All the contributors on this site have one thing in common… to observe society, make sense of it and then share it with you, the readers, to see if we have tapped into something accurate.

For me, the most difficult part of the process is the observation.  I do not mean the physical act of observing.  I mean watching the degradation and demoralization of society, that at its best is heartbreaking.

Yes, there are pockets of wonderful things: watching people in love, seeing children laughing, finding days old ducklings in the LA River.  There are momentary glances at bliss that carry me through the day.  Because more often than not, I am watching the worst of humanity.  This seems to be much more the norm nowadays.

There are two things that happened this week that has helped me understand the downward trend in humanity.  I wanted to share these, if you, like me, want to find reasons for why attitudes toward one another seem to have shifted so dramatically.

The first was a simple observation, which I think led into my latest theory.

I live in Los Angeles.  If you don’t live here… and I don’t think it matters because I think it has become an epidemic.. the people who migrate into LA are for the most part desiring a career in the entertainment industry.  Their focus in life is to be the center of attention, to look as a certain image or character, and to be in the right place to get discovered.  to summarize simply, they want to be seen.

As I drove through Beverly Hills the other day, the mecca for wanting to be a part of it all, it occurred to me…. if everyone’s sole purpose in this town is to be seen, then it means we have a city of people who think they’re invisible.

I sat with that notion for a while… what does it mean if we live in a city, state, country, where people feel so insignificant that they do whatever they can to be seen?  I likened it to a child who needs attention… they act out, the throw tantrums, they hurt another… all for the chance to be seen by an authority.

The second thing isn’t an event that happened.  It was an opening of my mind to an idea that may be the answer to why things have gotten the way they have gotten.

Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs (Click to zoom)

Have you ever heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943, his theory is that there are inherent needs that an individual has to have met, in order to survive, have fulfillment and be psychologically advanced.  As pictured, it is most often depicted as a pyramid.  The base is physiological needs, like food, water, and oxygen.  The other levels include Safety, Love and Belonging, Esteem, and Self Actualization.  In order for an individual to move up the pyramid to higher levels, all requirements must be met at the base levels.  For example, you might not care so much about finding love, if you can’t breath.  (Extreme example, I know.)

A few nights ago, I was in an in depth conversation about what needs to happen to get people to start changing their habits.  For example, what can be done to get people to stop grabbing for a plastic water bottle, and instead have a connection to the harm that bottle does to our health and environment.  Or, everyone is mad at BP, but not enough to stop driving their cars.  As it often occurs, the conversation was dynamic and built upon topic after topic, and I can’t tell you what provoked this, but I was struck with the idea of looking up Maslow’s theory. I thought there might be a clue to human nature.

My opinion is that I found a possible reason to why society is struggling with doing the right thing.

So, remember that in order to move up through the pyramid to the pinnacle, self-actualization, all the other needs must be met.  And, I ask you to go back to my other observation in the week about realizing that everyone wants to be seen because everyone, psychologically, thinks they are invisible.  If you put it all together, I think you will see and understand what is going on in our communities that if fixed could change the world.

I propose that the reason our society isn’t moving in a direction of morality and ethics is because we simply are trapped in the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs, which makes us physically and psychologically unable to move to the next level.  In fact, I think many people are toggling between Safety and Love/Belonging and cannot get out of the vicious circle that has been created for us.

I also believe that who is to blame is media and entertainment.  I know it has been talked about before on this site, so I will try to be brief.  However, if you are constantly exposing yourself to television, films and print media and the illusion they create about where you “should” be in life, an unrealistic reality, you will always feel dissatisfied and you will always be working towards an unattainable goal.  For example, if you watch a sitcom with a family in which the set is designed so that their house is large, they have a nice car, the latest appliances, new clothes, their children are getting a private school education and they are all doing it, as the script defines, on the average American salary, then you as the viewer will feel devalued because you don’t have the big house, the new clothes, the fancy car, etc., on your true and realistic average income.

The point of a story, whether it be drama or comedy, is to have extreme highs and lows so that the viewer is entertained and finds value in what is being presented to them.  The flaw in this is that we look at our own lives, see that we don’t have extreme tragedies or extraordinary wins, and think that we somehow have failed.  When in reality, most people live a very fluid, one note kind of life.  This isn’t a bad thing… this is how it is supposed to be.  Living a dramatic life is not the norm.

Given all of this, I think we have become trapped in the level of constantly seeking love and belonging.  Whatever story line you can think of, if it isn’t happening to you, since it is that drama that you see everyday, we make the decision that we are just not good enough.

My wife didn’t surprise me at Christmas with the Lexus with the big red bow.  I must need to do better to deserve it.  My boyfriend hasn’t proposed after being together for two years with a 5 carat, princess cut, canary yellow diamond.  I must be unlovable.

The reality is that what is on television, what you read in fiction, what is being told in movies and what is being sung about is simply not the truth.

So what?

Well, if you are constantly looking for love and belonging, not getting, but are told that it comes in material forms, you bring yourself down to the next level.  You stay stuck between safety (this is where unemployment, property and resources fall) and love and belonging (the search for a connection with another).

When you pass these levels you move through Esteem, where you feel comfortable with yourself and have respect towards others, and then can move to the highest level, Self Actualization, which is where morality and lack of prejudice reside.

The other quality of self-actualization is problem solving.  So, if we had masses of individuals that were ethical, moral, and lacking prejudice, we would also reside in a world that can solve problems and be creative and respect one another in the process.

But we reside in the world that we are still looking for love, desperate to not be invisible anymore.  A world where we are not trapped by corporate greed training us to spend more and more money and thinking only of ourselves. I would gather that if we had confidence and trusted that we are enough, that we are worthy, we would move into a world that was sustainable to the human existence.

s5