Picking at pieces of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in a Practical Application of Value

Relationships

Relationships are in many ways the most important things that we value, they create us, provide for us and support us. Humans are social animals and the interconnection of our communities have allowed to access our individual experiences to tackle the problems that face all of us. This can be physical issues like finding food or building a house, but more importantly it is the emotional support that we value from one another. Our family, our friends and co-workers provide us with an emotional support system, that in a developed sense of identity (an individual) is validated, recognised for the uniqueness that is the individual and in turn they value them. We (the individual) in turn value, the perception of value of our identity.

However, the issue that arrives from this, is our actions to attain the value that we think we are entitled to. I like to summarize the idea of personality as: the way in which we seek happiness. This definition can encompass all the points that I will discuss to a degree but in this context of value; it is paramount in our interactions with each other and the way we act in a group or person to person level to attain the response that we desire and think we deserve. This is the manifestation insatiability of the social animal. In this case, it is emotional but in many ways, it is why we are social. The need to develop connections that lead us to provide for each other physically and emotionally, based on the exchange of perceived value, this value is reinforced through the constructed ideal of social value in a group setting of social membership.

The reason in which I chose this set of value (relationships) to articulate why it makes us blind, is two-fold: propagated value and exploitive actors. The former refers to things that society and the group consciousness of the cultural identity we belong to, encourages and develops; regardless of the cost to each other and the overall wellbeing of individuals. while the latter point refers to individuals who use relationships to cheat the exchange of value to their gain, without returning the value to those who gave it in an equal manner.

The toxic ideals of relationships are most commonly manifested as the caricature of a social norm, where in many cases this can be a constructive way of inspiring unique ways of affection and interconnection, it also stalls the progression of individuals their ability to transcend their assumed social roles. This creates a lag in the expression of the individual and the social acceptability of the individual and their relationships. LGBT issues, gender norms and equality, and racial stereotypes are all examples of positions in society in which individuals may experience a hardship in expressing themselves outside the constructs of the perceived propagated social value.

On the other hand, exploitive actors are those in society who understand the effect of their actions in interactions with others and use it to extract resources and or exercise control over others with little to no social benefit, it is merely for their sole benefit, regardless of the cost to those that they impose on others.

A good example of this on a mass scale is right wing conservative populism seemingly against corporations and affluence. The United States of America, elected Donald trump on the notion of increasing the social value of the American life. This appealed to select segments of impoverished and oppressed people, desperate for change and recognition by the system that they built on their backs and sustain through their labour. They received a president-elect who is now posed to rob their nation of it natural resources, decimate the value of their labour and destroy the social safety net that they’ve depended on to help them through the struggle. while they expected a leader to ease the burden and restore their means of social mobility, they were exploited by a manipulative social actor. An actor who in his method offered the idea they sought while in practice, will not deliver and doesn’t appear to be concerned with delivering now that he has attained his social ambition. This example is a combination of both points: propagated values exploited to a selfish social actor to the loss of the masses.

Status

Social value is very often related to our status in society. This can be measured in a number of ways: our level of education, our profession and the perceived value attached to it; either dictated by difficulty or level of compensation, and/ or our achievements in various fields of interest and pursuit. This is both an important aspect of value and a dangerous one that must be understood for what is really is; an illusion of value through different experiences. What makes a doctor different from homeless person? Many would answer things pertaining to education, reputation, and value to society. However, these are all illusions to what really makes them different, which in most cases is opportunity. The unequitable nature of our society makes status an illusion of value and power, which is not easily attained by the collective population. Making it not valuable to the individual identity but indicative of privilege and inequality. Moreover, we still consider those with social standing as thought-leaders, change makers and important; this is not the case at all. Sorry Kanye, I know you made a speech about how ya’ll were the thought-leaders of a generation. But, with several exceptions many well recognized people have had a social advantage and those that didn’t, benefited from the social mechanisms that we deploy to allow for social mobility. This is not a bad thing. Those that didn’t, are used as an example of fortitude to overcoming social obstacles, that for many seem to be and are, insurmountable. Especially given their area of talent and the valued social outputs for specific talent. The issue is the merit we superimpose over others and the idolization of status, which give those with status the unwarranted control over our perception of value in our society. This trickles down to our daily lives in how we receive information and the value we attach to it. On a broader application, this is the embedded value of information through symbolic cognition, how we perceive value through the associated value of the symbols developed by our society. A study that explores this is “Enclothed cognition” (Hajo Adam, 2012) in which researchers explored the connection between clothes and human behaviour based on the perceived value associated from the profession which in turn makes the clothing recognizable and affects how people feel in these clothes while performing tasks. There have also been studies associated to the perceived reaction and acceptance to information from people in specific professional clothes, the contrast of study is slight, but reflect the same thing: the cognitive value associated to social roles and titles in which we are familiar with, as well as how we develop a sense of value around them from our individual experience. This dependence on status for authenticity is an extrapolation of our evolutionary development of experiential learning, but in this studied environment of modern society has shown a removal of rigor for personal exploration and reducing our buffer to false information and poor direction. Making us susceptible to manipulation by those who have status. When we live in a culture in which status is coveted and held in high esteem. When you have status without the understanding of those you lead, you ultimately are unable to relate and control with a disconnect from the experience of those being lead, and this is the key issue of status and the control it has on social value.

