITCH SAUNDERS: Well, one of the things that first happened for him was he realized that there was all this deep-seated rage, that he didn't like the way he was raised, that he felt it was—you know, that did him in, that he was dealt a bad deck of cards. And he was raging about it.
MATT: And Mitch said that John told him one of the first times he went to an encounter group ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: The leader just sat there cross-legged for the longest time, didn't say anything. And apparently John's way of dealing with the tension was to go over and sort of attack him. [laughs]
MATT: Attack him?
HEATHER: Whoa!
MITCH SAUNDERS: They ended up in a wrestling match or whatever and, you know, John felt fulfilled at the end of whatever that experience was.
MATT: He realized that he was angry, and that it was okay to feel angry.
HEATHER: Mitch says that a lot of what John was going through just kind of came down to ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: Just being seen, being heard, being held as he was, as he is.
MATT: And what happened is John went from ...
HEATHER: Buttoned up, black suit, black tie.
WILL STORR: A neat hair kind of guy.
MATT: To someone entirely different. Or as Carl Rogers would probably say, he recovered someone who he already was.
WILL STORR: Wild and free. Like, he grew his hair. He would have medallions. He had his shirt half unbuttoned with all this hair coming out of it.
MITCH SAUNDERS: He was always rumpled. People used to say he looked like an unmade bed.
HEATHER: He drove around in this, like, mustard-colored convertible.
WILL STORR: With the top down. Even when it was raining he'd have the top down.
MATT: He could be brash, blustery, angry.
HEATHER: But also very sweet.
MITCH SAUNDERS: People in his office had these stacks of what we called "Vascograms."
MATT: These little handwritten notes from John on, like, a newspaper article he read.
MITCH SAUNDERS: "I'm just thinking about you."
MATT: "Here's something you might find interesting."
MITCH SAUNDERS: Literally hundreds of people would get these Vascograms. My God, I got mountains and mountains of them.
MATT: He was big, he was expressive.
WILL STORR: Everything in his being was suddenly liberated. He felt free for the first time in his life.
MITCH SAUNDERS: And there are some crazy people who when they discover something that has a lot of power and meaning and makes a real difference in one's life, their first and almost natural instinct is to find some way to share it.
MATT: But before we get to that, we'll actually have to leave it here because Heather ...
HEATHER: I have to go to therapy.
MATT: ... is off to therapy. Where maybe she'll punch some pillows, or ...
LATIF: Have some kind of breakthrough, you know?
HEATHER: Yeah. Maybe I'll have some breakthrough.
MATT: Yeah, I'm sure it's gonna be life-changing.
HEATHER: I've only been telling you to go for the last five years. [laughs]
MATT: Okay, well when we come back, I will still have not gone. And we'll pick back up with the story.
LATIF: Okay.
MATT: Great.
HEATHER: Right to the puzzle.
LATIF: But there are mysteries that are not to do with murder.
MATT: Okay, I'm done. I'm done with this. Okay.
HEATHER: You're the one who was eating a Clif bar the whole time. We just had to talk about something.
MATT: No you don't. I can take bites in between this. I did it yesterday.
LATIF: Okay, both of you watch ...
LATIF: Okay. Latif. Radiolab. Back with Heather and Matt.
HEATHER: Matt's in a spicy mood, just so everybody knows.
LATIF: Yeah. Where were we? We were ...
MATT: Fucking blow my lid today.
LATIF: Whoa!
MATT: Embracing my true self.
HEATHER: You know what I actually hear you saying? "Love me. Love me."
LATIF: [laughs]
MATT: Okay. So we left off ...
LATIF: Yeah.
MATT: John goes through this complete transformation through therapy, through Esalen, through reading books about psychology.
LATIF: And is he still an elected official?
MATT: He is.
MITCH SAUNDERS: He used to say, "I was the most therapized politician to ever live," and he's probably right. You know, he probably was the most therapized politician ever. [laughs]
MATT: And Mitch said it was actually back in 1978 when he first encountered John ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: At a conference in Santa Barbara.
MATT: He was a keynote speaker.
MITCH SAUNDERS: This dishevelled keynote speaker who got up to speak.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: John Vasconcellos.]
[applause]
MITCH SAUNDERS: He was wearing a sport coat, shirt and tie, but obviously underneath the white shirt was some really funky t-shirt that had some strange design on it. [laughs]
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Is this broadcasting? Okay. You can hear me? Okay. Thank you.]
MATT: This, obviously, is John.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: First, I want to welcome you. I'm the legislator for this district in the California legislature. I want to say welcome to California. And second, I want to acknowledge the significance of our being here.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: And stuff that was coming out of his mouth ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Hopefully our being here is meant to be, and we carry away with it some sense of meaning that serves to light our lives and that of those around us.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: ... really surprised me.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: The most we can ever do really is find out who we are, and let me tell you who I am.]
HEATHER: In his speeches, John would talk about growing up Catholic.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Very steeped in the traditional, I'm-a-sinner Catholic tradition, and was raised—or lowered—really more lowered than raised ...]
[laughter]
HEATHER: He would talk about therapy.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: ... at Esalen for encounter groups to figure out my feelings as a man.]
HEATHER: ... about Esalen, about Carl Rogers.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: And honestly, my own self-discovery as a person.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: I'd never heard a politician talk that way.
HEATHER: And eventually Mitch actually got to meet John.
MITCH SAUNDERS: In his funky little condo in Santa Clara. And I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but towards the end of that conversation I asked him, I said, "Would you be willing to be my mentor? I've just not had exposure to anybody as—as wonderfully strange as you." He agreed, and that became the beginning of quite a partnership over—you know, that was—that must've been '82, I guess? And, you know, from then to the time he died in 2014.
MATT: And I guess what exactly was it about what he was saying that made you kind of like, want him to be a mentor?
MITCH SAUNDERS: It was his way of articulating the throughline from psychology and how we are formed as human beings, you know, through family, religious and, you know, all the various influences that come in to influence who we are and how that plays out in the world. And then the thing that really intrigued me was how he was applying that or extending his philosophy to the world of politics. Because for him, everything began—all policy if you really unpack it is based on some really fundamental assumptions.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: The politics we do is who we are, that my values and my vision, my sense of myself informs what I do socially and relationally, institutionally and publicly. And that is really is the heart of the struggle in the nation and the state now. It's not just about money or privilege or power. It's about those, but it's about visions of human nature.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: And John's message was this—the title of his talk at that time was, "A Liberating Vision."
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Our visions of human nature inform our parenting, our politics, our pedagogy, our intimacy, our dying and all the rest of it.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: That if we think about human nature differently, if we dare to imagine that ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Old, cynical, traditional people are basically evil and ugly and dangerous.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: ... we people creatures aren't ruined by original sin ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: And need to be contained and repressed and ashamed and guilt-ridden and locked away.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: ... then we would approach policy, you know, really important social institutions and how they're run very differently.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: That's one view of human nature.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: For John ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: If we are to have a people-first culture, and if we are to ask people to grow ...]
MITCH SAUNDERS: ... we need to orient all our policies, all our efforts ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: It must have at their very heart, as its very foundation ...]
MITCH SAUNDERS: ... with the beginning view that humans are at the root ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: That positive ...]
