Anybody who have done Management courses / Organization Behaviour courses would be familiar with the Moslow's Hierarchy of human needs.
Here is a snapshot:
Level 1 - Survival.
Level 2 - Comfort and safety.
Level 3 - Love and belonging.
Level 4 - Esteem.
Level 5 - Self Actualisation.
In each level, the problems faced may not be comprehended by the layers above and below; except the fifth layer which can actually help address / solve issues faced in all lower levels.
Warren Buffet, Azim Premji and the likes belong to level 5 and are actually solving lower level issues.
Level 5 is overcrowded of late by the likes of Elon Musks, Ambanis and Adanis of the world who are hell bent on creating a sixth layer, the one that floats above all and recognizes none below. (If only a microcosm of these fellas step down to Terra firma, world in all levels will become a better place to live, for All...)
They will fail. You know why? Because their basis of understanding, Mr. Moslow's Theory, itself is dead wrong!
Like most post industrial thinkers, Abraham Moslow liked the idea of growing 'upward' in life as against growing 'outward'.
Speculation was rife at the time of publication of his theory that he got the idea about the 5 levels while interacting with a Native American tribe called Blackfeet Nation.
I suspect even that was wrong because he didn't quite grasp what was going on in that tribal structure, I think.
Every individual born in the modern world, was not born into the same slots of the hierarchy. Somebody was and is born with a silver spoon and somebody else was and is born barely, extremely malnutritioned, in the womb itself, due to abject poverty. So, the hierarchy is more pronounced and ambitions narrowed down into each layer he espoused. Growth here is predominantly upward.
He being a noble thinker, put the 5th level as "self actualisation", i.e. achieving one's full potential.
This is where the problem lies.
His focus, as is the case of modern world, was on a world centred on 'I', the individual; individual survival, individual safety, individual ambitions...you get the drift right?
The basis of his theory, the way of life of Blackfeet Nation, a tribal nation, was actually built on collective outgrowth, not individual upgrowth!
That is the fundamental issue with his theory and the world that strives to reach level 5, the pinnacle, the rarified summit, individually!
In a tribal system, the first three levels are built in, into the fabric of the tribe. Everybody born in the tribe are born with the assurance of survival, safety and comfort, collective ambition to work towards the sustenance of their way of life. Imagine this: None went hungry when at least one got a hit (on a target prey). Everybody had their social security pretty much built in from birth to death. Love and belonging, level 3 on Moslow's hierarchy, was actually the thread that kept the tribe as The tribe; no voluntary effort needed to achieve it!
Level 4 - ambition, was to sustain life peacefully for the tribe; there was no 'self', only a 'centre'!
What about level 5 for them?
A great question!
The level 5 for them and all such tribes was the self actualisation about the insignificance of mankind in the connected web of life on Earth. That, mankind is just a leaf among other leaves in a branch in the tree of life, Not the tree itself as we modern world inhabitants have been falsely led to believe.
Level 5 was also about preservation of this knowhow, spreading this way of life not by teaching but by becoming living examples.
Trust Mother Earth, Respect her, Do no harm to her, share her blessings with every life form around, not just the humankind alone and... L.i.v.e. .i.n. .h.a.r.m.o.n.y.!
Harmony was level 5 equivalent for them.
Cut the chase to 21st century; we the Earthy fellas are so worried about our individual survival and our diminishing ability to propel our self-centred drugged-on-consumerism lifestyle against all natural odds, by pledging the Earth and ignoring the tribal wisdom that sustained and thrived for the longest part of our shared history!
Overproduction of food here, famine there.
Death by Chocolate here, Death by lack of pure air to breathe / clean water to drink there.
Leisure trips to Outer Space here, bare knuckle crawl to food / shelter / education / safety and security there.
It goes on and on.
If the geographies of our ueber modern world were slotted into respective levels of Moslow's hierarchy, the result would be an out and out ugly pyramid of poverty and bloodshed filled bottom and weapons+tech+money fenced top littered with space vehicles!
Mr. Moslow is dead wrong because he missed the point totally.
What about You, Me and Us?
(Mr. Abraham Moslow PC: Bettmann Archives. Doesn't he look like Mr. Bill Gates with a false nose? 😜)
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