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As human beings, what drives us to higher levels of existence? Once we have satisfied the basics - food, shelter, a mate, children - then what? For many it's the idea of self-actualization, or realizing our full potential. But what does self-actualization look like? How do we know when we are doing it? Researchers recently published a new series of studies on what people think it means to be self-actualized.
But what does self-actualization look like? How do we know when we are doing it? When are we trying to realize our highest potential? Self-actualization is a popular idea -- in psychology, business, education and the multi-million dollar self-help industry. Everyone, it seems, wants to realize his or her full potential.
[...] By finding mates, keeping mates and caring for children, people might feel self-actualized, and they might also be furthering exactly those biologically relevant outcomes that lead to getting their genes into next generations.
[...] Or as Krems explained: "For real people, pursuing self-actualization might further biologically relevant goals."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170712145639.htm
[Also Covered By]: Individual perceptions of self-actualization: What motivates fulfilling one's full potential?
How would you go about achieving self-actualization ? Is self-actualization a relevant goal in this day and age ?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Friday July 14 2017, @07:24PM (13 children)
I thought self actualization was the propaganda term according to which society, i.e. media who misrepresent society according to the respective agendas, dictate whether the person is worthy or a failure.
Realizing your own potential as much as possible is good and fun, but the NEED for it is slavery. You have been actual all your life and even if you start WWIII all by yourself, or worse, develop systemd, you won't become more actual, not one bit.
Your value to society is often independent to your intrinsic value according to a moral system, and while the former will end up being zero as time passes, the latter has meaning beyond time.
So, what pushes man to feel the need for self fulfillment? propaganda.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Friday July 14 2017, @10:27PM (3 children)
I don't believe that at all.
My drive is to be comfortable and enjoy luxury and not having to work when I don't want to work, and being able to engage in activities that may may not benefit society as a whole, without compulsion or belief I should be doing something.
I don't care what other people are doing.
That is the whole point of "self" actualization.
You're right that we're all actuals, but the propaganda you speak of is what prevents people from realizing their potential--provided that they then follow the goals of the messages laid out for them.
You will see throughout history, those that actually do manage to self-actualize tend to not be at peace with the status quo. This sometimes has turned them into objects of scorn.
In any event, your argument is well written, but I am under the impression that you're under the influence of the propaganda you speak, or that perhaps more likely, you have a different term to describe what it means when one becomes content with one's ability to be at peace with onself.
Self-actualization is, after all, possible to be achieved in limited areas of life, rather than everything. It's like attaining some degree of enlightenment but not quite getting all the way there.
Our western cultural propaganda seems to stipulate few people can achieve such heights, and so those that do are to be envied and feared in some way--or to be used as a tool to sell more things to those that have no chance, like the typical mechanical turk. Their dreams are likely to be outlandish and never achieved, so they buy things to feel happy.
I do not understand why anyone seeking self actualization is worried about their value to society (as you described) in much the same way I don't understand why anyone seeking self actualization would be worried about how much they can exploit others. It is not about that. It's about being comfortable with oneself and one's place in the world--perhaps contributing notable value, perhaps not.
I agree with all of your points in regards to slavish following of some doctrine. You can't reach that point by following the specific instructions to others, that is how one fails, and there is much philosphy from many cultures that warn about this.
It is true that people may see the self actualized as selfish, but again, that is often envy, or it may be the mistaken belief that the jerk in question actually has reached that level of fulfillment. If someone is being a jerk and exploiting others for personal gain, there is probably underlying concerns preventing them from achieving self actualization because most people that are jerks don't feel at peace with themselves.
And often enough, those that have reached self actualization are usually not proclaiming it. They've simply managed to reach that point, but that it may be obvious to others. Have you ever worked with a creative genius? They often do not know why people think they are creative or a genius or what makes them special, or really accept that this is what people think they are.
Those people are closer to self actualization than the slaves you speak of.
If you think about it, that whole church of the subgenius thing is like a perverted twist on the topic... but they are right, because having and attaining slack is one way to do it.
And that's just it -- there is more than one way to reach self actualization, and it depends on the particular self in question. Following any prescribed rules will likely lead to a dead end for most people, and devotion to such things really only works for those that felt a calling for it. Everyone else.. needs to find their own path.
