Dimensions of Value: Maslow's Hierarchy

After writing it, I felt that this post was a bit "over the top". I thought of deleting it, but decided to leave it in, since it actually does connect to many of other ideas. It's just that I don't think our situation is quite this dark. I've got to stay away from Russian novels ...

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

We really should give a nod to Maslow's attempt to visualize the human situation in terms of "needs", which are almost the same thing as "values". Let's discuss Maslow's ideas - assuming that we somehow manage to "value" what we "need". My general impression is that Maslow's summary is somewhat misleading. It tempts us to over-simplify human motivation and overlook the fantastic complexity of these "needs". Once we shift to "values" and unpack the "values", we wind up with something that can actually explain practical things like political parties, war, persistent poverty, "fake news" and all the other things that seem to arise from the depths of human nature to form "social hurricanes" that leave us feeling helpless and in need to at least understand what's going on.

Maslow's "analysis" doesn't seem to provide much immediate help to individuals wondering how to organize their lives and priorities. But that's not the worst of it.

Maslow's cute diagram was flashed on the screen in millions of "Social Studies" classes around the world as a quick and dirty way of getting the issue out of the way and providing teachers with a good source of multiple choice questions. But it is horribly misleading. It is a lie to imagine that the business of human life boils down to the individual seeking to meet individual needs. The fact is that one must choose between (a) abandoning society naked savage in the jungle or (b) absorbing oneself into the society which may or may not allow you to live.

NETWORKS

We all exist within social networks. We also find ourselves in a physical environment which, for many of us, is man-made and (therefore) a world of ideas-made-real. We are born into such a world that has been designed by society to meet the needs Maslow discusses. In fact, we find ourselves in a "matrix" that society provides for us to meet at least the bottom 3 tiers of Maslow's pyramid. For most of us, whether we struggle to meet our "needs" at the bottom of the pyramid or the top is a matter that society makes for us.

This tells us that our fundamental need (and value) is to be accepted into a network of social relationships that provide for our needs in detail. Through this web of relationships, we acquire food, money, safety and all the other good things that keep us (and our society) going. Of course, it remains to discuss how these networks and value-transactions work in real life.

It turns out that there is not an exact correspondence between "need" and "value". We value lots of things we don't need - such as drugs, sugar, jewelry, viral videos, alcohol, new cars ... We also tend to not value things we actually do need, such as a healthy mind and body. It is more fruitful to analyze values than needs. For example, where, in Maslo's, hierarchy do we find cocaine? Prostitution? Child soldiers? Nuclear weapons? Obesity? There seems to be something missing in the assumption that human life is mainly concerned with meeting our needs.

SELF ACTUALIZATION (TOP NEED)

I have always found this term to be an annoying catchphrase of the self-involved California hippy. We still hear it a lot - mostly from people who have - through skepticism or laziness - rejected all other value systems and wound up with "be all you can be". Back when Maslow did this work, the choice seemed to be between "religion" (discredited) and nihilism. A false choice.

Maslow is here assuming that humans, in general, do not regard self-sacrifice and/or self-denial as a value. For example, he's assuming that humans won't be happy living as Muslims, Christians, following Confucious, joining the armed services or devoting their life to service of any kind.   The challenge for Maslow would be to ask if the ultimate need in human life is not to lose oneself in a higher goal - something that transcends the self. I seem to remember that Maslo himself acknowledged the ultimate need is to lose oneself in something beyond yourself - transcendence. I also remember that this was taken in a kind of mystical "hippy" kind of way.

To a certain degree, one needs to surrender to this need/value if one expects to be a valued member of a group. On a very basic level, this means that one may be asked to clean toilets in a MacDonalds in order to make enough money to eat. The fact is that society rather strongly forces the individual into a role that serves society at large. In post-WW II America, this pressure was widely resented. Although we may regard some spectacular examples of "self-made men" "being all they can be", if we scratch the surface, we find people who are massively supported by society for the ends of society itself. Many others who have followed this path are known as criminals - especially psychopaths. The self-actualizing individual who rises to the top of a major corporation effectively surrenders himself to the myopic and psychopathic goals of the corporation (profit at all cost). Maslow's hierarchy makes no distinction between the people we call heroes and the people we call criminals.

I'm sure that Maslo imagined that everyone would become a philosopher like him if they could only succeed in "being all they could be". The fact is that freezing to death on the street is about all that some of us can manage. Beyond that, we all seem to need a lot of help. Some of us have come to the conclusion that the highest values of life are to be found with "a little help from our friends". Not just finding but providing help.