MITCH SAUNDERS: ... good.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: ... hopeful, helpful, growthful vision of human nature and potential. Assume that within us is that spark of life and hope and health and wholeness that ought to be nurtured.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: He really embraced Carl Rogers' view of humans being like plants, that given the right conditions they'll almost always orient to the sun, that humans will, you know, if they're not screwed up, will orient to what's positive for them and those around them.
HEATHER: But the problem here is ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: He's espousing this liberating vision for—for everybody.
HEATHER: ... like, what does any of this actually mean in terms of public policy?
LATIF: It's like airy-fairy, pie in the sky kind of thing.
MATT: Yeah, exactly.
LATIF: Like, what is this use to anybody?
MATT: He doesn't have anything that he could actually put all of that in that might actually affect policy, until something shows up. Can you guess what that might be, Latif?
LATIF: Um ...
HEATHER: Two little words.
LATIF: [laughs]
HEATHER: With a little hyphen.
LATIF: Self-esteem!
MATT: There it is.
LATIF: [laughs]
MATT: Because it was in the 1980s ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: When self-esteem emerges.
MATT: This phrase, this idea, self esteem ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: That person's perception of their own worth
MATT: ... starts becoming a part of the public consciousness.
MICHAEL PETTIT: Absolutely.
MATT: And I think I want to just kind of talk a little bit about where that phrase comes from.
LATIF: Yeah.
MATT: Because it's become so ...
LATIF: Yeah. I do—I do question where that came from. Where did that phrase come from?
MATT: So Michael Pettit, our history professor, explained that in psychology, self-esteem goes back to ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: 1890.
MATT: With a book ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: Called The Principles of Psychology.
HEATHER: Which basically says that self-esteem is this thing, this self-worth that you have based on the things that you do, the things that you care about doing.
MICHAEL PETTIT: For example ...
MATT: A famous psychologist back then wrote ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: "I don't think I'm the best boxer in the world. So if someone's a better boxer than me, no biggie."
HEATHER: But instead of boxing, let's say this other person ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: Is a better, more famous, higher-achieving psychologist, that does hurt my self-worth. That does hurt my self-image.
MATT: And the way that Michael explained it was this was at a time in psychology where the self was not a unified thing, it was just kind of like parts. You had different parts, different aspects of a self. And then you had these different things where you might find worth or value in.
LATIF: It's like you almost stake your territory where your identity and value lie.
MATT: Yeah.
LATIF: And it's like—and other places it's like you have ceded that territory. Like, it's okay. It's fine.
MATT: Right.
HEATHER: But then in the '30s and the '40s, the very idea of the self changes.
MICHAEL PETTIT: Exactly.
MATT: Psychologists come up with the idea of a personality, which is your unified, whole self.
HEATHER: And so self-esteem becomes ...
MICHAEL PETTIT: A more global, basic attribute of the person.
HEATHER:: It's no longer, like, how you feel about these individual things you're good at.
MATT: Now it's just about how you feel about you.
MICHAEL PETTIT: That one either had high self-esteem or low self-esteem.
HEATHER: So for psychologists, it starts to become this really important measure of a person's entire well-being, like their whole mental health.
MATT: And one of the things that we found fascinating was that in the pivotal 1954 Brown v. Board segregation case?
LATIF: Mm-hmm?
MATT: One of the crucial arguments made by the opponents of segregation was ...
LATIF: The dolls!
MATT: Yes.
LATIF: A famous study, yeah.
MICHAEL PETTIT: On how Black children prefer a white doll over a Black doll. And this shows how they've internalized society's negative attitudes towards themselves.
MATT: The theory being that they'd sort of been given low self-esteem by society.
MICHAEL PETTIT: So I think ...
MATT: And Michael says it's also right around here that you get Maslow.
MICHAEL PETTIT: And his famous hierarchy.
LATIF: Hierarchy of needs!
MATT: Hierarchy of needs! You got it.
MICHAEL PETTIT: Although whether it's actually a hierarchy or not is a bit of a controversy.
MATT: I always see it as a pyramid.
MICHAEL PETTIT: It's a pyramid. But Maslow himself never drew it as a pyramid. That comes from a management textbook a couple of decades later that tried to popularize him. But anyway ...
HEATHER: So Maslow's whole thing is that you have all these different needs, and they all need to be fulfilled in order to become the best version of yourself.
MATT: Needs like food, water, sleep.
HEATHER: Security, stability.
MATT: Friendship, intimacy.
HEATHER: And a positive self-esteem.
MICHAEL PETTIT: A feeling of self-worth.
MATT: And so through the '70s ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: That positive, hopeful, helpful, growthful vision of human nature and potential.]
MATT: ... while John is giving these speeches, self-esteem is becoming a bigger part of psychology.
HEATHER: And it was in the early '80s that these two things, self-esteem and John Vasconcellos start to circle each other and become this much bigger thing.
MATT: Because what was going on in the '80s was ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Good evening. We're coming off the bloodiest year in the history of New York.]
MATT: ... this panic ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: The statistics this year are really grim.]
MATT: ... about rising violence and crime.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Dramatic evidence tonight that crack use is spreading wider.]
MATT: There was the crack epidemic.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: A look at a very serious matter, the incidents of teenage pregnancy.]
MATT: Teen pregnancy.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: The prisons are bulging. Ninety thousand Californians are in prison and the crime rate's still going up.]
HEATHER: And for John in California ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: We keep escalating the drug war and drug use goes up.]
HEATHER: ... these became the issues of the day.
MATT: And what happened was ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: In the course of about a five-week period, some kind of things came together.]
MATT: ... John said one day he was reading an article.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: An article that said education, kids who drop out of school or don't make it have a lack of self-esteem.]
MATT: That self-esteem was connected to how well kids do in school.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Then I read folks who get addicted to drugs probably are lacking enough sense of self, and reach for something to get high on or get the pain dulled on or get down on. Self-esteem might be a way to prevent drug abuse.]
HEATHER: That maybe self-esteem was a key component in why people were using drugs.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Then a guy came to San Jose and did a speech on teen pregnancy.]
MATT: He was this popular psychologist/sex educator.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: And I heard him say teen pregnancy is probably a lack—result of a lack of self-esteem.]
HEATHER: That kids were maybe having sex at an early age so they could feel better about themselves.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: So those three—education, drugs, teen pregnancy—the pattern just kind of loomed up.]
MITCH SAUNDERS: And he latches onto self-esteem as a focal point.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: I thought we ought to look at this.]
MATT: Because what all of this was telling John, what self-esteem was telling John ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: Was that at the root of most of our social ills were people who didn't believe in their fundamental value.
HEATHER: So by 1984 ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: He was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
HEATHER: ... John controlled the budget of California.
MITCH SAUNDERS: The fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world.
HEATHER: And he goes to the governor of California and he says, "Look, I need to spend money on a task force, a task force to promote self-esteem.
WILL STORR: Yeah.
HEATHER: So what was the initial reaction to this idea?
WILL STORR: The initial reaction was massive skepticism to this idea. [laughs]
HEATHER: So writer Will Storr explained that the governor at the time ...
WILL STORR: He was a no-nonsense Republican, and he had a reputation of being very hard-nosed.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: We're wasting taxpayers' money. Look at it this way: If we can save three folks from going to prison for life or ten folks from dropping out of school or seven drug addicts the cost of treatment, we'll save taxpayers billions of dollars.]
