The Meme of Maslow’s Mojo

I mentioned noting that Maslow seemed to becoming rehabilitated by the Positive Psychology school. And following some recent links starting here with Matt May, I also found this 2007 Chip Conley publication in the “airport bookstall” business management space. There are three sides to the Maslow story.

(1) There is a neat and tidy attraction for the amateur psychologist (and manager) interested in “motivation”, in the simple hierarchy of needs. And I’ll continue to defend its usefulness as such. Pragmatism is not a dirty word.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

But hey, like any easy to assimilate meme, of course the attractive simplicity hides important detail.

(2) Clearly Maslow’s Hierarchy is a huge generalization. Differences between individuals are lost. Differences between different “classes” of individual are lost. And it’s all too easy to read it as prescriptive in terms of rigid hierarchical logic, whereas it’s actually a useful framework for guidance. And, he of course never actually presented it as a simple hierarchy – if ever there was “just a theory”, this is it. Clearly it was written from a “professional class” perspective – in the same way as history is written by the “winners”. Clearly, not every individual needs to satisfy all of one level before responding to needs in a higher level. Clearly, different individuals may demand quite different material resources to satisfy any given need, and much of that individual value model is cultural, even mythological. There is also the clear “hygiene” effect – that lower levels once comfortably satisficed, cease to play any part in ongoing motivation – they simply become risks to be avoided (in fact for me, this has been the primary point of the hierarchy). But the general ordering of priorities holds pretty true. Other professional psychologists have attempted to analyse the needs into many distinct drivers of human individuals. Reiss’ 16 basic desires have been much cited as a more accurate model of motivators – though I have to say they suffer the same risk of prescriptive generalization and anyway, it’s easy to re-group them in ways that reduce to Maslow (if reductionism is your game). Professional psychologists, like fundamental physicists hopefully, will argue over the details for more centuries yet. Hence the need for pragmatism – how does it work for you ?

(3) But the real need for rehabilitation comes from another direction. The slippery slope(s). One is the “professional class” perspective, and another is the “holistic” angle of an umbrella across both material / objective drivers and the more subjective / spiritual aspects of well-being. And in fact historically these two slippery slopes have run into each other in fascist extremes of elitism. The cultural and holistic angle draws on eastern mystical viewpoints to balance the objective scientism – Maslow included, and many a reputable philosopher before him, such as William James. Peak experiences and the subjective experiential aspects of self-actualization – being all you can be. The professional class elitism is also inescapable – some classes of people know better – Maslow himself wrote on this, extreme views that became public only posthumously. Such extreme views that some have associated him with eugenics and the like, though he never signed-up to any specific initiatives so far as I can tell. Try getting into a well-informed rational debate about that. Two exchanges and Hitler and Stalin are the topic on the table. Game over.

[Aside – if not obvious – I myself espouse elitism – reacting against the popular democracy cry surrounding so many complex moral issues. Crowds are not (necessarily) the wisest arbiters. I myself also espouse mystical mythologies beyond objective scientism. Science is not (necessarily) the best answer to every question.]

So. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is OK.
Use with caution, within the limits of any simple generalization.
And if you value elitist or mystical models of wisdom, beware the (obvious) slippery slopes. Individuals are special (not generalizations). Being wise, you probably already knew that ? Personally, I believe people who hold purely rational-objective (scientistic) value-models are actually the ones who need to do the most bewaring. Either way – beware.

[PS – Chris Locke (aka Kat Herding, aka Mystic Bourgeosie) I have a lot of time for in his exposing the “Numinous Lunacy & Sanctimonius Narcisism” of what he calls “New Age ++”. For me “he doth protest too much” but he is a good counter-balance to those who fall hook-line-&-sinker for the mystical holistic alternatives to common sense. After all it was he that co-wrote way back in the ClueTrain Manifesto:

No.29 – Elvis said it best:
“We Can’t Go On Together,
With Suspicious Minds”

Trust is the top level of the W3C architecture. Nuff said.]

[Post Note : In checking up the state of play with Maslow starting with the links mentioned, I Googled around naturally, coming across many sources I’ve used before both enthusiastic and sceptical. The little essay by Lynne Shandley of Virtual Accident , Australia, was as succinct and unbiased summary as I’ve seen, with the three key links within it to take your interest further. These guys are practitioners in safety training.]

