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Tue 6 Nov, 2007 03:02 am
there is no slave without a master, have we let ourselves be mastered beyond salvation?
Actually, the state that you are describing has been previously theorized when evaluating human motivation. Maslow dubbed it "self-actualization", and placed it at the top of his hierarchy of needs. I recommend you look into it, it seems as though you might find it interesting.
fungotheclown wrote:Actually, the state that you are describing has been previously theorized when evaluating human motivation. Maslow dubbed it "self-actualization", and placed it at the top of his hierarchy of needs. I recommend you look into it, it seems as though you might find it interesting.
I think our degree of possible freedom is directly proportional to our degree of self-actualization. Self-actualization is a process of extending our horizons based upon our own unique potential. The further we can see the greater is our horizon for freedom.
Do you think self-actualization has any impact on the nature of freedom?
I think I'm having trouble figuring out what you mean by freedom. Freedom to do what we want, as in a lack of restrictions? Freedom from needs?
That's probably because freedom means different things to so many different people.
Two people can be in the exact same circumstances, and one can feel free while the other feels constrained.
Self knowledge is the essence of self-actualization. Freedom and self-actualization feed upon one another. The more freedom we have the more likely we are to self-actualize and as we do we gain more freedom. They share a symbiotic relationship.
To me freedom has many meanings. Freedom to do some things, freedom from some restraints, etc. Then there is the more existential feeling of being unconstrained.
As I see it, the feeling of "self" (ego), of a determiner, can give us the sense of being a free and powerful force, a locus of will. Yet ultimately that locus or center becomes a lonely, alienated, vulnerable being around which "all else" exists.
Fortunately, there is no self; it is an illusion. A necessary illusion to be sure. Indeed the ego is, in its various degrees of felt presence (it varies, of course, with circumstance, personality and culture) is a functional prerequisite of human survival and social existence.
In your private "spiritual" moments, however, you have the potential to realize your oneness with all things (The Upanishads' "tat tvam asi", that art thou), to realize that your expressions of will (even your feelings of being constrained) are actually the Cosmo's/Nature's/Reality's/"God's" will, not that of your illusory little self. Hence freedom exists but it is that of your True Self, not that of your ego/self.
coberst wrote:The more freedom we have the more likely we are to self-actualize and as we do we gain more freedom.
True, and a good point to keep in mind. It's all well and good to exhort people to take up intellectual lives and pursue things for their own sake rather than for practical reasons, but we would do well to remind ourselves as we sit in our armchairs that this kind of life presupposes a certain amount of affluence and material comfort.
Shapeless wrote:coberst wrote:The more freedom we have the more likely we are to self-actualize and as we do we gain more freedom.
True, and a good point to keep in mind. It's all well and good to exhort people to take up intellectual lives and pursue things for their own sake rather than for practical reasons, but we would do well to remind ourselves as we sit in our armchairs that this kind of life presupposes a certain amount of affluence and material comfort.
You are correct. Maslow gave us a hierarchy of needs and self-actualization was the fifth and final need of this hierarchy. Maslow estimated that 4% of the population reaches this level of development. If we had just 0.4% achieving this goal we could change the world.
Past self actualisation, there is inter-relatedness.
coberst wrote:You are correct. Maslow gave us a hierarchy of needs and self-actualization was the fifth and final need of this hierarchy. Maslow estimated that 4% of the population reaches this level of development. If we had just 0.4% achieving this goal we could change the world.
Paradoxically, the increased affluence that you are proposing will help change the world is just as likely to foster complacency, which stifles change. Someone who has achieved material comfort will be unlikely to want to change the conditions that led to his or her material comfort.
Shapeless wrote:coberst wrote:You are correct. Maslow gave us a hierarchy of needs and self-actualization was the fifth and final need of this hierarchy. Maslow estimated that 4% of the population reaches this level of development. If we had just 0.4% achieving this goal we could change the world.
Paradoxically, the increased affluence that you are proposing will help change the world is just as likely to foster complacency, which stifles change. Someone who has achieved material comfort will be unlikely to want to change the conditions that led to his or her material comfort.
You are correct. That is the situation that we are now in and which I am trying to change.
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