Abraham Maslow, to the delight of Introduction to Psychology professors and to the sadness of freshmen undergraduates assigned to memorize his work, labeled five basic human needs and put them on a pyramid. Psychologists no doubt find Maslow’s Five useful, but in more recent renditions, they add qualifiers. I announce today a different set of needs for freshmen to learn, a simpler one that involves just three needs and doesn’t use a pyramid, eliminating some steps in the memorization process.
So what are my basic three needs? They are Place, Peace, and Power. The second of my needs ensures that the second Maslow need, safety, is met. The third ensures the essential self-actualization and esteem that Maslow puts at the top of his pyramid. And the first? Well, we are obviously bound to place of some kind, but with the assurance of Peace, then the place where we are meets our physiological needs. See. I’ve simplified the system with no disrespect to Maslow’s followers.
“No, you haven’t,” you say (because you are someone who just made an A in psych class or because you are someone with yellowed notes you’ve recited to a couple of generations of students). Maslow’s hierarchy lists subcategories, and then there are those versions of the hierarchy that contain even more needs, such as higher levels for aesthetic and transcendence needs (art and charity, in short).
I respond humbly, “But doesn’t Power give us the ability to do as we will, to create art and to be altruistic? You know, for now I’m sticking with just the three ‘Ps,’ and if you want subcategorization, then the ‘Power to maintain Peace of Mind, Body, and Place.’ Of course, I don’t expect my three Ps to get into a freshman psych book at any time in the near future. That would require having the power to inject thoughts that might disrupt the peace of those in their special place atop the pyramid."
So what are my basic three needs? They are Place, Peace, and Power. The second of my needs ensures that the second Maslow need, safety, is met. The third ensures the essential self-actualization and esteem that Maslow puts at the top of his pyramid. And the first? Well, we are obviously bound to place of some kind, but with the assurance of Peace, then the place where we are meets our physiological needs. See. I’ve simplified the system with no disrespect to Maslow’s followers.
“No, you haven’t,” you say (because you are someone who just made an A in psych class or because you are someone with yellowed notes you’ve recited to a couple of generations of students). Maslow’s hierarchy lists subcategories, and then there are those versions of the hierarchy that contain even more needs, such as higher levels for aesthetic and transcendence needs (art and charity, in short).
I respond humbly, “But doesn’t Power give us the ability to do as we will, to create art and to be altruistic? You know, for now I’m sticking with just the three ‘Ps,’ and if you want subcategorization, then the ‘Power to maintain Peace of Mind, Body, and Place.’ Of course, I don’t expect my three Ps to get into a freshman psych book at any time in the near future. That would require having the power to inject thoughts that might disrupt the peace of those in their special place atop the pyramid."
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