HEATHER: Like, possibly this was a really cheap way ...
WILL STORR: To make society better in all kinds of ways.
HEATHER: Certainly a cheaper way than, like ...
LATIF: Right.
HEATHER: ... raising the minimum wage or something, you know? [laughs]
LATIF: Right, right, right, right, right.
MATT: But the other thing he tells the governor is that this will also promote personal and social responsibility.
LATIF: Ah, so this is still, like, kind of '80s part here.
MATT: Yeah. The way he thinks about it—he talks about this a lot in speeches—is like, if you pay a lot of money for something, you value something, you tend to take care of it, you know?
LATIF: Uh-huh.
MATT: And so he's just applying this basic logic of, like, if you value yourself, you'll take care of yourself, and that it actually might lead to all these societal changes because of it.
LATIF: That makes sense. That makes sense.
MATT: And so in 1987, the governor says okay.
HEATHER: And John creates ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: The self-esteem task force.
HEATHER: ... the Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem.
MATT: You knew John before you were invited in?
EMMETT MILLER: Oh, no. I hadn't known him.
HEATHER: This is Emmett Miller, former member of the task force.
EMMETT MILLER: I'm not sure how he discovered me, except I was widely known locally for having invented the concept of mind-body medicine and holistic treatment of my patients.
MATT: And there were people like Emmett ...
EMMETT MILLER: The godmother of family therapy.
MATT: The Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul guy.
HEATHER: Remember that guy?
LATIF: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure.
HEATHER: Some other people from Esalen. But also ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Others—Black, brown, white, straight, gay, Asian, cops, therapists, businesspersons, teachers.]
EMMETT MILLER: It was not a small thing.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: This is tape number one, the proposal meeting.]
EMMETT MILLER: This was not a small thing at all.
MATT: So 1987, this big group of people would get together.
EMMETT MILLER: Big roundtable kind of setting.
MATT: At, like, a library or something.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: We'll find resources to drop off.]
EMMETT MILLER: And the group would find ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: We're beginning to hear from experts ...]
EMMETT MILLER: ... therapists, psychologists.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: To accumulate data.]
MATT: They'd read anything they had published, interview them about their therapy practices.
EMMETT MILLER: To put together the principles of what we might call 'healthy self-esteem.'
[ARCHIVE CLIP: The interview is being recorded at Berkeley, California.]
HEATHER: They even hired researchers at Berkeley.
EMMETT MILLER: To devise studies ...
HEATHER: Looking at self-esteem ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: In six major areas of social concern.]
HEATHER: Crime and violence.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Alcohol and drug abuse.]
MATT: Teenage pregnancy.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Child abuse.]
HEATHER: Welfare dependency.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: And educational failure or success.]
MATT: To try to answer this question: Does having high self-esteem actually lead people to ...
EMMETT MILLER: Being a better citizen, being more successful.
HEATHER: Now while that's going on, do you know about Doonesbury, Latif?
LATIF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WILL STORR: It's hard to understand today ...
HEATHER: How influential this comic strip was. It was huge.
WILL STORR: ... the power that these Doonesbury strips can have.
HEATHER: It was in almost every newspaper. Everybody read it.
LATIF: Is that Garry Trudeau? Is that it?
HEATHER: It's Garry Trudeau.
EMMETT MILLER: Well, Garry Trudeau, with his very clever Doonesbury cartoon.
HEATHER: In 1987, he found out about the task force.
EMMETT MILLER: And decided to make jokes about it.
WILL STORR: He created a new character: Barbara "Boopsie" Ann Boopstein, who was an LA actress and a spiritual medium who had been invited onto the task force on the basis of her "20 years of feeling good about myself and out-of-body experiences."
HEATHER: And it's just like joke after joke about this task force and its woo-woo nonsense.
MATT: And this goes on ...
WILL STORR: A two-week run ...
MATT: ... day after day.
WILL STORR: Just making fun of the Self-Esteem Task Force.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Two weeks of satire with me, you know, this California goofy legislator with this California goofy idea, spending goofy money.]
WILL STORR: And ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: The whole nation ...]
WILL STORR: ... absolute ridicule is what happens.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: ... laughed.]
WILL STORR: So there's a quote from the Pittsburgh Post Dispatch, who said that California is the state that produced Jerry Brown, the People's Temple, Sister Boom Boom—whatever that is—drive-in churches, Charles Manson, the Esalen Institute, and now a governmental task force to promote self esteem. Now there's one more California joke to tell at cocktail parties around the nation."
MATT: And John ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Roundly scorned by the press. Editorial writers always need someone to pick upon to make themselves feel esteemed.]
MATT: ... he was hurt. He was angry.
HEATHER: But the thing is that Doonesbury strip about the task force ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: When he did that everybody else paid attention.]
HEATHER: ... is how everyone found out about it.
WILL STORR: That is what made it famous.
EMMETT MILLER: And we spent three years at it. And at the end of the three years ...
MATT: 1990.
EMMETT MILLER: ... the results were that when we compared people who live their lives with real self-esteem it's so much better.
MATT: People with high self-esteem did better in school, they were less welfare dependent, they were less prone to crime and violence, substance abuse.
HEATHER: So they put together this report.
EMMETT MILLER: Really fat report.
WILL STORR: That yes, self-esteem does indeed cause all these amazing effects.
HEATHER: They publish it.
WILL STORR: And there's a complete 180.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Next, our call-in guest is John Vasconcellos.]
HEATHER: All of a sudden ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: John Vasconcellos.]
WILL STORR: Nobody's laughing.
HEATHER: ... people want self-esteem.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Time Magazine, Newsweek, BBC, London Economist, talk show in Australia, national CBS Morning out of New York one day.]
MATT: John's giving speeches.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Nicknamed the Johnny Appleseed of self-esteem.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: The Johnny Appleseed of self-esteem.]
MATT: All across the country ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Please welcome the distinguished Mr. John Vasconcellos.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Oprah Winfrey: California assemblyman John Vasconcellos ...]
HEATHER: He's on Oprah.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Oprah Winfrey: ... has turned self-esteem into a virtual crusade.]
HEATHER: Telling the nation ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Self-esteem is a social vaccine.]
HEATHER: ... that we have a cure for all that's wrong in society.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, so assemblyman, I really feel that you are on to something here.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Beautiful. And it's wonderful. And I want to say this about John Vasconcellos ...]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: It's a wonderful thing that you're doing.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm thrilled that we've got a man like that.]
WILL STORR: The Philadelphia Inquirer said, "It looks like John Vasconcellos may have had the last laugh." Time Magazine: "The sneers are turning to cheers."
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I really like what you're doing.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: I think you're right on base. I'm so excited.]
HEATHER: And this pretty long, very dry task force report ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: This report has sold 50,000 copies.]
HEATHER: ... everyone ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: It's all over the state …]
HEATHER: ... is ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: ... all over the nation, all over the world.]
HEATHER: ... psyched about self-esteem.
LATIF: Did anything change in the interim, like in those three years that would make them more receptive to the idea?
HEATHER: I mean, I guess ...
WILL STORR: I feel that it was just one of those ideas that the culture was ready for.
HEATHER: ... I think there's a couple ways to understand it.
WILL STORR: For me, the economy actually plays a big part in all this.
