Maslow's perception of Human Nature [2]: Delusion

Continuing with my last post, we said that according to Maslow, we humans are fundamentally good and we appeared to be other than that due to deficiency needs.

Maslow tells us, that although the levels of these basic needs are various, ranging from sheer gut-drives (such as hunger and thirst) to the more distinctively human needs (such as love and self-esteem), in the end they ALL ARE NEEDS FOR SOMETHING. They ALL are ACTIVATED by some sort of DEFICIENCY. And ...

" Deficiency colors our perception of reality "

Which I completely agree with. I think that every individual have different perception of the reality (If there is only one reality). We all see the World with different lenses, we all color the World with different hues, with or without deficiency of needs. I think this is one important reason of the why we get along better with some people and worst with others. We are friends with people have similar lenses to ours, with people use similar hues to color the World.

Moreover, this variety of reality perceptions is also (looking through my own lenses) one of the reasons for so many disagreements and misunderstandings among humanity. In the very end, I am afraid, most of us are still egocentric, and we believe that we are seeing and perceiving is what everyone does or must.

The question is: How can we reach communion, if every individual is different?, How can we enjoy our individuality (be ourselves) and live in communion with others?, How different parts can be a whole, laboring together, sharing together, living happily together? Because, whether we like it, we all need of each other, thus we have to commune.

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality" Albert Einstein, 1956.

Maslow's perception of Human Nature

According to Maslow, people appear to be something other than good or decent because they react to stress, pain or deprivation of basic human needs such as security,love and self-esteem.

I tried to remember some of my own experiences which can be examples of Maslow's theory. I inquired myself, when is the time I do actually cannot think properly and lose self-control? when do I become a monster? When do I appear to be something other than good?

Then, I remembered a situation which I have lived at least twice, the circumstances were the following: I was not only hungry but starving, a meal to prepare for others and myself, and on top of that, I did have some sort of time limitations (work related). Then, my bad side emerged, or as Maslow would say, I appeared to be something other than good or decent. The results were that I was answering harshly to others or simply not answering, and even worst, I started to give much more importance to things before I never complained about, but that at that specific moment, I wrongly decided to complain. Then, of course the environment became uneasy, not just for myself, but for the others sharing the same space. Uffff!!! Fortunately, I survived!!

On the extreme side, I thought of criminals, killers, people who are being labeled as "evil". I found a video which talks about the research work of the psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis [here], who has devoted herself to understand killers. She thinks murderers are made not born, and that they become violent because they are damaged then sick. Through all her investigation, She found that most of her study cases (violent criminals) suffer from brain damage, were mentally and physically tortured (a history of abuse), and suffer of mental illnesses. She believes this is a recipe for human brutality.

Then, perhaps Maslow is right, although we are capable of being "evil", it is not what we humans beings fundamentally are.

The Beginning

Everything commenced when I had the need of truly understand the meaning of "Statistical Significance". I was never fond of Statistics, till I found on the web the most "beautiful" notes of inferential statistics I have ever read [here], which I would describe not only as comprehensible but also enlightening. Moreover, the manner sentences were written made me devoured six chapters in one afternoon, I simply could not stopped. Of course, my attention immediately shifted to the Author's name "Richard Lowry", who turned out to be a Psychology Emeritus Professor of Vassar University [here].

I definitely had to read other of his writings, so I searched into the web and I found that he wrote the Foreword of a book titled "Toward Psychology of Being" written by Abraham H. Maslow. Then, I read the first page and the beginning of the second one of the Foreword online [here], which says "- in spite of all appearances to the contrary- 'that people are all decent underneath'" referring to Maslow's conception of human nature. That was the beginning ...