seattle.politics

Don Homuth <@> wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:27:36 GMT, Lobby Dosser
> <@> wrote:
>
>>Don Homuth <@> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:39:04 GMT, Lobby Dosser
>>> <@> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Don Homuth <@> wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>>>>> It's hard to say that being At The Moon or South Pole is a symbol
>>>>> of anything other than curiosity.
>>>>
>>>>One has to GET THEIR.
>>>
>>> What of theirs does one have to get?
>>
>>Tut Tut. Not fair testing the truce by playing silly buggers.
>
> For just a minute "their," I though you might be Scratch.
>
> Heh!
>
>>You get my e-mail? First time bounced.
>
> No - use the numeral, and not the word.

on its way

>
>>>>> When it's not necessary to do something, then it's necessary to do
>>>>> nothing.
>>>>
>>>>If all you want to do is eat, screw, shit, and die.
>>>
>>> For many organisms, and in fact many people, that's about it.
>>>
>>> Everyone isn't curious, after all. And a good many who might be are
>>> too swept up in trying to survive.
>>>
>>> See, inter alia, Maslow and the Hierarchy of Needs.
>>>
>>
>>Didn't Maslow get pretty well discredited - including by his own self?
>
> No. The hierarchy was considered an improvement over other theories
> of human motivation, but it is not entirely clear that as stated it
> applies to everyone. AM's initial sample was something like 1% of a
> college class -- not everyone out there. But as a sort of conceptual
> schema, it was an advance over other sorts of things.

It was the TOP 1% of a college class, plus folks like Eleanor Roosevelt
and Einstein. Not like a random sample.

>
> AM himself did say that there should be further research, and that his
> first step would hardly be the last.

What he said was:

"By ordinary standards of laboratory research...this simply was not
research at all. My generalizations grew out of my selection of certain
kinds of people. Obviously, other judges are needed."

>
> Several other researchers, as one would expect, suggest that the
> ranking is suspect (which is OK) or that there is no Hierarchy at all
> - that Human Needs are universal and ontological, rather than subject
> to a convenient taxonomy (which is also OK).

I think it is more than "several".

>
> I refer to it not because it's a Perfect Truth in each and every way,
> but because it's a convenient way to see much of human behavior in a
> more linear fashion than may currently be fashionable.
>
> Some things ring true, though. It'd be difficult to believe that
> persons living on the edge of economic deprivation are going to
> develop a rich philosophical tradition, for example.

There are not many actually living there. Rwanda, perhaps.

>
> To make more sense of human motivation research, you have to include
> several other sorts of constructs in order to paint a more complete
> picture.
>
> A. Rogers discussion of mental hygiene -- where certain negative
> motivation factors must be dealt with Before positive motivation
> factors can work -- is a useful start, and makes good intuitive sense.
>