The term self empowerment (empowerment) has had a significant resonance in recent years: it belongs to that group of practically untranslatable Anglo-Saxon terms. It brings with it a set of multifaceted meanings. Empowerment means greater “power”, that is, the activation of an individual’s resources or an organization.
At the individual level, it is the ability of people to feel responsible and protagonists of their own lives to expand the self. At an organizational level, it is the company’s opportunity to be more efficient in its operation and take on innovative challenges. In both cases, however, the starting point is a current situation to improve it, enhance it, under the assumption that everyone has the resources that can be developed.
Empowerment means mobilizing people to grow as individuals and as accomplished professionals in their work, individual success, and the organization to which they belong through commitment and passion.
Individual empowerment is called self-empowerment and strengthening personal and professional means to better use the capabilities and potential energies. It means becoming agents of our own life and work; it means knowing how to be innovative and generative and mobilize the best for our expression and growth. The empowerment carries real power within individuals acting on their sense of well – being and self – efficacy, a power that has to do with variables such as motivation, self – confidence, energy psychic, the tendency to internal control front to the one exercised from outside.
What does self-empowerment mean – also called empowerment? More and more
Self-centeredness and ego-centeredness? Increasing social incompetence and encouragement to do so? What is self-empowerment with laid out poison baits for dogs and with razor blades in sandboxes? What does self-empowerment have to do with the fact that, even in politics, one listens less and less to one’s clients, the voters, who don’t take their worries and needs seriously, ignores clients, no longer listens and simply does one’s thing radically? In a society where social skills are constantly being degraded, do many people also call for social incompetence? Isn’t self-empowerment something positive? Learn more! First, some important terms
Self-worth
The value determines our life we attach to ourselves. The value we attach to ourselves is what makes us what we think of ourselves (self-esteem). Our awareness of ourselves (self-confidence) and our self-esteem and our self-confidence result from this self-image and feeling. In doing so, however, people tend to overestimate themselves and to exaggerate themselves – both natural effects:
Overconfidence
The need to maintain and increase one’s self-esteem is one of the basic motives of every person. Once people see their self-esteem threatened, they tend to skew reality towards a logic of their own that sustains self-image. People also resort to completely irrational attempts at explanations. In the so-called self-esteem effect, for example, the facts are completely twisted. The overconfidence effect, also known as the overconfidence barrier effect, describes the tendency to be completely convinced of one’s judgments and judgment. The effect is based on a natural misalignment of subjective probabilities in the brain. Also, the so-called illusion of superiority, also known as the “Lake Wobegon Effect”, belongs to the so-called self-serving distortions with which we value ourselves to feel better. Due to the illusion, we can just as easily “run in front of the pump”.
Self-efficacy expectation
The concept of the self-efficacy expectation (SWE) (perceived self-efficacy) (after Albert Bandura) is based on one’s expectation and describes the positive effects of believing in oneself. Belief in one’s person is an important prerequisite for the tasks of life to master successfully. The expectation of self-efficacy is a real effect.
The collision of interests between the “I” and society
Empowerment is a kind of self-competence. It follows the trend towards striving to achieve ego identity and ego-relatedness. In contrast, however, there is a human being as a social being. Social competence and socially competent behavioral patterns are constantly required by social and behavioral expectations to interact successfully and without problems in social communities. There are clear contradictions between self-empowerment and social regulations, which collide with one another in many aspects.
Example: In the political education environment, citizenship should be increased. If citizenship is increased, laws and rules are questioned by the individual. First of all, that’s good. The problem: Laws and rules that are questioned are sometimes not accepted and possibly not tolerated. Rules and laws break. Following the trend towards self-centeredness, some people strive for such a break with society. They quasi place themselves above social norms and values. You feel better yourself with it. But what about the other people? What about achieving common goals or the protection of others who want to develop just as freely? Are there no rules and compliance with them required? Doesn’t the individual now have to adhere to these rules? Doesn’t self-centeredness create chaos?
Therefore, another part of society is the logically consistent view that the human being is a social being – and is therefore necessarily integrated into social norms and regulations. Individuals have to adapt to these rules (with their social skills and) with socially compatible behavioral patterns. However, it must be said that many people also misunderstand their adaptation and thereby give themselves up completely and place so much under the value of social responsibilities and obligations that nothing remains of them that can be identified as their personality.
A lot is also assumed in a relationship that the partner does not intend. Nevertheless, a clear trend towards self-centeredness, self-determination, and corresponding self-empowerment can be observed in our society, which is very clearly differentiated from people’s thinking and acting in collectivist social systems.
The many self-empowerment representatives take the view that applicable norms, well-established rules, and established structures of the institutional order may also be violated. In their opinion, institutions and our societies’ institutional order must be consciously questioned and ultimately overcome through new forms of free self-organization. But there are also positive sides, for example, civic engagement as a modern variant of honorary positions and an increased urge for education and training.
