From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Jul 12 2003 - 23:56:51 BST
Hey Erin, David and Boeree,
Thought this was an interesting thread and that I might quickly weave a
thought in...
> >Erin wrote:
> >I know this hierarchy has been compared to Maslow's self-actualization/
> >hierarchy of needs, where lower needs need to be met for further needs. I
> >mean supposedly the unabomber was an intelligent mathematician but he's
not
> >really on my top 10 list of most moral people,...
> >
> >dmb says:
> >The unabomber, I think, pretty well demonstrates what Maslow and so many
> >others have found. Although he was brilliant in some ways, the man was
also
> >quite damaged.
>
> Erin:
> Well putting people in the mentally ill category
> is what many people did to Pirsig. Doesn't help
> clarify at all.
> BOEREE: Another point is that he asks that we pretty much take care of our
> lower needs before self-actualization comes to the forefront. And yet we
can
> find many examples of people who exhibited at very least aspects of
> self-actualization who were far from having their lower needs taken care
of.
> Many of our best artists and authors, for example, suffered from poverty,
bad
> upbringing, neuroses, and depression. Some could even be called
psychotic!
> If you think about Galileo, who prayed for ideas that would sell, or
> Rembrandt, who could barely keep food on the table, or Toulouse Lautrec,
whose
> body tormented him, or van Gogh, who, besides poor, wasn't quite right in
the
> head, if you know what I mean... Weren't these people engaged in some
form of
> self-actualization? The idea of artists and poets and philosophers (and
> psychologists!) being strange is so common because it has so much truth to
it!
R
I think that the case of the unabomber and these other examples that Boeree
brings up is a problem of "over-actualization" or in MoQ jargon, a person
being dominated by intellectual values (ideas) to the point that all other
values are muted, or entirely drowned out. A value inequity like this
hampers one's ability to function socially and mentally and can manifest
itself in all sorts of ways that might be destructive to the individual,
those around him or even to society at large. Van Gogh was so absorbed by
his vision that he lost the ability to behave rationally, Rembrandt couldn't
feed his family. Ted Kaczynski was so driven by his vision that he became
willing to sacrifice any and every other value (home, family, job, human
contact, human life) in it's name.
take care
rick
Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your
aim. - George Santayana
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Jul 12 2003 - 23:58:49 BST