Individualist "Self-Esteem"
With the predominance of Western societies throughout the world today, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that our individualistic thinking is historically strange - an innovation, really. When a modern person says, "I don't care what you think of me", we tend to not see how this attitude of defiance (even just the attempt) has been very difficult to achieve throughout history. Social, family, and cultural pressure has historically been immense.
Coming of age at the advent of the internet was a remarkable thing for me. On one hand, I was lucky to have an analog childhood free of tablets, screens, and the internet. On the other, I was also lucky to have this new technology just as I came of age, which gave me access to so much information I would not have found otherwise.
Growing up in this era, I remember people talking about "self-esteem" and how many did not think well of themselves - i.e. they lacked "self-esteem". This was just one of many topics that I was now able to research on this new thing called the internet. And I was lucky to come across the book "Christ Esteem - Where the Search for Self-Esteem Ends", by Don Matzat. His main point was that to be a "Christian" was to not pursue "self-esteem" at all; that instead, as Christians, we should only pursue the glory of God. This of course resonated with me at the time as I had a strong sense that we were missing historical context to our notions.
But as helpful as it was, it didn't satisfy all my questions. It was a welcome starting point, but I needed to understand further how even the notion of "self-esteem" - something foreign to non-western nations - had come about. As it turns out, the origin of this individualism could be understood: It was a product of 2,000 years of what we refer to now as "Christendom" - where Christianity (and its values) have held dominion (in contrast with the values of other ages and cultures). Whether religious or not, if a person lives in the modern West, they are deeply influenced by the individualism that has come from the predominance of the reign of Christianity. And it all started with a man crucified on a Roman cross of shame; a man who had decided ahead of time he would submit to such a death. Yes, he would "scorn the shame" - that is, endure the ultimate humiliation.