The time of stubborn command obedience is long gone – and appears solely with regard to our history. That is a good thing. Nevertheless, the question is allowed whether, for example, an army in which the soldiers are encouraged and stopped, To question orders, to assert oneself in an emergency against an army from collectivist states? The examples of movements and aspirations given so far have been about groups and groupings. What about the individual and his or her personality? What’s the trend here?
Many people want to see themselves strongly and clearly as individuals, work out their individuality, distance themselves from others, and even have their own rights and get that it is downright difficult to bring this into a healthy harmony with the needs of others. This is shown not least by the relatively high number of neighborhood disputes and the extremely high number of private law disputes that arise in the courts and can only be processed with long waiting times and simplified methods.
Those who do not get their rights deny – if admissible – the way to the next higher instance or take care of “claiming” their rights in other ways. Quite a few resort to unfair means (in the context of so-called vigilante justice), which are also referred to as “self-empowerment”. It is hardly surprising that even top politicians encourage such attitudes and behavior.
Self-empowerment is, therefore, a double-edged sword and should be viewed and treated with just as much care. Both sides – self-determination as well as social determination and responsibility – have advantages and disadvantages, which are rarely compared. Usually, either one or the other view is propagated. While self-empowerment in private life helps out of nonsensical dependencies that can block, paralyze and make people sick, this self-empowerment can also lead to behavior that harms other people and can, therefore, even be of azo social and criminal nature.
The empowered individual understands as “anti-social” and “criminal” depends on his self-image and worldview inherent in himself. In this respect, those who empower themselves make their own rules and laws, which they vehemently represent like their own police force and judiciary. He seems to be above all else.
So there are not only people who authorize themselves (e.g., because of internal dissatisfaction or anger about the boss) to “turn blue” for several months at the expense of their employer and colleagues, but also those who have a weapon (of any kind) and thereby “get your right” or help your right and thus bring your “I” to bear, possibly with manslaughter. Sometimes it is razor blades that are placed in sandboxes in children’s playgrounds to counteract the noise of children playing, sometimes poison baits that are laid out to deter dog owners from letting their dog run free. But it’s not just about acts of unjust, it’s simply about getting your will and your ego through.
Example: “Although there is a sign here that says that dogs are to be leashed in the forest, I do not need to do that because my dog is nice and completely harmless, and this is actually not really a forest here, just a collection of some trees. “Or: “Because the traffic routing that some theorists have come up with is illogical here, I help myself by turning left after all, although you can only turn right here.” People create their own logic. They do not notice that this logic is then rather strongly distorted: “Whoever says I should leash my dog does not like my dog. Whoever does not like my dog does not like me either. Whoever neither likes animals nor people is.” an evil person.
In a society in which innumerable needs related to the ego collide, the individual often feels neglected, cheated, and betrayed of his rights. And these legal needs are more diverse today than ever: While in the past it was often only about bare survival and the satisfaction of basic needs such as hunger and sleep, today it is about the right to freedom for the dog and the need to drive his car at speed 250 to be allowed to drive out.
A small car driver who seems to stick to the speed limit “stuffy” or a walker who prefers to see the large free-running dog on a leash seems like a troublemaker to many self-proclaimed “self-masters”, even like a criminal opposed to one’s right to free development of one’s own personality and to living out one’s ego – and it is important to assert oneself according to one’s own worth, if necessary with force.
When traffic cops stop a traffic offender and show him his offense on video, they often have to record that the speeders and pushers are either inconsistent, find the whole thing ridiculous, call the “slow driver” in front of the guilty or simply listen away according to the motto: “This is just a petty injustice of poor envious people and doesn’t change the way I drive.” Some would, if they could, even sue the police officers or defend themselves in some other way, for example, like many a dog owner, who then threatens his dog as a weapon. Threatening is a typical expression of self-determination, self-worth, self-importance, and overestimation of oneself.
People feel more and more often in their subjective perception that they are disadvantaged or outright overreached compared to others, while they consider others unjustifiably preferred by the “system”. From an objective point of view, this is not infrequently the case. In such an exaggeratedly self-centered society, however, the state is not in a position to please or please everyone. To endure such internal contradictions requires a high tolerance for ambiguity – an important part of social skills. In modern consumer societies, however, these social skills continue to decline rapidly. Last but not least, this is again due to the state, which takes more and more responsibility and personal responsibility away from the individual. In Germany, educators of one’s own children are not – as many assume – their parents. Parents are only allowed to bring up children with the permission of the state. Even if there is no longer a Hitler Youth: the state educator is still the state – and the state can withdraw the right to education at its own discretion.
