Iris The Tranny juggalette said
I don't like this thingy (which I first saw on a youtube show) because there are SO MANY exceptions, there are so many times when somebody has something above one of the others. Specifically the top 2, I mean, Kurt Cobain felt loved (just read his suicide note), but he sure as hell wasn't safe. I knew a guy who lived most of his life running from people and was trying to make it as a rapper and he was fucking certain he was gonna make it, he had self actualization, and he wasn't fucking safe at all, maybe not even really loved or belonged anywhere.  

So this is something I've been thinking about. 

A lot of people (myself, you, others on multiple threads I've started around the web) kinda frame the states as absolutes. I think the problem I'm having with the idea or any discussion around the idea is that people only move up and down when their life situations change. I'm wondering if it's simpler than that. At least at the bottom stages. When I work on my art, the first thing I do is take care of my psychological needs, since I'm generally safe. I never feel threatened or in danger. I had a homeless friend who wanted to write about his life as a homeless autistic transgender juggalo. Being homeless, however, he was generally not safe and spent most of his time and mental capacity creating a a nurturing environment for himself, finding food, or bonding.

And yet, when he would come over to my house he would smoke a bowl, we would order a veggie pizza, he would bathe, and then he would write tons of fantastic poems and songs. He was brilliantly clever in the short term. 

I think maslow failed because he looked at successful, mentally healthy people and tried to extrapolate. 

I think it's a lot more complicated than that, as you say. Especially for those of us like myself who are not mentally healthy. Kurt Cobain was addicted to heroin. He was suicidal. He was in emotional and physical pain often. Maslow wouldn't have even looked at him. 

A favorite painter of mine was Basquiat who was also a heroin addict. He would often have to use heroin in order to help push him beyond his limitations.

And yet he had trouble maintaining relationships. 

That brings me back to the short term, impulsive needs of being safe in a moment if not in general, having food in your belly even if you don't know where you're eating tomorrow. 

Psyral Infection said
My take has always been that Maslow is too basic and completely wrong based on his limited ability to expand his own mind and thoughts. It assumes that all people are the same psychologically and his pool of references were all of a certain type of person. Not the same profession but they did fit his specific model. Instead of him trying to find a model that fit all or most people, he found people for reference that fit his model.

I can see the bottom rung being a need. Most would agree on that. That was his hook. Show something that most agree on as the premise then point in a direction that most would like to see. It causes people to try to fit themselves into the model so they can self refer eventually as the stated goal.

The second rung is not necessarily a need but a condition with which the bottom rung is consistently met. Yes, for some (the basic people), the second rung is advancement but only to people who fit the mold that Maslow reviewed. To others, the second rung is but only one of the means to ensure the first and not a necessary subsequent step from the first.

The third rung is a complete non-necessity. Some think it is but in reality no one really needs "love / belonging". In a societal or collective structure, it is advantageous to belong in such structure (again to ensure the first rung needs or to make it easier to enact the second rung for first rung needs), but not necessary. You don't have to have / give / receive love to self-actualize. Maslow's views of what a self-actualized person is (and he referred mainly to leaders) may require that rung for his definition but it is not an inclusive definition that encompasses all physiological types, only his limited and narrow minded view of the world. Maslow's narrow-mindedness is a subject of many of Maslow's critics (I being one of them) not only in his hierarchy of needs but in most of his works. He just didn't have a very open mind and many of his most prominent supporters and followers have the same mental traits.

The forth, esteem, is where Maslow's true colors show. It is no longer "self" actualization as his goal. This is the bait and switch. This is were we see his collectivistic ideals revealed. This is societal esteem. It breaks his own mold but if you have bought into the previous assumptions, then you accept his redefinition and continue on the path .

While not evident on its onset, the structure of his idea is "social", "communal", and "collective". Not individualistic. It is the "socialistic", "communistic", and "collectivistic" that lead to the elements that @krunkazphuk described. She just jumped straight to the meat of the issues. Theses critiques are not new and have been around since universities started the leftist push in the 1950s and 1960s. Maslow fit perfectly within it. 

Not everything in this world is a battle between right and left but in this case, Maslow's model was a preliminary step to set education of people along a leftist ideal. Once his ideas are accepted, it becomes easier to accept more radical ideas and eventually leading to acceptance ideas of the likes of Alisnky and such.  

It's interesting that you try to frame it as socialistic. A friend of mine who is a socialist and who has a PhD in social psychology (and is a professor of psychology who would love to teach her students to be socialist) and I talked about it and her response was the exact opposite. 

She teaches her students that the hierarchy fails because it - ignores- the social collective. The way she talks about it, the feeling of belonging is significantly under valued. She pointed to prison populations and homeless camps where loving relationships develop despite safety and scarcity of food. 

I'm torn because I think it serves as a great internal checklist for living ones best life, but fails ultimately as a metric because the data fluctuates too rapidly. 

But then, the internal check list is only beneficial if you're beyond the physiological needs of safety and nourished.

A person being trafficked probably isn't interested in getting to "self actualization", they want to not be beaten / raped/ starved. 

When it comes to the art piece Im thinking about, it'll be consumed mostly by people who are securely in the upper middle class and have all of their needs met, as that's who seeks out and consumes "art" in the context that I work, unfortunately. 

Yet that brings back the point. Hungry people who might lose their home don't prioritize conceptual art or theoretical psychological analysis. People who are lonely seek out religious communities, or social scenes to belong to, not dense readings about social dynamics. 

Which always brings me back to imagining what the world would be like if we met the physiological needs of every individual while maintaining individual freedoms, embracing the nuances that make up human existence. Would there be more art? More science? More love?

And how much of that is cultural? Like ideas of gender, or family, or whatever, very so why wouldn't individual priorities?