Imagine someone sitting alone in a room without television, radio, computer or phone and with the door closed and the blinds down. This person must be a dangerous lunatic or a prisoner sentenced to solitary confinement. If a free agent, than a panty snipping looser shunned by society, or a psycho planning to return to college with an automatic weapon and a backpack full of ammo.
No wonder the current diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) defines detachment as a condition known as depersonalisation disorder, a sense of being detached from, and as if one is an outside observer of, one"s mental processes or body. So anyone capable of detachment is mentally ill, indeed scarcely even a person at all.
Yet, achieving personal detachment was considered to be a key factor in mental health by every thinker from Buddha to Sartre. Even christian thinkers have valued detachment, and one of the most passionate endorsements comes from the thirteenth century dominican mister Eckhart. Many works by the pagan teachers and the prophets, in both old and new law, and to find which is the greatest virtue.....and as the study of all these writings, as far as any reason that can lead and teach, there is no virtue better than a pure detachment from all things. Eckhart goes on to place detachment above humility, mercy and even love, adding in a curious but striking phrase, "detachment compels God to come to me" a secular version of this is that detachment from the world compels the world to approach. The Paradox is that informed detachment can actually inspire a more intense engagement. It is like standing back from a painting in order to see it more clearly.
As difficult as detachment from the world is detachment from the self, a form of humility opposed by a culture that instead worships self esteem. It is a contemporary axiom that lack of self esteem is the root of all evil, especially social evils such as violence, delinquency and academic under achievement, and that strong self esteem is the solution to all problems both personal and social. In the USA there is even a national association for self esteem, NASE, whose mission is improving the human condition through the enhancement of self esteem, further evidence that it is impossible to satirise the contemporary world. And at the personal level, there is a burgeoning sub-genre of self help devoted to boosting self esteem. There was a time when, in fables, people asked questions of mirrors and waited fearfully for the response. But this is no longer a questioning age. Instead we are encouraged to begin each day by shouting into a mirror the relevant delusion - for sales staff, I am uniquely persuasive. I will meet all my sales targets; for managers, I am uniquely masterful. I will command universal obedience ; and, for lovers I am uniquely beautiful. I will inspire eternal love in the object of my desire.
The problem with self esteem is that it has no values or principles and does not even require effort. Self respect, which is subtly through crucially different, implies achievement worthy of respect, but self esteem, in its contemporary usage, makes no demand on the self - only on others. Self respect comes from within and self esteem from without. Spinoza understood this distinction: "self respect does not extend to anything outside us and is attributed only to one who knows the real worth of his perfection, dispassionately and without seeking esteem for himself. Self esteem narcissistic, demanding that the world reflect back what ever images presented, and so it can never have any lasting benefit, all though few have acknowledged this.