However, such things are now also taking on traits that are a case for the psychiatrist or at least for the psychotherapist: Anyone who is annoyed that they receive little attention from other people and are not addressed by representatives of the opposite sex cares maybe not about his styling and outfit, register in the fitness studio or consult a coach: It is not uncommon for a law to be required that is intended to counteract this frustration in the future, e.g. (as debated some time ago) a law that For example, it is supposed to forbid men from complimenting a woman in the street because this is supposedly discriminatory.
If such a frustrated person finds a suitable lobby and an equally frustrated politician who is similar, the appropriate law will be found at some point. If such a law does not get through, then – for the sake of simplicity – one simply decides to abolish the difference between men and women; after all, a reason can always be found for not looking for the cause of failure in oneself but in others.
But there is not always a strong lobby to which politicians belong. Or you may not find any scientific “evidence” that something is not what it seems and has worked well so far. Even then, self-empowerment finds its way out. Those who do not get the peace and quiet they want or are annoyed with children and dogs simply authorize themselves to take things in hand and to find a remedy, e.g., razor blades in sandboxes, Poison bait against dogs, etc. Alternatively, you add a weapon to yourself – or preferably a dog yourself, preferably an even bigger one. The feeling of helplessness in many people should be taken just as seriously as problems with their own personality and self-esteem.
In addition, there is the constant social comparison with others who are better off, who are allowed to take greater liberties, who receive more support from the state, for whom one has to work more or less hard, even literally “toil”. In fact, the state, which otherwise relieves citizens of all possible responsibilities, cares little about this psychological reality – nor about the dangers that arise from such “misunderstandings” and feelings. Anyone who simply ignores the feelings of the individual and individual groups will, at some point, encounter major problems. Ticking time bombs slumber here. Some of them are now becoming more and more common, e.g., frustrated people who report themselves as Islamist fighters, even train as ticking time bombs,
Overall, the general trend towards self-empowerment is quite questionable. Professionals should also see this responsibility. If a therapist advises: “Just say no soon.” this is meant quite well by the therapist, and it helps his client to act self-determined again in the short term. But if this client loses his job because he says no or is arrested by the police at a traffic stop because he simply refuses to simply play along with such “impertinence” and “discrimination”, the consequences are different. What is advised by many authorities in terms of empowerment is certainly well-intentioned but still quite unrealistic, at least as long as there is a legal, economic and social dependency,
Anyone who unreservedly recommends empowerment in every respect is subject to a downright ideal world, naivety mistake. Anyone who propagates social incompetence instead of a healthy self-image and external image through the incorrect or completely exaggerated interpretation of empowerment does not help protect people from being conditioned by excessive social influence. It conditions people to be more egocentric and promotes personality disorders, promotes pride and arrogance (possibly dangerous arrogance), and possibly stirs up destructive envy.
To avert a deficit-oriented perception and put aside unfavorable inhibitions and defective fears towards a strength-oriented self-perception – also regarding a healthy self-image and external image – empowerment is certainly a very excellent concept, also with regard to modern management and personnel management concepts.
Self-empowerment in politics:
When politicians rise above the people
Logically, politicians – at least in the form of government called “democracy” – should not empower themselves. Rather, politicians are commissioned by the people as “representatives of the people” to represent voters’ interests.
Nevertheless, these rules have often been broken in history, which we have to experience again today since the numerous open breaches of the constitution that have persisted since 2015. The only difference is that what was once openly celebrated in 1933, today many citizens do not really notice because of their superficial consumer orientation and one-sided information gathering under the influence of the mass media – but also because of the years of trust in politics, democracy and the rule of law.
If so, then they hide this in a self-worthy way (see the principle of cognitive dissonance reduction). Enlighteners and critics call these people “dreamers” or “sleep sheep” – and there are apparently very many of them, including those who choose their own executioner again. But this then belongs to the subject of masochism and the subject areas of personality and intelligence.
Already with the laws of the 1920s, especially the Stresemannian and Marxian enabling laws, dangerous models for the subsequent open breach of the constitution were created. Today, the emphasis is placed on the supposed “democracy” and the alleged “rule of law” again deliberately on similar goals and laws. This not only includes the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) brought into being by Heiko Maas (SPD) in his office as Federal Minister of Justice, which not only reminds of very dark times in terms of its name, which people also found very bright and shining back then.
In this context, it is worth remembering the Enabling Act of March 24, 1933, passed by the German Reichstag, with which the legislative power was, in fact, completely transferred to Adolf Hitler. Incidentally, Hitler’s self-empowerment formed the basis for abolishing powers’ separation and enabled all subsequent measures to consolidate the National Socialist dictatorship. A similar form of government is being worked on again today. Whether this happens consciously and deliberately or unconsciously does not, in fact, matter.
