Self-love will change the world

From the Live Earth special televised event, while no one was watching, comes this truly dreadful song from Madonna called "Hey you!" The song from the July 7th concert tells us that the key to saving the planet is vanity. No, seriously.

Hey you!
Don't you give up; it's not so bad.
There's still a chance for us.
Hey you!
Just be yourself; don't be so shy.
There's reasons why it's hard.

The Taizé-esque refrain goes like this:

First love yourself, then you can love someone else.
If you can change someone else, then you have saved someone else.
But you must first love yourself, then you can love someone else.
If you can change someone else, then you have saved someone else.

It is true that self-love will change the world. But not for the better. In theology, it is what we call vanity or the sin of pride. I thought the following criticism of the self-esteem movement from the article on Wikipedia was particularly insightful: "Some social constructionists argue that modern day America with its overwhelming cultural bias towards self-enhancement has fabricated and validated the dogma of self-esteem as a universal human goal that all must strive towards perfecting." For further reading, consider this article from Scientific American, titled "Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth."