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A Means for Self Actualization

Abraham Maslow defined a hierarchy of needs to be:

1) Biological and Physiological (water, food, shelter, air, sex, etc.)

2) Safety (security, law and order, stability, etc.)

3) Belonging and love (family, affection, community, etc.)

4) Esteem (self-esteem, independence, prestige, achievement, etc.)

5) Self-Actualization (self-fulfillment, personal growth, realizing personal potential, etc.)

This hierarchy makes us conscious of the obvious fact that we did not fret about the absence of self-esteem if we did not already have security nor did we worry about security if we did not have water to drink or air to breath.

"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This is the need we may call self-actualization ... It refers to man's desire for fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming ..."

I think that the area in which Western society fails most egregiously is in the matter of an intellectual life after schooling. We have a marvelous brain that goes into the attic after schooling is complete and is brought out only occasionally on the job or when we try to play bridge or chess.

It appears to me that the fundamental problem faced by most Western democracies is a lack of intellectual sophistication of the total population. Our colleges and universities have prepared young people to become good producers and consumers. The college graduate has a large specialized database that allows that individual to quickly enter the corporate world as a useful cog in the machine. The results display themselves in our thriving high standard of living, high technology corporate driven life styles.

We are excellent at instrumental rationality and deficient at developing the rationality and understanding required for determining normative values. It seems to me that our societies are not prepared intellectually for the demanding task ahead. The only solution seems to be a change that will significantly increase the intellectual sophistication of the society as a whole. We need a rising tide of intellectual sophistication and Self-Actualization might be the way for our adults to add an intellectual life to their acquisitions.

Maslow learned to distinguish “special talent creativeness from “self-actualizing (SA) creativeness,

which springs more directly from the personality, and showed itself in the ordinary affairs of daily life. This is all potentiality given to most people at birth and is generally lost or buried or inhibited, as the person becomes more acculturated. These self-actualizing humans “do not neglect the unknown, or deny it, or run away from it or try to make believe it is really known¦They do not cling to the familiar, nor is their quest for the truth a catastrophic need for certainty, safety, definiteness, and order.

The creativity of self-actualizing individuals is a derivative of their “greater wholeness and integration. SA creativeness stress first the personality, individuality, character and attitude rather than accomplishments. Character traits, the habits of behavior, such as boldness, courage, freedom, spontaneity, perspicuity, integration, and self-acceptance express itself in the creative life. “It is emitted like sunshine.

What means do we have to consciously help us to become self-actualizing adults? I think that self-actualization can best come through self-learning (autodidactic).

I would like to introduce a concept that perhaps many have not given consideration. I would like to introduce post-schooling scholarship. I do not use the word ‘scholarship’ to mean some form of education stipend. I mean ‘scholarship’ as tailor-made learning. The individual creates her or his own learning in a process of developing a Self-Actualizing person.

I think we have placed scholarship on a too lofty pedestal and in doing so we have placed it beyond reach or consideration. I want to suggest that middle class scholarship is something that we all should consider as a friend to be embraced as our own.

The development of an economic middle class is the hallmark of success in any mature nation. I think it is possible that the development of a scholarly middle class could represent a similar development in the life of democracy of a nation. We might express the concept as middle class scholarship or post-schooling scholarship.

I think that post-schooling scholarship is a means to self-actualization. If you do not find this to be a means for self-actualization what means would you suggest?

A poet must write; a singer must sing; a scholar must ..... schol.



I love Maslow's heirarchy of needs. It's an oversimplified starting point that everybody can relate to.



I don't see how intellectual sophistication can help an artist achieve his pentacle of artistry ... or were you calling for it vice versa?



Thinking as I'm writing here.



To me, the most important skill in determining and developing normative values across cultures is empathy. Academic study has value in developing empathy, but it is only one tool among many, and is useless alone.

Accountable wrote: A poet must write; a singer must sing; a scholar must ..... schol.



I love Maslow's heirarchy of needs. It's an oversimplified starting point that everybody can relate to.



I don't see how intellectual sophistication can help an artist achieve his pentacle of artistry ... or were you calling for it vice versa?



Thinking as I'm writing here.



To me, the most important skill in determining and developing normative values across cultures is empathy. Academic study has value in developing empathy, but it is only one tool among many, and is useless alone.


I do not know much about poetry but it seems clear to me that understanding the world and the self will make a poet or anyone better at doing their thing.

Empathy is very important I agree. I also think that knowledge and understanding makes for better empathy because empathy requires imagination.

I think we've found common ground, coberst.

Empathy is an interesting capability which we share with other primates. It seems to've evolved in us and yet, some of us seem to suppress it.

Lulu2 wrote: Empathy is an interesting capability which we share with other primates. It seems to've evolved in us and yet, some of us seem to suppress it.


I was not aware that primates were capable of empathy. Empathy requires a sophisticated degree of imagination and the intellect to choose analogies it seems to me.

I can give several examples but this one will serve. At the zoo where I work, a terrible accident occurred when one of the young chimps somehow caught his head in a cargo net, where they'd been playing. The other chimps tried to help extricate him and, instead, made it worse.

By the time the vets got the others into the night quarters and could get to Jamal, it was too late. They took him to the health center and tried everything...but he was dead.

They brought him back to the exhibit and let the other chimps see his body, so they'd know what had happened.

Many of them went to his mother and put their arms around her, rocked her and comforted her.

Sophisticated concept? Analogies? Or one being understanding another's pain? Apes can recognize themselves in a mirror. (I've seen our Yoshiko examine her teeth at great length.) If one can see oneself as a separate identity, one can begin to feel for another, in my opinion.

(And by the way...WE are primates, too. Order PRIMATES includes three suborders--Prosimii, Tarsoidea and Anthropoidea, which includes monkeys, apes and humans.)

Lulu

That sounds like sympathy but not empathy.

(I don't want to derail your thread.) Here is another example. I used the first one because I saw it personally. This one is well documented, however.

Kidogo, a twenty-one year old bonobo [Pan paniscus] at the Milwaukee County Zoo suffers from a serious heart condition. He is feeble, lacking the normal stamina and self-confidence of a grown male. When first moved to Milwaukee Zoo, the keepers' shifting commands in the unfamiliar building thoroughly confused him.

He failed to understand where to go when people urged him to move from one place to another. Other apes in the group would step in, however. They would approach Kidogo, take him by the hand, and lead him in the right direction. Care-taker and animal trainer Barbara Bell observed many instances of spontaneous assistance, and learned to call upon other bonobos to move Kidogo.

If lost, Kidogo would utter distress calls, whereupon others would calm him down, or act as his guide. One of his main helpers was the highest-ranking male, Lody. These observations of bonobo males walking hand-in-hand dispel the notion that they are unsupportive of each other.

Only one bonobo tried to take advantage of Kidogo's condition. Murph, a five-year-old male, often teased Kidogo, who lacked the assertiveness to stop the youngster. Lody, however, sometimes interfered by grabbing the juvenile by an ankle when he was about to start his annoying games, or by going over to Kidogo to put a protective arm around him.

My apologies for "interrupting" this thread but, Lulu, I would love to see more of your stories from the zoo, as I'm sure would many others. Any chance of a specific thread?

Coberst, I find your threads really thought provoking even though I don't contribute. Thank you.

Lulu

Thank you for that story. It was very interesting and enlightening