Steve Jobs Cult

Interesting take.

“Most people just sit and watch Netflix”

The High Line

Nice in NYC.

Optimism

Cognitive Dissonance its normally called – when new information doesn’t fit existing perceived (pre-conceived) patterns, and is therefore not received. Useful trait in fact, as the article agrees. We all need a working model – yes it’s contingent, but it has to be more stable than simply reacting to every piece of information in real time. Life would be chaos without it.

Dark Energy

Great, so now not only do we have the dark-matter kludge to explain a stable universe, we have to kludge the kludge with dark-energy to explain that it’s expanding faster than predicted by the first kludge.

Come back Dr Einstein, all is forgiven. When are they going to suspect something wrong and fix the underlying equations Island?

Flight to Quality

Interesting effect of raising fees / make costs visible to “the customer” is greater concern for the quality of the goods. Tricky of course with education to value the intangible “goods” in advance.

Autistically Bad

A sequence of two items on this morning’s BBC R4 Today programme had me shaking my head.

A study on autism as a grey continuum of characteristics, followed by a debate on the definition of good & bad businesses in terms of yesterday’s Milliband speech. I ask you, who is autistic – the BBC subjecting rhetoric to logic? Autistic economics is an old subject. “Predatory” is a pejorative  adjective for competitive growth.

Old News – Muscle Shoals

Stumbled across news from 8 to 24 months ago, thanks to a hit on this page.

Tickled to come across Noel Webster refurbishing the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studios (3614 Jackson Highway) back when we were living nearby in Alabama. He was in the process of protecting the heritage of the name and the studios as a national historic place at that time. The web-site is pretty dead, but that’s because the action is over at FaceBook these days, where I discovered today, that not only is the studio operating successfully, it was where the Black Keys recorded their Brothers album in 2009, which was No1 in 2010 and Grammy winning in February this year.

3614JacksonHighway

Congratulations Noel Webster.

Songs of Love & Loss

Great to see Roy Harper on Jools Holland’s Tuesday preview of his Friday “Later” show last night – seems odd to have a 30 minute preview of what is only a one hour show anyway – wonder if this is going to become the norm.

Roy Harper finally returns to the BBC in his 70th anniversary year with a classic song or two from his new archival collection Songs of Love and Loss.

Looking good at 70, slightly nervous wave to the audience in acknowledgement of their applause – last night he played a straight acoustic version of Another Day. Looking forward to another couple on Friday. I updated – repurchased – my CD & MP3 copies of his back-collection just earlier this year – currently re-listening to the live version of Another Day on Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion – and been playing the immense Lord’s Prayer to death and Lifemask generally, in the car over the summer. Apart from the obvious Highway Blues, it’s very un-driving music. Weird to remember all the words and sing out loud to so many long complex wordy songs amongst the more conventional 3/4 minute folk / blues-rock ditties.

There once was a man from the old stone-age,
and he used to follow the weather.
But now he’s got hung-up on fillin’ a page
upon whether to go altogether.

Apart from no doubt a few phonetic fillers for the odd originally mis-heard lyric, something I can now never correct even having checked the actual lyrics, I can recite the whole of that. Also reminds me of one particular evening with Des (Hughes) and Dave (Metcalfe) around 1974ish (maybe slightly later when HQ came out) debating Harper vs Dylan; a la Beatles vs Stones or more recent Blur vs Oasis idea – so this quote tickled me:

“Forget the Dylan at 70 celebrations that will be all over the media this year, there’s another unique septuagenarian voice equally deserving of your attention.”

This only approximately right, from free lyric sites with a few of my own, err, corrections.

