The September 14 Theodore Dalrymple Takimag column explores the wrong-headed modern obsession of worrying about the individual´s self-esteem after the good doctor is informed that a certain (anti-)social media site will stop showing the number of likes on posts in order to not hurt any feelings.

Self-esteem is one of those psychological concepts by which we empty the world of moral meaning, hoping for a technical solution to our discontents. That world empty of moral meaning is the world in which the number of “likes” is the measure of all things.