HEATHER: Will says that in the '80s, across the West, you see anti-union politics, increasing privatization, the end of social safety nets and, like, calls for personal responsibility.
WILL STORR: And that had a sort of a huge impact on who we were and how we understood the world as a people. I mean, the best way to sum it up is if you think about who we were in 1965 versus 1985. You know, we went from hippies, collectivist sort of screw the man, anti-materialistic people to greed is good and "Material Girl" and Whitney Houston singing the greatest love of all is yourself.
HEATHER: And also, right around the same time, you have the self-help movement.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: See You At the Top is the program that gives a checkup from the neck up ...]
HEATHER: Which is becoming ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: … to eliminate stinking thinking and avoid hardening of the attitudes.]
HEATHER: ... this huge industry.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: So what do you really want? Better relationships, financial independence.]
WILL STORR: So these ideas were already kind of out there in the culture. And I think if you'd have tried to launch the self-esteem movement in 1975, it wouldn't have got anywhere. But by the mid-'80s, this idea of "I'm amazing" is the answer to all my problems. I just feel like the culture was ready for it.
MATT: And also I think it's worth realizing ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: How many of us have been in counseling and therapy? I read somewhere 60 million Americans have been in therapy ...]
MATT: ... that therapy was also becoming this huge thing. And there's this book from the '80s that basically says that now the modern equivalent to salvation, to heaven, was mental health.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: ... who've all been in counseling and knowing more about our own identity and sense of self and deciding to be authentic and open and whole, at that kind of convergent point in time, our task force came on the scene.]
MATT: It's like all of these things came together in this exact right moment for John to step onto the scene and just be like, "Hey, I have something powerful, this social vaccine, self-esteem, that could help all of us."
EMMETT MILLER: But what does that look like when you translate that into real work in the world? Because he wasn't—he was never content with just shooting the shit, as he used to say, just—just talking. It had to result in something that made a difference.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: The challenge that you truly carry yourselves back into your schools and families ...]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: So if you have low self-image, you can do something to change it.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: ... as a beacon of self-esteem.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: She has high self-esteem.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: High what?]
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: A beacon of faith ...]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Self-esteem. It's the way we feel about ourselves.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: ... in ourselves.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: This is a very special day here at Ray Middle School.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: A person feels good about themselves.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Beacons of hope for our future.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: We are having a self-esteem day.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: As a beacon of love for every kid and everybody in your life.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Thank you very much. Let's do it.]
[applause]
LATIF: That's coming up right after this short break.
LATIF: Okay. Latif. Radiolab. Back with Heather and Matt and self-esteem.
MATT: Okay. So John's got a social vaccine.
LATIF: Right.
MATT: Question, of course, is, like, well, how do you inoculate society? Like, what do you—how do you actually—how do you do this?
LATIF: [laughs]
HEATHER: Yeah. Like, how do you teach people to feel good about themselves?
MATT: And for John ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: From my Latin prep school days, education comes from the Latin word "educare."]
MATT: ... the answer was ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: It doesn't mean to stuff in or sit still and shut up.]
MATT: ... the schools.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: Education—educare—means to draw out, to draw forth, to evoke, to call forth.]
MATT: You start with kids. And so in the late '80s/early '90s, there was this huge push to get self-esteem into the classroom, and suddenly there were all these, like, workbooks, textbooks.
HEATHER: So, like, here's one called Esteem Builders: a K-8 Self-Esteem Curriculum.
LATIF: Okay?
MATT: Or The Best Self-Esteem Activities for the Elementary Grades.
LATIF: Uh-huh?
HEATHER: Building Self-Esteem in the Secondary School Teacher's Manual and Instructional Materials.
MATT: And how this worked was, let's say you got a class of kids.
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Everybody, good morning, good morning, good morning! Hello back there! Everybody yeah, bring it down.]
MATT: Could be whatever grade. And the teacher would have one of these workbooks ...
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Everybody ...]
MATT: ... which in it would contain these worksheets.
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Today we are gonna do—today we're gonna talk about yourself.]
MATT: And how a lot of these begin is ...
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Imagine that you're looking in the mirror.]
MATT: ... by trying to get the kids to answer this really basic question.
[VOICEOVER, teacher: What do you see?]
HEATHER: Who am I?
[VOICEOVER, child: I look like ...]
[VOICEOVER, child: Brown hair. Brown eyes.]
[VOICEOVER, child: I have long hair.]
[VOICEOVER, child: Blond hair.]
[VOICEOVER, child: Dark hair.]
[VOICEOVER, child: I think I look beautiful, kind of.]
[VOICEOVER, child: Brown hair.]
MATT: Or just prompts like ...
[VOICEOVER, child: Three things I want to say about myself.]
MATT: ... what makes you different from other people?
[VOICEOVER, child: My first thing I would tell a new friend ...]
MATT: What makes you you?
[VOICEOVER, child: I love listening to music.]
[VOICEOVER, child: I like chemistry.]
HEATHER: Basically, who is this person that is the self?
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Okay, good.]
MATT: Can't have self-esteem without a self.
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Now think of some of the things that you like about yourself, and that you wouldn't want to change.]
HEATHER: And then, of course, there's just a ton of stuff about ...
[VOICEOVER, teacher: What are those things?]
[VOICEOVER, child: Um ...]
HEATHER: ... liking yourself.
[VOICEOVER, child: Being confident in who I am.]
[VOICEOVER, child: How my style is.]
[VOICEOVER, child: That my hair is the right length.]
MATT: Or something like ...
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Now let's imagine that every person at the school gets a gold medal for something that they are really great at.]
MATT: ... everybody gets a trophy!
[VOICEOVER, teacher: What would your gold medal be for?]
[VOICEOVER, child: Reading.]
[VOICEOVER, child: Baseball.]
[VOICEOVER, child: Screaming the loudest.]
HEATHER: Or ...
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Everybody get together.]
HEATHER: ... there were things called "sharing circles."
MATT: Kind of like encounter groups but for kids.
LATIF: Oh, that's sweet. So they can all yell at each other?
HEATHER: [laughs]
MATT: No, it'd be like ...
[VOICEOVER, teacher: What makes you really happy?]
HEATHER: Tell us about when you felt good.
MATT: What's one of the best things that's ever happened to you?
[VOICEOVER, teacher: Okay, now everybody knows what a sparkle statement is, right?]
[VOICEOVER, child: Um ...]
LATIF: What are sparkle statements?
MATT: So this comes from the book Esteem Builders. And they are a long list of statements you can make to a classmate.
LATIF: Yeah?
MATT: So, "You're cool." "I like knowing you." "Let's play together."
HEATHER: "Hope today is super for ya."
MATT: "You're my friend."
HEATHER: "You're a good buddy."
LATIF: Matt, I'm gonna print this out and put it—stick it next to your desk.
HEATHER: Yeah, I know. Somebody could use a few more sparkle statements in his life.
MATT: Nah. Maybe we should be a little bit less sparkly.
LATIF: And would this have been like—like, what class does this slot into?
MATT: They—they'd work this sort of stuff into, like, kind of your regular class.
LATIF: Like home room kind of thing?
MATT: Yeah. And it runs through—I mean, this is, like, programming that is available K through 12.
LATIF: Wow.
HEATHER: Yeah. And I will say I had it every year I can remember.
LATIF: What do you remember?