THE FOURTH TIER - BEING ACCEPTED

This is the need to "fit in". Maslow provides few details about how this is achieved, but we can see that the general idea is to find one's place in the social network to maximize the flow of value transfer between the individual and those who he/she is connected by bonds of employment, debt, business, obligation etc.  We note that Maslow makes no distinction between "fitting in" with the Mafia, fitting in with the Republican Party and fitting in with a campaign to save the whales. Doesn't it matter which group we "fit in" with? Doesn't it matter what we surrender, as individuals, to "fit in"?

The nature of these bonds needs to be "unpacked" if we are to wind up with a general view of what motivates human beings, which seems to be what Maslow is going for.

A CULTURE'S PYRAMID OF VALUES

Perhaps I will come back and put this in a pretty picture, but let's consider things from the point of view of a "network" or "superorganism" S, starting at the bottom. We can think of S as being a corporation, or nation-state.

Physiological

The continued existence of S doesn't depend on the survival of individuals - they are expendable. What needs to be preserved is the agreed-to system of values that prevent mass defection of individuals required to keep things going. Workers who are no longer needed can be off-loaded and taken care of like other externalized costs, like pollution and wounded soldiers. They are somebody else's problem. 

Safety

Again, the individual is expendable. The safety of S preempts the safety of the individual. The individual must be convinced that the bravest thing to do is to die for S, or at least work himself/herself to death for S at the expense of any personal benefit. Beyond a certain size, the corporation is immune from prosecution for any crimes it may commit. The nation-state need never acknowledge crimes committed in its name. Superorganisms are immortal or at least act as if they have a natural right to exist and grow forever.

Love/Belonging

It is necessary for S to maintain some kind of social cohesion by promoting values that make sense to individuals (both employees and customers) but may or may not be actually promoted in practice by S. A Strong feeling of "us" and "them" is necessary. "They" can be killed or starve to death or slowly killed by a poison produced by S. Whatever is good for "us" (namely S) is good. It is essential that unanimity be achieved on this score. Those individuals who challenge the common value system must be suppressed or expelled. "They" must handle the "externalities", preferably without taxing S.

Esteem

Depending on the type of S, it's called "protecting the brand". The national "brand" -  "national pride" should preempt the individual's desire to live. The "brand" should seek to preempt the individual's freedom of choice as a consumer. The actual benefit to the consumer (from Maslow's pyramid) is irrelevant. The consumer must be lead to think there is a benefit - even a need. Ideally, the consumer will see benefit from the bare brand itself - on a flag pole or T-shirt for example.

Self Actualization

A corporation becomes the ideal corporation by crushing competition, driving down wages or possibly eliminating human workers entirely. It dictates prices and convinces consumers to buy its products. All risks and costs are externalized. Ideally, the corporation can buy back its own shares, eliminating the need for pesky shareholders demanding return. It can suck up capital by leveraged finance, offloading risk by issuing bonds and buying insurance. The ideal corporation has no employees and no shareholders. It has no tangible product but accumulates profit and grows solely by amassing patent rights and leveraged financial capital. It is everyone's absentee landlord. It manages to "tax" every financial transaction while outsourcing all risk. Imagine one bank absorbing all the others and being run by a machine. Sometimes I think of this as being the ultimate state of Amazon. Just a machine that taxes the movement of goods from manufacturer to consumer, all done by robots and a vast machine we call the "cloud".

The ideal nation-state has crushed all other nations and dominates the world. Outside its own borders, there are only "they". Inside its borders, a tiny cadre has the precarious honor of being "us". All others are "they", under constant suspicion of treason. Imagine Stalin's Soviet Union covering the world. Imagine, in this world, all material goods being crap sold by Amazon.

The ideal nation-state and the ideal corporation are actually the same thing. The goals of a nation-state are best served by co-opting the corporation. The goals of the corporation are best served by absorbing the nation-state. Such a nation-state is called a "kleptocracy". To me, Russia looks like it "wants" to be like this. Where do the "oligarchs" end and the nation of Russia begin?

THE DARK TRUTH

In the real world, there is nothing to prevent superorganisms from taking over the planet while humans chase after Maslow's "needs". The world of "Terminator" is not as far-fetched as it seems. We need to understand that we are not the only sentient beings on the planet. The "needs" of every cell in my body are met by a system they don't understand. In fact, the organism called "me" doesn't understand much about the process either. But the analogy breaks down when we consider that I am (presumably) "smarter" than any of the cells in my body. The survival of all these cells is (mostly) up to me. But the "superorganisms" of which we are apart are usually pretty stupid. Their rules of growth and survival seem to make them even more destructive and stupid.

It is important to understand that "morality" exists only on our scale of things. 

I'll leave it there. I've talked myself into feeling rather unsafe. A nice friendly chat is called for. Besides, I'm kinda hungry...

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More dark thoughts on the malignant influence of superorganisms may be found here