As another review reported, this book was poorly printed and difficult to read.
I began this book with enthusiasm, impressed by the author's premise that self-esteem is dependent on a person holding values in which they really believe, and acting with courage to preserve their integrity. As I read on, however, my admiration diminished. The tone of the writing - authoritative, magisterial - seemed increasingly out of synch with the author's attitude to the world, which seemed at times frankly adolescent.
From the beginning, Branden stresses the importance of not holding unconscious values which have been handed to us wholesale by parents, schools, religious bodies, culture. It seems to me that it would therefore be useful for him to offer some guidance as to how to go about the monumental task of developing a values system from the ground up. However, the nearest that the book gets to helping the reader uncover his/her own views is to urge him to make contact with his feelings. Although feelings are useful indicators that something needs to be addressed, acting directly on feelings is usually disastrous, yet the examples Branden gives in the book, of advice he has given to clients, show little process coming between the urge and the action. For all that the book incessantly talks about the importance of rationality, the author seems oblivious to the irrationality of his own beliefs.
I would have thought that recognising that some, or most, of your values are unexamined, does not imply that you should throw out the whole system as diseased. Careful analysis is likely to show that some of those values are worthwhile to you and should be retained. However, it seems to me that Branden's words exhort the reader to rebel against any value which has been pressed on him by an outside agent. Not to examine and assess it, but to act against it as a matter of principle. To me, this comes across as distinctly teenage, no matter how clever the wording. (It's worth noting that the book was published in 1983, the era of `greed is good'.)
The author seems oblivious to the fact that humans are interdependent and have a duty of care to each other. We affect each other emotionally whether we like it or not, and failing to show proper respect and care for others, is likely to rebound on us in the long term. But something is lacking in Branden's understanding of human relationships. One client, who has a crush on another woman, is advised to 'courageously' leave his wife and capitalise on the joy he will feel with the other woman, whatever pain it might cause the wife. The lack of understanding of the broader implications of such a choice, is breathtaking.
This example spurred me into researching the author, about whom I knew nothing. Nathaniel Branden is a man who had an affair with his boss, Ayn Rand, beginning about a year into his first marriage. He then had an affair with a third woman, lying to both wife and Rand. He has been married four times, and the wife to whom this book is dedicated is the third; he later divorced her. His insistence on the importance of integrity seems decidedly at odds with his attitude to honesty and the duty of care implicit in the marriage vows.
This book is powerfully written. It makes you think. But the author does not seem to have a clear idea of what values, at the basic molecular level, actually are, and this leaves his writing empty at the heart.