There once was a man from the old stone-age
And he used to follow the weather
But now he’s got hung up on fillin’ a page
Upon whether to go altogether

And he’s been around for so damn long
With his whooping and wailing and crushing questions
between right and wrong, and impaling
the best he can hope and the worst he can fear

On the solstices of this whacking illusion
And massive erection
of pushy defence
Of the whole of the prosecution

Ah, great solace the wound, great relish the pain
To be loosing the reins of a poem
To bleed from the tip of my tongue yet again
That part of my heart that is showing
These children conceived in the womb of this crash
To be the sponsors of nothing much other
Than rearguard directions of crossfingered sections
Of purpose. Pot-looking for nothing

But what is this last desperate vestige of heart over head?
But another conjecture
No more the tomb of the martyred dead
Than the ghost of our parting gesture
And a hundred billion crystal balls
Represent a remarkable failure
To swell the song each moment long
At the counterpoint of nature
As four thumbs flick the tarot deck
And two tongues fork eight aces
Maybe sixteen fingers feel
The fool lives in two places
Where rosy lee can read this tea
And leave me living the story

A white dove with a hawks’ head
And an open mind before me
To sail for a land where life is a high
Not a word to be heard or be spoken
But the soul – woven web of the endless touch
Of a child who could never be broke-ken
Who plays a new world on the brink of the ebb
As the fish cats prowl in the harbour

And now soars high on the beckoning tides’ long arm
To weigh his last anchor
And the sou’westers sing as the lifeboat bells ring
In the heads on the faces of changes

The heavens collage on excalibre’s edge
The star in his movie converges
With fate, in his task, and doom on his brow
And a ship in his eye in a bottle

Who speeds, to force, to want, to have,
To find, to further fortune,
Who comes from the north, south, west and east
Of the passions of a spirit
With all the flight of the wildest beast
To ever spurr a stirrup.

Whose pulse is the master of action
Whose heart is an everlasting secret
Whose arms are desire
Whose lips are welcome
Whose eyes tell stories
Whose head is a journey
Whose hands unfold
Whose feet fly
Whose face is the stained glass window
of a continuous orgasm.

Whose being is mine
Whose wounds are precious
Whose poem is a flower
Whose gentleness is the devil
Whose indentity is naked
Whose magic is a gift
Whose power is the transparent
tapestry of history.

Whose stamp is a freak
Whose wits are battles
Whose cousin is dog
Whose times are well fought for
Whose stone-age is clever
Whose poets know
Whose music is barbarian, barbarian
Whose artists are helpless spherical mirrors
spinning on the horns of a tidal wave.
Oh, the tidal wave

Whose information is belief
Whose complexes become religion
Whose foundation’s spread
Whose word is god
Whose books are projectiles
Whose message is must
Whose excuse is holy
Who passed it down to me
Whose enemies are landmarks
Whose fear is himself
Whose hope is lust
Whose wish is fresh
Whose position is wary
Whose mottoes are covers
Whose name is hidden
Whose nose is suspicion
Whose technology is a tangent
Whose strategy is dissent
Whose thoughts are games
Who shares his lot
Whose ace is death

Whose fingers invent
Whose tales weave
Whose knots are tied
Whose mouth is open
Whose ears pierce
Whose direction is out
Who is aware of disease
Who feels the need to cleanse his soul

Whose style is disguise
Whose dream is innate
Whose woman is soothing
Whose little children are the delicate blossom
of an orchard of electricity

Whose spell is for conflict
Whose quest is strength
Whose wars are declared
Whose suicide is noticed
Whose shadow is cast
Whose vibes you feel
Whose pedigrees are haunted
Whose age is unknown
Who takes under his wing
Whose freaks are real
Whose reality is hunger, hunger
Whose reality is hunger

Whose words are jagged
Whose tears are shed
Whose sick hang
Whose weak are kicked
Whose cities are bad shelters
Whose sanctuary is an idea
of sat round a fire
Whose teeth chew
Whose faith is change
Whose old age comes quickly
Whose youth burns
Whose systems are white sticks tapping walls
Whose prize posession is the planet
The poor planet, the big lady I’m playin’ with.

Whose wildest lust is escalation
Whose cul-de-sacs were feelers
Whose main route is acid
Whose run is a dance
Whose vehicle is fantasy
Whose home is high
Whose role continues
Whose bearing is savage
Whose saints are dead
Whose sons bark
Whose daughters play
Whose strength is against

Who grows in the sun and sleeps in the moon
Who roams the deserts, the plateaux,
and the ice-caps and the mountains, and the forests
and the plains with vast armies, with vast armies
Who am I, who am I?

