Maslow Got It Wrong
April 26, 2021 10:17 AM   Subscribe

 
Pretty cool for the linked article author to contradict their own headline in their post itself:
One answer might be that Maslow was keenly aware of the differences between the community-oriented Blackfoot and First Nation cultures and the individual-oriented European-American cultures. Maslow’s biographer Edward Hoffman writes:
To most Blackfoot members, wealth was not important in terms of accumulating property and possessions: giving it away was what brought one the true status of prestige and security in the tribe. At the same time, Maslow was shocked by the meanness and racism of the European-Americans who lived nearby. As he wrote, “The more I got to know the whites in the village, who were the worst bunch of creeps and bastards I’d ever run across in my life, the more it got paradoxical.”
It's not that he mis-represented it, it's that he knew this way of thinking just wasn't true of white North American society.

Also great to know how much White Alberta hasn't changed
posted by Space Coyote at 10:43 AM on April 26, 2021 [12 favorites]


Maslow visited a couple of generations after the Siksika Rebellion (1895), where the people were being starved out by the settlers. He'd have been learning from the survivors.
posted by scruss at 10:46 AM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


It's not that he mis-represented it, it's that he knew this way of thinking just wasn't true of white North American society.

This seems incorrect to me, in that I would say it's more like he imposed his own way of thinking and western societal biases versus an all-encompassing model.

To put it simply (in my own words), the Blackfoot ideas of 'community actualization' and 'cultural perpetuity' should have been above 'self actualization', and should have been explicit rather than options within the western ideas of 'self actualization'.

I don't know the history of the time well enough to say that Communistic ideas like 'community actualization' would have flown or gotten rejected and him blacklisted - that would interesting to know his thoughts on the matter.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:03 AM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]


Ironically this is coming to light within a few days of a speech Rick Santorum made in which he claimed that there wasn't any real Native American influence on "American Culture" as we know it today.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:17 AM on April 26, 2021 [15 favorites]


This is interesting background, but I'm having trouble reconciling how Maslow's model can simultaneously "misrepresent the Blackfoot worldview" while at the same time not "provide due credit for their influence." From the article, the models are fundamentally very different! It sounds like Maslow only took the triangular form as inspiration rather than the content.
posted by stopgap at 11:20 AM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]


re influence, see also: Democracy's indigenous origins in the Americas
posted by aniola at 11:22 AM on April 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm with stopgap. These are contradictory complaints. They can't both be true, and as far as I can tell neither is true. I guess maybe a line somewhere in his writings where he said, in essence, "My thoughts were clarified during my time with the Blackfoot tribe. While I disagreed with their very different hierarchy of needs, analyzing why I found theirs inaccurate led me to form my own better model. I did hold onto their triangular imagery, though." That's almost damning with faint praise, though.

It seems like what this article really wants to do is say that Maslow is wrong and the Blackfoot model is better. It would be a stronger piece if it stuck with that and dropped the poorly-reasoned stuff about Maslow not giving the Blackfoot enough credit. There are lots of critiques of Maslow already, but a well-developed alternative hierarchy from a Native American culture could be a useful addition to the conversation.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:42 AM on April 26, 2021 [24 favorites]


EmpressCallipygos: Ironically this is coming to light within a few days of a speech Rick Santorum made in which he claimed that there wasn't any real Native American influence on "American Culture" as we know it today.

"We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture."

That's the dumbest thing I've heard all week. All the parts of it.

It's as dumb as (and, I'm guessing, related to) the common conceit in Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches that they have no burden of history whatsoever and are just going back to exactly what Jesus and the Apostles believed. Council of Nicaea? Haven't heard of it. Has nothing to do with what our church believes. Founding Fathers influenced by the Iroquois? Haven't heard of it. Has nothing to do with how our nation got its structure and its freedoms.
posted by clawsoon at 11:57 AM on April 26, 2021 [14 favorites]


And when I say that Santorum's statement is dumb and ignores history, it even ignores European history, which is a special kind of dumb and not just the usual white supremacist dumb. "Hey guys, how could we create a system that's kinda like the English Parliament and judicial system, but without a king?" "English Parliament? Never heard of it."

Anyway... derail over. I guess you could say that the way Maslow was inspired by the Blackfoot in the same way that the US Constitution was inspired by the Iroquois. You can see the resemblance, but you wonder how it is that on the road from inspiration to implementation you ended up with only white male property owners being able to vote.
posted by clawsoon at 12:53 PM on April 26, 2021 [7 favorites]


Pater Aletheias: It seems like what this article really wants to do is say that Maslow is wrong and the Blackfoot model is better. It would be a stronger piece if it stuck with that and dropped the poorly-reasoned stuff about Maslow not giving the Blackfoot enough credit.

Is there a word for being inspired by something but completely missing the point of it?
posted by clawsoon at 1:01 PM on April 26, 2021 [7 favorites]


I can't tell you how relieving this is to me. I've hated the hierarchy of needs since I learned about it through middle and high school. Always seemed deeply selfish and gave me nothing to passionately aspire to. That wouldn't have been a problem, except so many teachers, councilors, friends, family members, every frigging body would fall back on it to criticize my sense of value and perspective. What a pervasive shit post.
posted by es_de_bah at 1:03 PM on April 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


There are a lot of problems with the hierarchy of needs, we covered it pretty extensively in my Motivation course. There's plenty of evidence that things like hunger are more fundamental than social needs, but there's essentially 0 evidence that the needs are strictly hierarchical, or for the self-actualization need in general. It's not based on empirical research and does not really hold up. It's a pretty interesting philosophy to think about though.

But this article does not make sense to me as a Psychologist like others have said. Maslow studied several different cultures and it is supposed to be a "universal" theory so he wasn't trying to accurately copy or represent one specific culture. I don't really think it makes sense to talk about things like ripoff or appropriation when it's about a structural thing like this. There was definitely no expectation back then that scientists were supposed to cite where they got their broad ideas from, and it was publicly known enough to be mentioned in his biography so was not suppressed. This well-cited article by Barbara Bray describes it more clearly in my opinion.
posted by JZig at 1:14 PM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


Is there a word for being inspired by something but completely missing the point of it?

Except I don't think that's the case. I think it's an indication that where Maslow's hierarchy entirely is silent on the further evolution of actualization beyond the individual, the Siksika paradigm presumes the prerequisites of individual development that enable (the lack of which that often undermines) community development.
posted by tclark at 1:22 PM on April 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


It seems like what this article really wants to do is say that Maslow is wrong and the Blackfoot model is better.

TFA (albeit in the note at the end):
... my goal in this post is to not villainize Maslow but to bring some light to the Blackfoot way of seeing the world.
posted by achrise at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]


Maybe an obvious point, but the bottom of Maslow's pyramid would sure look pretty different today if Santorum were right. Corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers, peanuts, lima beans, avocados, squash, etc., etc. weren't just "found" in the Americas--Native Americans bred them selectively, essentially a form of biotech substantially transformative for agriculture and foodways worldwide.
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:57 PM on April 26, 2021 [6 favorites]


"We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture."
Rick Santorum


Terra nullius.
posted by Pouteria at 4:44 PM on April 26, 2021 [2 favorites]


Death, taxes, and Rick Santorum being a moron.
posted by eagles123 at 5:26 PM on April 26, 2021 [2 favorites]




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