The truth is, a society that values people according to
Maslow's higher levels of thinking will not have vagrants or homeless people in
it. But we don't live in a society that values and nurtures people. We live in
a society that nurtures and serves and worships a "free" economy,
meaning, the "economy" itself is free, not us. To prosper, our
economy is constantly in search of the most labor for the smallest wage, in
other words, slave labor. We are all enslaved, to some extent. The modern form
of enslavement is debt. (You can find more about that in my other blog.)
This is a "cash first" society. In such a
"basic" environment, the majority of us do not "follow the
bliss" of self-actualization. Instead, we will take cash first. To
legitimize our "cash first" lifestyles, most of us participate in
politics of one sort or another, or we refuse to participate ourselves, and
simply become members of political parties. They serve us by transmogrifying
our animal desires, stacking them on top of vague "principles" that
seem to justify their presence in government policy, and dress them up to make
us all look like an enlightened people. All government policies have
"basic" needs at their roots.
Political parties provide us a refuge, a place to go when
some strange, self-actualized person comes along and confronts us with the
truth that our way of dealing with the abstract but extremely vital realities
of life is grossly lacking. It makes us feel uncomfortable when they do that,
so we retreat from truth and seek approval of others in our party. If we don't
believe in political parties, we find some other group to which we feel we can
belong. If everyone in our group accepts the fact that we all lack clarity and
content together, but we're still doing the best we can, we don't look so bad.
Most of us certainly do want some of the "higher"
life experiences in Maslow's scheme: love, acceptance, understanding, and all
the rest of those mid-level "higher" but not "highest"
goals. The easiest way to convince those in our various groups that we are
worthy of having their love, acceptance, and understanding, is to obtain money
and impress them with possessions. So our lives become this strange treadmill
of working, spending, gathering possessions, and putting on a show.
The economy remains "free" to trample us constantly
and persuades us to gravitate toward the basic level. We need food and money,
and more money, and things we can buy with money and more things and more
money. And we want approval and friends who have money, and we want more money,
and we want to be safe, and we want to keep our money safe. And oh, my! We so
appreciate the value of security! And the lack of it strikes fear in us, and we
are highly motivated by fear and a political party that can protect us and our
money and our property from fear and insecurity.
And that's our life, and that's what makes us rich and
"filthy." We tend to be gluttons for a "basic" mode of
life. We all want to be more wealthy, more basic, and not more self-actualized. Political parties exist to defend the "basic" interests.
You want more argumentation on that front? Go look for it in
my other blog. I need to find my way back to education for now.
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