HEATHER: I mean, I remember—I remember Duso the Dolphin, which was this ...
LATIF: Never heard of Duso the Dolphin.
MATT: [laughs]
HEATHER: ... which was this dolphin puppet who taught us to feel good about ourselves using songs.
LESLIE JAMISON: Okay, so I'm trying my microphone.
HEATHER: But I also did this call-out on Instagram to see if anyone else remembered similar things.
LESLIE JAMISON: Yeah. Well, so ...
HEATHER: And my friend Leslie Jamison, who grew up in LA in the early '90s ...
LESLIE JAMISON: We always called them "put-ups" and "put-downs." That was, like, the name for, you know, saying something nice to somebody or saying something mean.
HEATHER: And she said that her teacher—this is, like, maybe third grade—had this policy that if someone received a put-down ...
LESLIE JAMISON: The thing was that you had to, like, go to this little patio, this back patio, and the person who gave you the put-down had to give you five put-ups.
LATIF: Oh, wow!
LESLIE JAMISON: To, like, counter the put-down.
LATIF: It's like doing push-ups or pull-ups.
MATT: Yeah, punishment through praise.
PEG KEINER: Hey!
HEATHER: Hey, how are you?
PEG KEINER: Good, how are you?
HEATHER: I'm good.
HEATHER: I also heard from this woman, Peg.
PEG KEINER: Peg Keiner, from Chicago.
HEATHER: Who had this wild story.
PEG KEINER: It was, like, 1995, is when I was in eighth grade.
HEATHER: About how there was this teacher who every morning ...
PEG KEINER: After the pledge of allegiance and the announcements, she had a handwritten sheet of paper that had two stanzas of "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music. And she had the bold gusto ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Julie Andrews: [singing] I have confidence in sunshine. I have ...]
PEG KEINER: ... to make a whole eighth-grade class sing these two stanzas.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Julie Andrews: [singing] I have confidence that spring will come again. Besides what you see, I have confidence in me.]
PEG KEINER: And sometimes twice. And she's like, "That wasn't loud enough! One more time."
MATT: It really—it's like the anthem, the self-esteem anthem.
JANE MARCHANT: We had this thing called "Star Attractions."
HEATHER: Another friend of mine, Jane Marchant, she was a '90s kid in Northern California.
JANE MARCHANT: And I still have this poster, which is insanely large.
HEATHER: It's this big poster with Jane's second-grade school photo right in the center.
JANE MARCHANT: I had these, like, horrible bangs.
HEATHER: And all around the picture are these stars where her classmates had written something.
JANE MARCHANT: "Jane is nice and fair." "Jane is loving." That's funny. "Jane is nice, funny, smart and good."
MATT: There you go. Trifecta.
AMY KUGLER: We got take-home slips of paper to write home and post.
HEATHER: There was Amy Kugler, in Wichita, Kansas.
MATT: Other affirmations?
AMY KUGLER: Other affirmations.
MATT: To just post around your bedroom?
AMY KUGLER: Yep, just post around my bedroom. "I'm a smart and kind student. I respect all."
MATT: [laughs]
HEATHER: There's my friend Gina Pensiero.
GINA PENSIERO: I grew up in Verona, New Jersey.
HEATHER: Who remembered learning about ...
GINA PENSIERO: IALAC!
HEATHER: I-A-L-A-C,
GINA PENSIERO: "I am loveable and capable."
HEATHER: I mean, even our writer Will Storr ...
WILL STORR: I remember being at school when we had to go around in a circle, and everybody had to say something good about themselves.
HEATHER: ... he got this stuff over in the UK.
MATT: There's, like, an Education Week article from 1991 that lays out that at this point already thousands of schools are starting to participate in this self-esteem curriculum. There are over a hundred workbooks to promote self-esteem in the classroom.
WILL STORR: So it just became embraced by the educational system in a major way.
HEATHER: Throughout the '90s, self-esteem became the dominant language that people in the West were using to talk about themselves. They used self-esteem to talk about their childhoods, their successes, their failures, their ambitions, just how they thought about who they were.
MATT: And for John ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: So this is more than just a personal venture and odyssey.]
MATT: ... this is, like, kind of everything he dreamed of.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, John Vasconcellos: It's more than just something for the classroom. It seems to me that self-esteem is the vision, the heart of a new culture, a new way of being, a new way of living, a new way of educating and politicking and living and working and all the rest. And may you have in your own lives ever more freedom to be esteeming, to be public, to be political, and to have good times for yourselves. Thank you.]
[applause]
WILL STORR: But should I talk about the—the lie a bit?
MATT: Yeah, this might have been ...
MATT: So this is the part in the story which we had—we told you at the beginning ...
LATIF: Yeah, you promised this was all a fraud. I'm waiting for the fraud.
MATT: Yeah, the lie.
WILL STORR: Okay, so ...
HEATHER: Yeah, this is, like, Will's whole thing is that one of the things he discovered when he was reporting his book is that ...
WILL STORR: In the archive, I managed to find an audio cassette recording of the actual meeting.
HEATHER: Where the Cal Berkeley researcher hired by the task force ...
WILL STORR: Presented his findings.
HEATHER: And he told the task force back in 1989 that yes, they had found some compelling correlations between self-esteem and education.
WILL STORR: But in other areas, the correlations don't seem to be so great. And we're not quite sure why. And we're not sure where we have correlations what the causes might be. Let's take, for example, one of the areas where the findings are a little bit loose, which has to do with self-esteem and alcoholic abuse. By and large, there are positive correlations here, but what does that mean in terms of cause? Do these people go to drinking because of an early history of self-doubt, self-degradation, worthlessness and so on? Or is it the other way around? Does the involvement in alcohol for years or decades constitute the causal basis for the feelings of worthlessness that we discovered in people who had been involved in that?
WILL STORR: So he was basically saying to them we have some okay correlational links—and, of course, as we all know, correlation isn't causation. And he was saying, but other than—but other links are not at all correlational and when we do have correlational links, you've got to ask that basic question: what is causing what? So—and he warns them later in the recording. You know, he says, "You've got to be careful about correlation and causation." And he said, "You've got to avoid the sin of overselling." He said, "Nobody can want to do that, you don't want to do that, and certainly we don't want to do that."
MATT: And yet that's exactly what they did.
LATIF: Literally what happened.
MITCH SAUNDERS: Oh, yeah. We had many, many conversations.
MATT: And we talked to Mitch, John's friend, about all this.
MITCH SAUNDERS: Arguments, if you will. Like, what's the actual nature of the research that's gonna happen here?
MATT: They'd argue about the research, about how John interpreted it.
MITCH SAUNDERS: I'd constantly challenge whatever he was looking at, you know?
MATT: And how did he respond to that?
MITCH SAUNDERS: He'd—he'd take it in.
MATT: Would he get defensive, or would he just kind of nod along?
MITCH SAUNDERS: He would just kind of nod along. Just do—he'd listen, take it in, but then go ahead and do whatever he wanted to do.
MATT: Mitch said that with John ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: There were many things that you can't shake loose. And, you know, that was part of John's genius and shadow.
MATT: And so through the '90s, when John was going around saying that self-esteem was this social vaccine, he was doing it seemingly knowingly on the basis of nothing.
LATIF: Hmm.
HEATHER: And so what would happen was that in the early 2000s, the very shaky foundation of the self-esteem movement started to collapse.