Possessions

I like things, you like things, we all like things. What we own, have or want, define our motivation for a lot of things that we do. But is it dangerous to our perception of value and question of what is the right level of desire? This is a complicated area of value, but it is very impactful on our society, day to day life, social wellbeing/equity and our environment. It is very important to understand the difference between what we want and what we need. The difference is most commonly developed as self-destructive ways to a normal cognitive process: the perception of value and necessity. We want things that other people want or have, it’s how we develop our sense of desire. If you had all of your needs meet and lived alone would you want new things? Most likely no or at least not at the level that we currently do in our consumerist society; you would use what you have, because it works and is useful for what you need it for. But when you are constantly exposed to new things, promotion/endorsement from others and guarantees that “this is the best thing” and “it’s exactly what you need”; you’re going to want it. you’re going to develop the need for it and the level of object-desire is sparked. This is totally normal and it’s how we share innovations that make our life easier, but this is accelerated in our consumerist society. By way of things such as planned obsolescence, which is the process in which products are designed to lose their efficiency and use within a timeframe. This is done to increase the quantity of products purchased or encourage the purchase of subsequent models of the product line. Need a new iPhone every year? Not really. Not much actually changes, but soon your older model won’t handle the new software or a feature will be introduced that changes how apps are programmed, making your model glitchy and unresponsive. since you’re used to the usability of the apple brand, you go and buy the new model for the experience you desire and are accustomed to, and let’s not forget how swell you feel when other people comment on how you have the newest model of the phone (or most likely than not, you find a way to weave it into the conversation) because you both understand the cost and the ability to afford it, attaches a sense of status to the person through the simple act of possession. From this example, we see a lot of the issues I raised at the beginning at this paragraph: we value an object because of the status and social value attached to it, we use more than we need because of the nature of a market responding to our superficial idea of value attached to status and in turn the creation of object-desire, and how we develop our perception of objects from associated cost to attain it and the perceived social value we personally get from it. Overall this is dangerous. Especially, when it perpetuates wasteful habits like rampant consumerism. But on the other hand it’s valuable when we apply the sharing of innovation to the real daily struggles that can make our lives more efficient and pleasurable. The superficial aspect is what makes us blind to the real value of life, packages a false value for us to buy and flaunt, so we start to feel good about having what others don’t.

Safety, Peace of Mind and Wellbeing

When we approach this aspect of value, we reach a “higher level” of perception that has less impact in our day to day lives and more to do with the way we perceive the world and how we feel comfort in our place in the world. We develop a sense of “peace of mind” with the ideological stance the affirms our existence and our place in society. This is self-validation comes from the ideological grounding of our life, against the volatile aspects of human life, like mortality (religion and spiritual beliefs) and social peace (stable nationalism and democratic society). These underwrite our view of “others” in positions less than our own, makes us feel grateful to have what we have and this is a good thought to have, gratefulness. However, this also develops a sense of entitlement, and the formation of a psychological entitlement to what we have. which can in turn disconnects us from what we should really be grateful for and prevents us for using it to help others. This is often because of the fear of losing what we have. this feeling of insulating ourselves against loss, is the precarious position that peace of mind and security bring us to become stagnate to our attempts to realign the socio-economic construction of society through our individual and collective action. The idea of “I like what I have but I don’t think it’s right that I have more than others, but if I help others. I risk having what I have”. this is a valid fear in our society, given the ideological indoctrination around cognitive perception of safety in social standing. This is an overarching issue with society and less to do with our individual values, this is the manipulation of personal values surrounding our wellbeing as a means of repressing change to the status quo in a system that cements our value of what we have, as being all that we should aspire for and fight to keep. Repressing populations to the routine of necessity and survival in an increasingly difficult circumstance of life, makes the idea of securing personal safety and wellbeing a tool for control. which in turn stagnates ideas and movements that would make society more equitable. This need to preserve our standing, is how the value of what we have, controls what we think we should have; both as an individual and as a society.

How do we change these issues in our Values?

All of these seem like insurmountable and hard entrenched, almost like we shouldn’t even bother trying to change. The insatiability that we experience in our pursuit of what we value highlights both the commonality of the human condition. It calls us to recognize a couple of stark understandings: that we aren’t as original as much as we are influenced. The lack of authenticity and durability keeps us craving more development, stimulation and interaction. In our relationships, in our social status, our possessions and our wellbeing. This common understanding should cause us to access how we can change what we all value to fulfill this deficit in our shared human experience. It is easy to change what we value, when we organize together to develop a comprehensive idea of value around human life. The value that everyone’s life is equal, everyone deserves social freedom and that what we see in society, should reflect our ability to collectively survive and honor the value that we each deserve. Some might contest this and say that we do, this is what society is, but it is not if it allows for these static nature of human life in tracks and class; because a fundamental understanding of human life value, does not restrict the ability of its members to live freely and unencumbered by systemic silos of value inflexible to the unequal nature of human life. The absence of which represent that value of the social members, is not the value in which our society is currently based on….

And that is the problem that makes us blind.

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