What pushes *you* to feel a sense of fulfilment? (no, I don't need to know, that was rhetorical) It doesn't have to be heroic... but having that sense of fulfillment doesn't have to conform to societal norms, because you can get this sensation by doing something that you as a person believes needs to be done, in a way that you are happy with the results. One can grow as a person by taking harder challenges, and sometimes, that means working for the man. But you can also pursue your own interests off the clock and grow as a person and use the corporate salary to fund that growth.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:47AM (2 children)
> My drive is to be comfortable and enjoy luxury and not having to work when I don't want to work
which is the "otium" of the Romans. Much more natural than the current competition to outshine others, which often leads to good side effects but in general should not be an obsession.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:54AM (1 child)
And BTW, "nec-otium" the negative of otium, from which your term "negotiate" comes, was used to denote business activity (store is still called negozio around here). But, even your "business" has a negative connotation. Business comes from busy, and what is the opposite of busy? Free.
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(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday July 30 2017, @02:56PM
You're saying that people are working to look better than someone else?
I would have thought that was a side effect of wanting more money or power.
(Unless, of course, it's an arch-enemy--then I would devote innumerous resources to plotting that individual's demise--perhaps to my own ruin. But, of course, my resources are limited and it may just be limited to staircase wit.)
As N1 recently stated, "hard work is its own reward."
That is certainly true of the employers and the motivational posters I have seen. I know few actual people, that work for an employer and not in it for themselves, that see it that way unless it is for something they already enjoy (in or outside of work).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 14 2017, @11:16PM (6 children)
Which moral systems have that property? The problem is that moral systems are arbitrary. For example, there is a moral system where everything I do is the absolutely rightest thing to do at the time I do it (merely by defining it that way). Switch the sign and we get a moral system where I'm doing the absolutely wrongest things instead.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:42AM (5 children)
> Which moral systems have that property? The problem is that moral systems are arbitrary.
I am fully aware of that (even if toxic systems will seldom be labeled moral it is not our concern now), but if you read you will notice the phrase will work for any moral system. You can be damned for eternity according to one system, yet your value to society will approach zero nonetheless. You are going to build on sand, or stone?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 16 2017, @08:39AM (4 children)
What stone? It's common to see behavior that has greater harm than benefit for the very people it is supposed to help yet the behavior is advocated on the basis of it being "moral".
For example, sacrificing one's time and effort for some slight alleged environmental benefit while ignoring that the environmental costs of the sacrifice are higher than the benefit to be gained. A considerable bit of recycling and pathological resource optimization falls in that category. Or advocating the creation of some public program or good that causes more problems for everyone than it fixes (a fair bit of the "War on Drugs" is worse for everyone who supposedly is being protected than the recreational drugs would be). Or the nutcases who advocate for the end of corporations and subsequent massive economic disaster because someone, years back, wrote a book that completely mischaracterized corporate personhood.
Sure, moral systems can provide some hypothetical, purely imaginary value beyond time, but that's completely worthless to us who so happen to be constrained by time. Instead, it is the value to us and our fellow travelers in the now which make moral systems worthwhile to anyone you know. Let's consider what else you wrote in that early post:
Notice the word, "self" in "self actualization". It is inherently determined from the point of view of the person undergoing the actualization. Nor is it commonly used [google.com] by the media. I get 16,700 hits on my Google News search in the previous sentence (this includes variants like "self-actualizing"). A corresponding search [google.com] for "free", a widely abused word, gets 130 million hits, "moral" [google.com] gets 20 million hits.
My view is that if self actualization and its variants really were used for propaganda, then you'd see the words in the propaganda. And what sort of moral system doesn't encourage people to better themselves?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 17 2017, @03:43PM (1 child)
> Sure, moral systems can provide some hypothetical, purely imaginary value beyond time
your perspective is utilitarian, I was saying something else. Moral systems are abstractions, beyond time. Moral choices are often to one's detriment. It's like playing videogames. You just fiddle with the keyboard. But when you win the championship you will have been champion even after the universe dies. IMAGINARY IS NOT ABSTRACT.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:23AM
So what? There are an infinite number of moral systems and for each system, I can come up with its complete opposite just by flipping the sign and making good to bad and vice versa. Further, I can trivially come up with moral systems where I automatically am perfectly moral and hence, automatically win that championship (nothing but net!). What makes any of them worth speaking of? The answer is that some moral systems are useful, that is, they have value from the utilitarian perspective.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 17 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
> then you'd see the words in the propaganda
BTW this is not the 50s magazines. Propaganda is smarter than that.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:17AM
Not smart enough to create propaganda around words that it never uses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @02:29AM (1 child)
Isaac Newton's value to society endures.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:06AM
No, his ideas maybe. Else we can argue about (godwin's in one) Hitler as the true father of the Israel state. One can even argue it is not unintended consequence, because he did not remotely implement the correct way of performing a genocide, the Armenian one, which German officials did witness firsthand as WWI allies of the Turks.
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