JENNIFER CROCKER: You know, I was more or less oblivious to the self-esteem movement. I mean ...
MATT: Like, you weren't watching TV?
JENNIFER CROCKER: [laughs]
HEATHER: So one person that we talked to was this researcher named Jennifer Crocker.
JENNIFER CROCKER: But I knew that people worried about it. People would say, "Well yeah, low self-esteem really is a problem, because you can't do anything about your situation until your self-esteem is high." And I'm like, "I don't think the data are consistent with that idea."
HEATHER: So Jennifer basically spent her entire academic career ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: My first publication on self-esteem ...
HEATHER: ... studying self-esteem.
JENNIFER CROCKER: ... probably 1983, around there.
MATT: And Jennifer told us about how in 2003, there were these psychologists and a bunch of other researchers ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: Who pulled together a very long, and I think really excellent overview of what is the value—what is the benefit of self-esteem?
MATT: They went through decades of whatever research was published, hundreds of studies.
JENNIFER CROCKER: To look at what are the differences between high- and low-self-esteem people? And what you see is that, you know, self-esteem is correlated with grades in school.
MATT: It's correlated with how attractive people find you.
JENNIFER CROCKER: But these are tiny associations.
HEATHER: So basically, it turned out a lot of what had been claimed in that task force report was just really not true. Like, all the claims that they were making about self-esteem being a social vaccine, that it was a cure for drug use, alcohol use, crime, violence, teen pregnancy, poor academic performance, this research showed that whether you had high or low self-esteem, it wasn't causing these problems.
JENNIFER CROCKER: Right. Right.
LATIF: Huh!
HEATHER: And so ...
LATIF: It's weird because, like, even though you're telling me the science of this and that it's like this huge study, like, as I'm hearing this, I'm like—like, the story logic of it holds so hard.
MATT: It makes such intuitive sense.
LATIF: It makes such intuitive sense, that it's like—it's—like, why wouldn't a kid be better if they—why wouldn't my relationships be better? Like, I—it's so hard to, like, dislodge it, even when you're literally telling me it's wrong.
MATT: Okay, well I can tell you one thing that the research showed about a meaningful difference between people with high self-esteem and people with low self-esteem.
JENNIFER CROCKER: Which is that high self-esteem people think they're smarter, more successful, more attractive, better liked, more popular than low self-esteem people think they are, in spite of the fact that they're not really any different from low self-esteem people in these objective ways.
MATT: So basically, for people with high self-esteem ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: Life feels good to them.
MATT: ... they're generally happier.
LATIF: That seems good! That's like the biggest tuna of all of them. That's like the most important thing of everything.
MATT: Well, okay. What Jennifer would say is ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: Right. I think there's nothing wrong with being happy.
MATT: Yeah. Like, of course. Sure, feeling happy, that's meaningful.
JENNIFER CROCKER: Right. Our emotions are central to how we experience our lives. But that's not all there is to the story, because there is a downside to high self-esteem.
LATIF: Which is what?
MATT: Well, the research shows that people with really high self-esteem tend to ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: Defend their positive views of themselves.
MATT: And so you see high self-esteem associated with things like ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: Defensiveness, aggression.
LATIF: Ah. Okay, that makes sense.
MATT: Yeah, totally. They found that in education, sometimes self-esteem programs produce actually, like, complacency, reduced effort, resistance to any sort of critical, negative feedback.
LATIF: Hmm.
MATT: And then there's Jennifer's work.
JENNIFER CROCKER: For, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, I was really interested in what people based their self-esteem on. And we found that pretty much everybody based their self-esteem on something.
HEATHER: So Jennifer did this study at the University of Michigan with students who were ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: Intending to apply to graduate school.
HEATHER: And what they found was that for the students who tied their self-worth to high academic achievement, when they got rejected from a grad school, their self-esteem obviously went down.
JENNIFER CROCKER: And it would—for some of the students, it would actually stay down for several days until something happened to kind of shake them out of that funk.
MATT: And for many of these students, they were showing more signs of depression.
HEATHER: Whereas the kids who weren't tying their self-esteem to that academic achievement, then when they didn't get into the program, they, like, could weather the storm.
LATIF: Hmm.
JENNIFER CROCKER: And then the other thing that was really interesting to me is that the students whose self-esteem was really based on their academic success, when we asked them what would it mean for you or about you to get into graduate school, they would write things like, "Oh, it would prove once and for all that I am brilliant, I am great. That I am successful. It would prove something about me."
MATT: And to Jennifer, this kind of like shows you the fatal flaw of self-esteem.
JENNIFER CROCKER: Yeah, it's just that if I have earned high self-esteem today by having some success in my life, then have I earned low self-esteem tomorrow if I have a failure?
MATT: Like, if I don't succeed at something, does that actually mean that I am worthless, that I don't have value?
JENNIFER CROCKER: Yeah. And ...
MATT: And she told us there was this prominent psychologist in the '90s and 2000s who went so far as to say ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: "Self-esteem is the worst sickness known to humankind, because when you succeed you are great, but when you fail you're shit."
MATT: So in 2004, there's this big New York Times Sunday magazine piece called, "The Trouble With Self-Esteem," kind of tearing down John and the task force and the promise and dream of self-esteem. In 2005, there is an op-ed piece in the LA Times basically doing the same thing. There's also this big Scientific American article called "Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth."
LATIF: Hmm.
HEATHER: Yeah, this is, like, when self-esteem becomes a joke.
MATT: Yeah, like this sort of every kid gets a trophy, participation medals.
LATIF: Right.
HEATHER: This is when all of that starts to become, like, very prevalent in how we think about self-esteem.
MATT: And there's actually—online there's all these published emails that John and some of his friends in the movement were sending to one another in the wake of all this. And ...
HEATHER: It's kind of heartbreaking.
MATT: Yeah. Like, John is sending these emails, they're written in all caps, and he's saying, like, there needs to be, like, a point-by-point rebuttal of the Times piece, and that they needed to fight back and, quote, "take on this enormous, historic, life-saving task."
LATIF: But that just makes John seem like he's really fighting alone on an island. Like, he's like the Japanese soldier fighting on the island, like, after the war is over kind of thing.
MATT: I think that's fair. I mean, he never really ...
HEATHER: Never stopped fighting.
MATT: Yeah, he never really stops fighting. I mean, there's a 2009 interview with San Jose Inside which is, you know, his birthplace, San Jose.
LATIF: Right.
MATT: And in it he's quoted as saying, "So now, all over the world, the role of self-esteem is widely recognized and valued. I think it's really proven to be all we thought it was and more." Which feels so—like, it feels delusional to read that.
LATIF: Yeah, that does sound delusional.
MATT: And I think Heather and I reporting this story and, like, learning more and more about John is this sort of—like, it almost—it feels sort of desperate in a way, and I think it's because for John, who grew up in this very strict Catholic family, whose Catholicism felt like this enormous sort of weight, this constraint, this thing that made him feel fundamentally flawed and broken and bad, like, to shed all of that through these ideas of self-esteem was, like, so vital and important to his sense of self, to his sort of well-being.
HEATHER: I mean, do you feel like—you are his good friend. Do you feel like he—like, I don't know—like, he was a person very committed to personal growth. Do you feel like he ended up being the man he wanted to be?