The spirit of those who were not here
And never knew it
Who left this prayer to elope
A lover’s journey through it, through it

So children leave your windows open
Across the sea
Join your hands across the many lands
You and me

Never grown old
Seeing without ever being told
Something to say
Shut away
Blackboard so grey
Anyway

I’m dreaming
Out along the back row
Out the window
Cast away
Be free with me
Today

Great heart, mean streak
Spare part, speed freak
Great heart, mean streak
Spare part, speed freak

I got myself a problem when I built myself a wheel
I set myself another when I rode a horse to feel
The plains underneath my reins
Just as fast as running water

And the big lady I’m playing with
Has played a game of poker
With me and cat and this and that
Until she scored my joker

Now we ride in chariots
By the side of one another
Her soft side
My rough ride,

Nothing to fear
The unknown soldier’s grave is already here
Is it too late
To create
A world made with care?
Is it there?

Or fleeting
Here today and gone
Tomorrow’s child
Looking so wild and free

Are we a choice
With no voice
Can it be?

Great heart, mean streak
Spare part, speed freak
Brave heart, mean streak
Spare part, speed freak
Nobody helps me, look away
Faint heart, mean streak
Spare part, speed freak

Roy Harper, 1973

That epic is of course not one the songs of love and loss. [And of course those repetitive “Who’s” owe more than a little to Ginsberg’s “Howl” – incidentally the inspiration for the band name HowL – another CD I’m playing to death at the moment. Small world.]

[Post Note Sept 23rd – on the Friday he did a “2 verse” version of I Hate the White Man – probably his most important song – his favourite he said, and invited the audience to guess which song he meant. Good in the interview with Jools beforehand that he didn’t fall for agreeing that love and loss had been his main inspiration – the future of humanity he said – just noticed with hindsight that he did have quite a collection of love songs. Needless to say this track is not one from his latest compilation. I don’t own a copy of Flat Baroque and Berserk, the album it comes from. Yet again, I find myself knowing so many of the lyrics – truly weird – of course there is an impromptu insert of White Man lyrics in the extended live version of … Highway Blues (check ?).

[snip]
And the bowels of his city
Have been locked into a safe
Where the spew stains on the side-walks
Are defenders of his faith
While back inside his kitchen
The bowler-hatted, long-haired saint
Cleans with soap and water
But it`s really just white paint
[snip]
And I hate the white man
And his evergreen excuse
Oh I hate the white man
And the man who turned you all loose
... and the man who turned me loose
...]

Intuition is Anthropocentric

Some important threads on giving serious consideration to anthropocentric views of physics, rather than simply being dismissive of  “fine tuning” arguments and the like. [Previous posts, Goldilocks, Island links … etc.]

Saw these quotes in the preface to Thomas Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel – The Science of Mind and the Myth of the Self

“Any theory that makes progress is bound to be initially counter-intuitive.”
– Dan Dennett

and

“Wittgenstein greeted me with a question: “Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth?” I replied: “I suppose, because it looked (*) as if the sun went round the earth.” “Well,” he asked “what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?”
– Elizabeth Anscombe

Clearly we see our current position as the centre of our world model – me, my planet, my solar system, my galaxy, my universe … (As I said once before this is what Ptolemaic and Copernican views have in common. “We” are at its centre.)

Our view from nowhere, is a lways a nowhere seen relative to where we are. Meta is the word – again.If I wanted to get there, I wouldn’t start from here. What we know about there is always known from here. [Also that “what’s it like to be” Nagel concept in there.]

PS – I don’t have Metzinger’s book yet, but I see why I recognize him – he was part of the Tucson school of consciousness and co-founder with Chalmers (and Dennett?) of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness.

=====

[Post note: (*) There is a flaw in that Wittgenstein / Anscombe anecdote. It “looked” like that AND it did NOT “feel” like we were in motion on the flattish surface of our world. The two potential “views” are NOT equivalent. Like so many smart-ass wise-crack memes, they are more catchy than true. When it comes to evolution large populations are not necessarily good.]

[Forget about bats, what’s it like to be an Octopus?]