Human Nature

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Human Nature

Human Nature

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Notes

Abraham Maslow

Maslow rejected the idea that human nature could be understood by pointing to the animal kingdom. He felt it was absurd, noting "We can never make meaningful statements about human nature by arguing on the basis of other species’ behavior," noting that when one did this one's view of human nature became entirely dependent upon the animals once chose for comparison. Are chimp, wolf, tiger. Or are we rabbit, squirrel, or dear. It's a dumb "pseudo-Darwinian" approach whose fallacy has been demonstrated well enough so that no repetition is required."

He also rejected the notion that human nature could be understood by looking at "cave dwellers." He rightly pointed out that we really don't know much about these people and how they lived at all.

Maslow does point out that "observational data in the wild" have demonstrated that chimpanzees "will help their peers, such as giving of their own food." and that "The stronger chimpanzee is the protector rather than the dominator of the weaker," concluding that the general direction of this primate's behaviour is towards "cooperation, friendship, and unselfishness."

Maslow suggest that that human beings are capable of more than just being "bad," that human society does not inevitably lead to negative outcomes. "Nor is it inevitable, as so many theologians and left-wing/right-wing political radicals proclaim, that human nature is inherently evil and incapable of growing into something better. The humanistic and transpersonal synthesis of psychology today knocks these ideas on their head or, at least, strongly contradicts them."

Maslow suggests a humanistic view is accurate.

Sources

The Inner Self

Maslow makes the fascinating observation that "positive human traits" like self-respect, security, safety, being lovable, loving someone else..." are strengthened and confirmed by revelation (what he calls "uncovering and insight.") and that "negative human trains like cruelty, sadism, or masochism are destroyed by successful Taoistic, uncovering..." He also suggest that this is evidence that positive human traits are "intrinsic aspects of humanness" while the negative ones are "reactive and sick."

The Environment

Maslow felt that aspects of human nature, like the trait of selfishness versus the trait of unselfishness, might have social/political roots. He is very clear about this. He said that

Selfishness correlates with emotional insecurity and unselfishness with emotional security, self-actualization, and psychological health in general. Thus, we can say that unselfishness tends to be a phenomenon of inner abundance, or relative basic gratification. Selfishness can be seen as a phenomenon of basic deprivation, inner poverty, and threat-past or present.

Further...

It is commonplace for the clinician to assume that selfish, hostile, or nasty behavior generally arises from some insult or damage to the individual’s own basic needs. It is ordinarily expected to be a phenomenon of thwarting, frustration, and conflict, whether arising in the past or the present.

Notice Maslow's interesting use of the word "commonplace" here. Clinicians of the time assumed that "insult or damage to the individual's own basic needs" was the root of selfish, hostile, and nasty behaviour.

Above he is basically saying that neglect of Essential Needs creates selfish people. He may be right. People who have experienced chronic neglect of their essential needs operate in what we call Deficit Mode, a mode of behaviour wherein most of the individual's daily energy goes into meeting unmet needs. Their energy is directed in a "self-ish" direction where everything around them becomes a thing they need to meet their unmet needs.

Maslow distinguished between "Healthy Selfishness" and "Unhealthy Selfishness," "Healthy Unselfishness" and "Healthy Selfishness." He felt that the motivation behind a particular Personality Characteristic or act, like selfishness, was important. He says that "it is necessary to differentiate between healthy selfishness and unhealthy selfishness as well as between healthy unselfishness and unhealthy unselfishness" saying that "outward behavior may seem to be selfish or unselfish, but so may the motivation behind it." A parent might, for example, engage in altruistic acts of support for their children, but for purely selfish reasons.

He further goes on to say that it is deprivation of basic needs, specifically those involving the Environmental Needs for safety and security, that create healthy and unhealthy selfishniess.

An examination of such emotionally healthy persons shows that when they behave unselfishly, this behavior tends to be a phenomenon of personal abundance stemming from relative basic gratification. It comes out of inner riches rather than inner poverty. The same kind of examination of neurotic persons will show that their selfish behavior is typically a phenomenon of basic deprivation involving threat, insecurity, and inner poverty.

Quotes

OBSERVATIONS IN CHILDREN

It is possible to see very clearly in children the phenomenon that we have been describing. Unfortunately, it is usually accepted without further investigation that children are primarily selfish, much more so than adults. How such a conclusion could ever have been reached is hard to fathom, because even the most casual observation of children—at least of those who are emotionally healthy—will reveal many examples of truly altruistic, generous, unselfish behavior. Indeed, youngsters who are raised well and who are psychologically sound are apt to present to their parents problems related to unselfishness as often as selfishness. For example, such children are as likely to give away their expensive toys as to snatch these same toys away from peers.

Children’s altruism has not been experimentally tested because admittedly it is difficult to measure. But this obstacle hardly negates the definite presence of unselfish traits in youngsters. Clearly, there is a lot of evidence already amassed to suggest that humans have a strong, inborn capacity for unselfishness.

Where is all this evidence that he is referring to, I wonder.

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Footnotes

References