MITCH SAUNDERS: I'd say yes and no. I think there—there was a lot that he was proud of—and rightly so—and yet there was a lot that he would have said is undone. And I'm—I'm pretty sure he was disappointed that he never realized some of the levels that he—I think he thought he was capable—I mean, like, he got to hang out with Bobby Kennedy, you know? I think he—he thought he—his life should be something like that, you know, that level of influence.
HEATHER: Do you think he had high self-esteem?
MITCH SAUNDERS: I think his own self-esteem and—and the fragility of it was, you know, one of his struggles for his entire life. He's got all this power, all this influence, all this accomplishment under—you know, twice valedictorian, just constantly amassing successes, and yet there always being more to do. And then every time he'd see his mom, you know, she'd treat him the same way I bet she did when he was five.
MATT: And he'd come crumbling down?
MITCH SAUNDERS: No. But he'd just be annoyed and, you know, frustrated.
MATT: Hmm.
MITCH SAUNDERS: His—his most common trigger would be to get angry. Each of us get triggered in different ways, and his—his would—boy, he could erupt in no time.
HEATHER: How do you think he felt about how he was treating the people around him when he was angry like that?
MITCH SAUNDERS: Oh, big blind spots.
HEATHER: Oh, really?
MITCH SAUNDERS: Yeah. Yeah.
MITCH SAUNDERS: He'd feel bad about it, especially if somebody would say something. He was very, very good at cleaning up his messes, but he could be very embarrassing. He'd go out to dinner and, you know, post heart attack, he was very concerned about what he was eating, and if somebody brought a dish that was full of cream or something like that, he'd rage at the waiter or waitress. "Are you trying to kill me or something?" Just, you know, he'd lose it at times. And again, I think a lot of that was due to him being on this journey of trying to be his real self, but also being in the public eye all the time.
MATT: And Mitch told us about how another thing that John really struggled with throughout his life was just with relationships.
MITCH SAUNDERS: He never really—I didn't even—don't even need to add the word "really." He never developed an intimate one-to-one relationship that was just his. And every— so once in a while, I'd get a call from him that he was just, you know, almost suicidal, just because he—he longed for intimacy, closeness, and the best he could get were these one-night stands.
HEATHER: That's so sad!
MATT: And Mitch admits that there was this point in their friendship where Mitch told him, like, look ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: How about you become a member of our family? And that was our contract.
HEATHER: Huh. What did that look like?
MITCH SAUNDERS: Oh, my—you know, he—my kids grew up with Uncle John around all the time. We did a lot of things together—vacationed. He would be at our house—God, two if not three weekends a month, especially when the session was out. But even when session was in, he'd prioritize spending time with our family. His experience of being loved and being close to people came from these extended family relations. There were three families that he would sort of cycle through, but he never had his own intimate one-on-one relationship. There were very few opportunities for him just to be seen and appreciated for just being alive, not being an instrument. When he got sick, he'd come stay with us. Towards the end of his life, he actually stayed in our spare bedroom for several weeks, before I could—you know, before I found an appropriate place for him when he was really—really on the way out.
HEATHER: Mitch says this was 2014, and it was when John was diagnosed with a really aggressive form of cancer.
MITCH SAUNDERS: And he wanted to be back home, so we got him back home, got him on hospice.
MATT: And would you go over to his house to see him, like, often?
MITCH SAUNDERS: Oh, yeah. Every day. I was with him every day, basically.
MATT: And what was that like to just be there every day with him?
MITCH SAUNDERS: Well, I don't know if you've ever been with a person who's dying, but it's ...
MATT: I haven't. Not that intimately.
MITCH SAUNDERS: Yeah. You know, you spend most of the time just being there. They're sleeping, you know? Not a lot of energy. The last few days of his life, the thing that we worked on together was—he let me know that he was afraid. He'd given a lot of thought to how—to the actual dying experience, and he was deathly afraid of dying by asphyxiation. When people take their last breaths, especially if they're conscious, it—it can be very hard to actually let go and not take another breath. He was terrified. So we would—we'd practice. We'd take, like, five or ten minutes of just him practising how to let there be longer and longer periods before he would take an inhale, and to have the sort of—to be—in his words, to stay in charge of his own reaction so fear didn't take over.
HEATHER: And Mitch says it was in late May of 2014.
MITCH SAUNDERS: There were a group of his closest friends who were present around. We—we all knew it was getting close to the time.
HEATHER: And John ...
MITCH SAUNDERS: He insisted that he be naked.
HEATHER: This is the guy who in his 30s, when he went to Esalen, was terrified of being naked. When everyone was going into those pools, turned around and left because he just felt so ashamed and humiliated about his body.
MITCH SAUNDERS: He wanted to go out, finally, everybody seeing and holding and blessing him naked. [laughs] And so the morning he died I was right there holding his hands—holding one hand, his doctor, also a friend of mine, holding the other hand. And as he took his last breath I, you know, reached down into his ear and said, "You—you can do it." He took that last breath, and that was—that was it.
HEATHER: That was May 24, 2014. And I—I have found myself thinking—just sort of thinking about what John did and what parts of it are still with us now.
MICHAEL PETTIT: I do think the self-esteem movement has had a cultural effect, right?
HEATHER: Again, Professor Michael Pettit.
MICHAEL PETTIT: I definitely think a kind of psychologized self-talk is much more prevalent and available now than before. My employer sends emails all the time about my mental well-being and offering, you know—you know, here's a meditation class, you know, on campus, this type thing. So the language of mental health and mental wellness is even more prominent than ever before.
WILL STORR: Yeah, and I think the deeper idea is that everything that you're feeling is valid.
HEATHER: Author Will Storr.
WILL STORR: I always sort of think about this stuff, Carl Rogers and Vasco, when I'm watching real—because, you know, one of my guilty pleasures is reality television, and when you're watching reality TV, like when you're watching like a Below Deck or Big Brother and somebody behaves terribly, their excuse very often is, "Well, I'm just being myself. I'm just saying what I think, I'm just—" you know?
MATT: Living my truth.
WILL STORR: Yeah, living my truth. And that's still a very powerful idea in our culture in the West.
HEATHER: But I think maybe the biggest, maybe even the most important legacy of John's work is actually in the schools.
MISS CONNELLY: All right. Good morning, boys and girls.
CHILDREN: [in unison] Good morning, Miss Connelly.
MATT: Last year, Heather and I went to a school in Queens, PS 229.
MATT: I feel like I should also say hello.
[laughter]
MATT: To see how psychology gets used in classrooms today.
HEATHER: And today, if self-esteem is taught in classrooms at all, it's pretty tiny. And instead ...
MISS CONNELLY: Are you ready to do some SEL?
CHILDREN: [in unison] Yes.
HEATHER: ... what's in the classrooms across the country is this thing called SEL, social-emotional learning.
MISS CONNELLY: All right, boys and girls. Today we're gonna be doing a lesson called "Let's Make It Fair." Does anyone know what the word "fair" means?
HEATHER: We were in a class with first-graders.
CHILD: To be nice?
MISS CONNELLY: Say again?
CHILD: To be nice?
MISS CONNELLY: You want to be nice to people? Okay, good. What else?
CHILD: To share?
MISS CONNELLY: You want to share with people? Absolutely. Yes.
MATT: And so when we were there with these first-graders ...
