The Wake

If you’ve ever taken a high school psychology class, you probably have a vague recollection of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow probably thought that he was designing this hierarchy in order to direct humanity down the road to happiness. It is my contention that his actual achievement was to demonstrate to humanity how totally fucked we are. To illustrate this point, I will run through each of Maslow’s needs and discuss how it indicates fucked-ness.

1. Physiological Needs. This includes food, water, and, more provocatively, sex and excretion. Well, like a billion people plus on this planet don’t have clean drinking water and people in certain African countries have an unfortunate tendency to starve. So let’s say that this category automatically discounts 1.4 billion people from happiness.

2. Safety. This includes security of body, employment, something termed “morality” and health, among other things. Ok, anyone in a war-zone is crossed off the list here. So are people with serious medical problems, unemployed people and whoever is not secure in their “morality” (I’m talking to you, sodomites).

3. Love/Belonging. People who struggle in this category are the outcasts of our society, the dregs at the bottom of our metaphorical teacups. These are the suicides, the self-mutilators, the quietly despondent and the hikikomori of Japan, who have withdrawn to their bedrooms. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I’m going to put about 2 billion people in this category.

4. Esteem. You like yourself, you like others. All advertising attempts to cultivate a sense of insecurity in you so that you can regain your confidence by buying their product. You’re lucky Calvin Klein doesn’t call you a shit-bitch to your face. Note that people in third world countries don’t often have to deal with this problem, as they’re too busy starving to death or slaving away in the miserable factories that support our decadent lifestyle. I’m guilty too; my shirt was made in Bangladesh and my pants were made in Lesotho. Oh, and I take back what I said about third-worlder’s not worrying about this. Maslow’s a bigot if he thinks that poor people don’t have self-esteem issues like anyone else.

5. Self-Actualization. This one sounds vaguely like some sort of New Age bullshit, but apparently it consists of, “morality [who’s?], creativity, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.” Morality is ambiguous. Vincent Van Gogh and Primo Levi were creative, but that didn’t stop them from committing suicide. A depressed person can solve problems and like people of other races. And people who just “accept the facts” may be less likely to agitate for social change. This category strikes me as bullshit.

Ok, so that was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If my math is correct (and I attend a Christian college, so we don’t believe in math), there are approximately five people on this planet who qualify as “happy” under Maslow’s system. If any of them happen to be attending the U, please tell them to friend me on Facebook. Good day.