(Soft) Science and Honor

Today I'm going to talk about my intense hatred of Abraham Maslow. The level of hatred I have for this man can only be described as "intensity in ten cities" I truly feel that this man has lead to a decline in the way of life in western civilization. We are talking about a man who didn't know a god damned thing about anything. Okay that may be a hasty generalization but as far as the one big thing that he is known for, "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," is complete shit. That may be to slight a phrase for what the Hierarchy is, so let me try again, "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," is the single most destructive force that this or any other generation has ever seen. Well what about the atomic bomb? To this I reply, "What about the god damned atomic bomb?" I laugh at the atomic bomb like a child laughs at a inflatable punching bag the first time it pops back up at him, compared to the Hierarchy, the atom bomb is like fending off a hoard of blood-thirsty kill-bots with an aged paper football and you can be damned sure that the kill-bot wont hold its hands up in the faux goal post position. So enough describing my awesome levels of hate for Maslow's Hierarchy, on to the meat and potatoes as they say. For complete comprehension of what the Hierarchy is I'm going to have to give a slight run down on what exactly "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" is.

The Hierarchy is oft times depicted as a pyramid with five blocks which build upon each other meaning you have to have the block that precedes it in order to continue up the pyramid (if you know the Hierarchy you may skip down to the next paragraph). The first block and the base of is that of "Physiological needs" which are air, water, food, exercise and so fourth. Next comes "Safety needs" such as security from crime, financial stability, and a securely maintained level of the vaguely defined health. Then comes "Social needs" which is pretty common sense and you can gather what its about from the name. The penultimate block is that of "Esteem needs", which is the basic human need for confidence, achievement, and respect, respect from others and yourself. Lastly is "Self-actualization" the top of the pyramid, the thing all people strive for, its the lack of prejudice and the ability to spontaneously be the great moral compass, creative mastermind, and problem solver all in one, a point of note is that only like the top five percent, or some small number lat that, of humans will reach this level on the Hierarchy.

So upon first glance this looks like a pretty good little psychological diagram for what each and every human needs and strives for at the basic levels. Well no fucking shit, you don't need to be the goddamn Batman to figure that out. In Maslow's defense, this thing was published in 1954 when psychology was still reeling from Freud's "each has obsessions of incestual feelings towards ones own mother" 'nonsense' (I'm not here attacking Freudian psychology and I'm just speaking of closed minded opinion that you still hear to this day) and the "Witchcraft" of Franz Mesmer a hundred and forty years prior. Maslow needed to post stupid things that the common man could grasp so he wouldn't be laughed out of town. I mean if you forget the work of people like B.F. Skinner and Pavlov along with others who had mad psychology almost an excepted form of soft science by that point.

So by this point you must be wondering where the hell am I going with all of this for lack of a better term: "Bullshit"? Well I will gleefully tell you:

"Abraham Lincoln and The Curious Case of the Emo Children"

For you to understand that phrase that I have presented to you I need to give you a couple of pieces of information. First Maslow used our sixteenth President of the United States of America, and one of my personal favorite presidents, as one of the top percentage of humanity who reached this silver unicorn on his Hierarchy. The second tid-bit of info I'm going to divulge is all opinion baby, This isn't any sort of formal scholarly paper so you can take the criticisms of opinion not being fact and shove it in your corn cob pipe and smoke it! Anyway secondly I fucking hate "Self-Esteem". So with that little dose of 1-800-GOOG-411 tucked into your lapel pocket we shall proceed.

So Ole' Honest Abe was the top percent of humanity who had no problems? I find this quite hard to believe considering the well-documented accounts of his severe depression and several attempts on his own life. Fact: during the Civil War Lincoln wasn't allowed to carry his pocketknife because his wife (go figure…) was afraid that he was going to use it to kill himself on long train rides. So how the hell did this man end up being the poster boy for self-actualization? Don't get me wrong Lincoln was a damned G by all respects but I would hardly count him as being the ideal mesomorph by any means. Before you even ask I don't even want to get into William Sheldon's bullshit somatotype theory, though it was useful for my purposes now, this marks the first time that I have ever used it in any context other than to call it bullshit. I digress, the point I am making here is that if your not able to come up an example of what your diagram is depicting as what humanity strives for what good is it. That's like saying that at the top block of the "Sam Morgan Hierarchy of Needs" is mans ability to fly unassisted, then I go and say that Charlie Chaplin was the ideal human, my shit doesn't hold water just like Maslow's doesn't.

As you just read, with Lincoln I attacked the upper echelon of the Hierarchy and now with "The curious case of the Emo Children" I'm going to take just one quick step down to the next platform on the pyramid and talk about my intense hatred for this particular level. As a matter of fact I probably wouldn't have a problem at all with Maslow if it weren't for this next level down, I would have seen his Abraham Lincoln example as some sort of clerical error that he had no hand in but because of the fallout and repercussions that this particular platform has had on society as a whole I refuse to give that son of a bitch and wiggle room on anything, or even believe anything he has had to say ever. Hell his ghost could pop up in front of me today, right now as I type this in fact and say: "The sky is most definitely blue." And after hearing this I would have no other choice than to think that the sky was a nice shade of crimson, despite all evidence to the contrary.

My core problem with this esteem needs block is the fact that if it didn't exist that many people would be much happier people. You see it's of my belief that without the pop culture catch phrase self-esteem people wouldn't realize they had a self-esteem and well shit I bet ninety percent of the anti-depressant companies would be making something else, like milk. I mean I'm going to assume we've all known someone who has flat out said to you at some point "I have a low self-esteem" WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT!? Seriously who the fuck goes around saying that kind of nonsense? That's the kind of jack-assery that you say about people you don't like. "Oh man, see that guy over there in the rascal scooter? The one who must weigh five hundred pounds? Yeah he totally has a low self esteem." I mean that shit is nasty. I relate someone saying that they have a low self esteem to them saying that they fuck sheep for fun.

Now imagine the utopia we could be living in where people weren't so preoccupied with how low there self worth is and actually went out and just did something. I bet the American economy wouldn't be in such a bind if we didn't have this generation of deadbeat wasteoids sitting around crying about how much they aren't worth. Shit if we got rid of the concept of Esteem needs we would lose the entire "emo" genre and about half of the "country" music ever written. I'm not joking when I say utopia. If Carl Marx was an American and not such a god damned commie and lived today and someone else had wrote The Communist Manifesto 1848 causing the cold war to still happen, well I'm sure he would have written a much better article than this one about how utopian like the world would be with out the concept of self esteem, also he would have a beard, something I lack so I don't get half the respect that Modern Day Carl Marx gets.

In conclusion I would like to point out that the introduction to this article was at a much more grand scale than it should have been, I can only relate it to that trailer you once saw making the movie look awesome when it was only ok. That and I hate Abraham Maslow.