MISS CONNELLY: So we're going to be looking at all different situations on "fair," and what it means to be fair.
MATT: ... they were being asked to answer questions like ...
CHILD: It is not fair because the other kid is messing with the swings.
MATT: ... when do you feel like something isn't fair?
CHILD: I was like, "Can I have some chips?" And then she was like, "No."
MATT: How does it feel ...
CHILD: Being, like, fair to other people.
MATT: ... when someone's being fair?
MISS CONNELLY: Is what? Tell me about it.
CHILD: Is kind.
MATT: How does it feel when someone's not being fair? How should we talk about these feelings?
HEATHER: Or, like ...
CHILD: One time, when I was at the mall ...
HEATHER: We also visited a classroom of fifth graders ...
CHILD: I saw people, like, kicking a boy.
HEATHER: ... who were doing a lesson on bullying.
MATT: How do you recognize bullying? How do you call out bullying? What do you do when you see bullying?
HEATHER: You know, there's this thing now they call, like ...
CHILD: An upstander is someone who actually helps the situation.
HEATHER: ... upstander.
LATIF: Upstander. Oh my gosh, that's—like, they talk about that nonstop.
HEATHER: I know, they totally invented that since we were kids.
LATIF: Right.
MATT: But I think what this is is a continuation of what John was trying to do by pulling psychology into education.
LATIF: It does feel like a continuation, yeah.
MATT: But whereas John was focused on the self— like self-value, self-worth, self-esteem—what's happening now is more focused on the other.
MISS CONNELLY: And now this is fair because everyone will be getting what they ...
CHILDREN: [in unison] Need.
MATT: About understanding other people's needs.
CHILD: The things you need.
MISS CONNELLY: The things you need.
MATT: Communicating your own needs.
MISS CONNELLY: What else could he say?
CHILD: Stop being mean to him.
MATT: It's about identifying emotions, communicating emotions.
CHILD: Or just—or just walk away.
MATT: It's group morning meetings, it's conflict resolution, it's learning how to make "I" statements, like "I feel blank."
HEATHER: It's also, like, don't bully. What is fairness? Like, there's a kind of like, "we're in a community of people" element of it.
LATIF: Right. I like that. I like that.
HEATHER: But so ...
CHILDREN: [in unison] Thank you!
HEATHER: ... one of the kind of amazing things about this is how weirdly, Jennifer ...
JENNIFER CROCKER: Well, we have—should be careful about the kind of praise that we give.
HEATHER: ... the researcher who spent her entire career looking at self-esteem, kind of wound up in the same place for herself as, like, the schools have.
LATIF: What do you mean?
HEATHER: So then what is—I mean ...
HEATHER: Well, so I asked Jennifer. I was like, you know, being a kid in the '90s, I still have this question of like, but how do you feel good?
HEATHER: It is good to feel good about yourself. But then how does one find self-worth in a way that's healthy?
JENNIFER CROCKER: I think by not worrying about it. [laughs]
HEATHER: What does that look like?
JENNIFER CROCKER: So "Am I a person of worth and value?" is just—it's not a helpful question. It just doesn't do anything for you to ask that question—or for other people. And a much better or more helpful question is, "How do I want to be right now? How might I support other people?" for example. But really, "What contribution, what thing that's larger than me is important to me?"
HEATHER: So she told us about one of the studies she did. It was looking at roommates.
JENNIFER CROCKER: College roommates.
HEATHER: Two roommates who didn't know each other.
JENNIFER CROCKER: Before the start of their first year in college. And we asked each roommate a whole bunch of questions about their relationship over time and their self-esteem. And what we found was that when roommates were responsive to the—so I'm gonna call them Roommate A and Roommate B because they're same sex, it gets confusing. So when Roommate A is responsive to Roommate B's needs, Roommate B notices and is responsive in return.
HEATHER: And then Roommate A is responsive again to Roommate B. And then Roommate B is responsive again to Roommate A.
JENNIFER CROCKER: So you can get this virtuous cycle going on in relationships where when people are focused not on their own needs but on being responsive to other people's needs, other people notice it. They appreciate it. Their esteem for the other person goes up, and that ends up having—it's not a huge impact, but nonetheless having a significant impact on the self-esteem of the person who is responsive in the first place. So—so the way to boost your self-esteem in a way that in my view is sustainable over time and good for the world is to focus on the well-being of other people or to organizations or institutions or things you really care about.
MATT: It's so funny, because I think, like, that's basically what John was after.
HEATHER: I know.
MATT: Like, if you could get people to understand they had self-worth, self-value, raise their self-esteem, they would do all these things for each other.
JENNIFER CROCKER: Yeah. It's just that self-esteem is the wrong place to focus, because you don't have to have high self-esteem to make a difference.
MATT: And with that, I feel that I have clearly been vindicated and validated.
HEATHER: No you haven't, Matt.
MATT: Yeah! The whole point is not to try and feel good about yourself.
HEATHER: That's not what she's saying. [laughs]
MATT: Yeah, she's talking about needs. Seeing needs.
HEATHER: Yeah, other people's needs! Like ...
MATT: Well, needing to be told that you did a great job jumping into Lake Michigan ...
HEATHER: Oh my God.
LATIF: Wow! We're still here. And you both now have interpreted this Rorschach thing that she said as meaning that you're right and you've been right all along, and what was the point of any of this?
HEATHER: I mean, I'm—Jen's convinced me. I just feel like you're being incredibly—you're being very resistant to just sort of a basic level of human kindness.
MATT: Okay, fine. Then I will suggest that we end this episode on a positive note.
LATIF: And what's the positive note?
MATT: Great job, everybody.
HEATHER: [sighs]
LATIF: This episode was reported by Heather Radke and Matt Kielty. It was produced by Matt Kielty with additional sound design by Jeremy Bloom and edited by Pat Walters. Original music by Ben Batchelder, voice acting by David Gebel and Dann Fink. And fact-checking by Angely Mercado. It was mixed by Jeremy Bloom.
LATIF: Special thanks to Charlotte Engraff as well as the teachers and students at PS 229 in Queens. And our self-esteem of the '90s kids ...
CHILD: My name is Noah, and I'm five.
CHILD: My name is Fivel. I'm from Los Angeles, California.
CHILD: I'm Penny, and I'm 10 years old.
CHILD: Gus. I am eight years old.
CHILD: My name is Orville, and I'm six years old.
CHILD: My name is Eleanor, and I'm six years old.
CHILD: My name's Bowen and I have—and I'm five years old.
CHILD: My name is Hawk. My age is five.
CHILD: Elka. Eight.
CHILD: My name is William, and I am eight years old.
TEACHER: Is there anything else you'd get a gold medal for among your friends? Among your classmates and stuff?
CHILD: Hiding.
TEACHER: Hiding?
CHILD: Yeah. I'm like a really good hider and hiding other things.
LATIF: That's it from us, and listening and responding to listeners' needs, we are gonna post another episode in this feed next week. Catch ya then. Bye bye bye!
[LISTENER: Hi, I'm Alyssa Mahoney from Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. Here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandbach is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Mona Madgavkar, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Sarah Qari, Rebecca Rand, Anisa Vietze, Arianne Wack, Molly Webster and Jessica Yung. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angely Mercado and Sophie Sanahee.]
[LISTENER: Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.]
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