Terror management theory (TMT) posits that people deal with the problem of death by employing two distinct modes of defense: direct, rational, threat-focused defenses, that function to reduce the individual’s perception of his or her vulnerability to life threatening conditions, and thus push the problem of death into the vague and distant future; and symbolic, cultural defenses, that embed the individual as a valuable part of an eternal conception of reality that is bigger, stronger, and more enduring than any individual (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1998). These defense mechanisms are manifested in the form of a dual-component cultural anxiety-buffer consisting of: a) a cultural worldview and b) self-esteem, which is acquired by believing that one is living up to the standards of value inherent in one’s cultural worldview.
http://web.uccs.edu/kgeddes/introduction.htm#Terror%20Management%20Theory
(the icons are hilarious.)
in other words, self esteem is coral. and that solidifies into culture, which is the atoll around all of the objectively meaningless living and dying that goes on.
