of the knowledge that his defense-values are now inadequate to protect him and that there is no longer any place to
run.
Just as a psychologically healthy man bases his self-esteem on the use of his mind, and gains an ever-increasing
sense of control over his existence by choosing values that demand constant intellectual growth—so this man based
his pseudo-self-esteem on his humility, counting on others to solve the problem of his survival, and chose values
appropriate to this manner of existence, values intended to reassure him of the validity and safety of his course. The
terror he feels when he assumes ownership of the hardware store is the terror of a man suddenly divested of his
means of survival, who must act and function in reality without weapons.
A significant characteristic of defense-values is the unreasoning compulsiveness with which they are usually held.
Men of pseudo-self-esteem cling to these values with blind tenacity and fanatical devotion—as they would cling to
a life-preserver in a stormy sea. Man's greatest fear is not of dying, but of feeling unfit to live. And to escape the
agony of that feeling, men will pay any price: they will defy logic, they will sacrifice their practical self-interest,
sometimes they will even forfeit their life.
With rare exceptions, they will pay any price except the one that could save them: they will not acknowledge the
fraudulence of their defenses, and work to achieve an authentic self-esteem; they will not accept the responsibility
of living as rational beings.
The number of different defense-values which men can adopt, is virtually limitless. Most of these values, however,
fall into one broad category: they are values generally held in high regard by the culture or subculture in which a
person lives.
The following examples illustrate common defense-values of this category:
—The man who is obsessed with being popular, who feels driven to win the approval of every person he meets,
who clings to the image of himself as "likeable," who, in effect, regards his appealing personality as his means of
survival and the proof of his personal worth;
—The woman who has no sense of personal identity and who seeks to lose her inner emptiness in the role of a
sacrificial martyr for her children, demanding in exchange only that her children