#maslow

[unsolicited-opinions]

I support Palestinian self‑determination. My concern is whether the current factional and militia structure would allow that state to be genuinely free?

Anon, have you heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?

Needs must be met in order: physiological needs, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, and each level depends on the foundation of the level beneath it.

You can't have self-actualization without esteem, can't have esteem without belonging, can't have belonging without safety, and you can't have safety until physiological needs are met.

Now imagine a pyramid of problems Palestinians must face in order to create a state.

Whether or not such a state would be genuinely free is at the top of the pyramid. Your concern (while wholly valid) is wildly premature.

At the bottom of the pyramid (the foundation everything else rests on) is the most basic question: does a critical mass of Palestinian political culture actually want a state at peace with Israel, or will it stick with maximalism and eliminationism, demanding that Israel cease to exist? Until that's resolved, nothing above it is stable.

One tier up: Does that same political culture want a secular, pluralist state, or an Islamist one? You can want peace with Israel and still want a theocracy. I'd argue that not every Islamic theocracy is Islamist. You can want a democracy and still harbor eliminationist positions about your neighbor. So...these decisions have to be made and popularly embraced before a state can be planned.

Above that: Unified, competent, honest leadership. The Palestinian national movement is currently split between a corrupt, sclerotic PA that controls parts of the West Bank without popular support and a corrupt designated terrorist organization that controls Gaza and started the war that leveled it, actively seeking maximum death and destruction of Gaza's people and property.

A state requires a government which is capable of governing, controls corruption, and can gain the trust of at least a plurality of the people.

There isn't anything like that at the moment (and hasn't really ever been) - and such things are rarely built quickly.

Above that: Territorial continuity. Gaza and the West Bank don't share a border. Can a state in two non-contiguous pieces really be a state? Assume Israel agrees to land swaps to bridge the two with a corridor: how is that done with security for all involved?

Above that: Institutional capacity. Courts. Tax collection. Civil service. A currency or monetary framework. An economy not dependent on aid. The boring infrastructure of actually governing.

And at the top (tier six) is whether the state would be genuinely free.

The question of whether a Palestinian state would be genuinely free is worth asking - but it's tier six.

We're still negotiating tier one. The foundation must be built before anyone can argue about the architecture.

[emme-la-butte]

L'altro limite, quello che i despoti gradassi come te scordano sempre, é la popolazione fracassata e imbestialita che si sveglia e succede così un piazzale Loreto, una Casa Ipat'ev, la Bastiglia....

[saintacephale]

[tonsillessscum]

New meme, courtesy of me

[bodyalive]

SEAN MUNDY / OFFERING / 2021

* * * *

“But the greatest human problems are not social problems, but decisions that the individual has to make alone. The most important feelings of which man is capable of emphasize his separateness from other people, not his kinship with them. The feelings of a mountaineer towards a mountain emphasize his kinship with the mountain rather than with the rest of mankind. The same goes for the leap of the heart experienced by a sailor when he smells the sea, or for the astronomer’s feeling about the stars, or for the archaeologist’s love of the past.

My feeling of love for my fellowmen makes me aware of my humanness, but my feeling about a mountain gives me an oddly nonhuman sensation. It would be incorrect, perhaps, to call it ‘superhuman’; but it nevertheless gives me a sense of transcending my everyday humanity. Maslow’s importance is that he has placed these experiences of ‘transcendence’ at the centre of his psychology. He sees them as the compass by which man gains a sense of the magnetic north of his existence. They bring a glimpse of ‘the source of power, meaning and purpose’ inside himself. This can be seen with great clarity in the matter of the cure of alcoholics. Alcoholism arises from what I have called ‘generalised hypertension’, a feeling of strain or anxiety about practically everything. It might be described as a ‘passively negative’ attitude towards existence. The negativity prevents proper relaxation; there is a perpetual excess of adrenalin in the bloodstream. Alcohol may produce the necessary relaxation, switch off the anxiety, allow one to feel like a real human being instead of a bundle of over-tense nerves. Recurrence of hypertension makes the alcoholic remedy a habit, but the disadvantages soon begin to outweigh the advantage: hangovers, headaches, fatigue, guilt, general inefficiency. And, above all, passivity.

The alcoholics are given mescalin or LSD, and then peak experiences are induced by means of music or poetry or colours blending on a screen. They are suddenly gripped and shaken by a sense of meaning, of just how incredibly interesting life can be for the undefeated. They also become aware of the vicious circle involved in alcoholism: misery and passivity leading to a general running-down of the vital powers, and to the lower levels of perception that are the outcome of fatigue. ‘The spirit world shuts not its gates, Your heart is dead, your senses sleep,’ says the Earth Spirit to Faust. And the senses sleep when there is not enough energy to run them efficiently. On the other hand, when the level of will and determination is high, the senses wake up. (Maslow was not particularly literary, or he might have been amused to think that Faust is suffering from exactly the same problem as the girl in the chewing gum factory (described earlier), and that he had, incidentally, solved a problem that had troubled European culture for nearly two centuries).

Peak experiences are a by-product of this higher energy-drive. The alcoholic drinks because he is seeking peak experiences; (the same, of course, goes for all addicts, whether of drugs or tobacco.) In fact, he is moving away from them, like a lost traveler walking away from the inn in which he hopes to spend the night. The moment he sees with clarity what he needs to do to regain the peak experience, he does an about-face and ceases to be an alcoholic.”

—Colin Wilson, New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow & the Post-Freudian Revolution

[alive on all channels]

[osplanetasdasabelhas]

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

Psicólogo

E.U.A.

[reagan7200]

Embracing your cringe is equivalent to self actualization for gen z

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow