The Science of MetaValues
From the Preface of The MetaValues Breakthrough:
Abraham Maslow believed that values should not be the exclusive domain of religionists. He advocated a science of values. Yet he also grasped that MetaValues transcend the disciplines of science, theology, and philosophy. Unlike Rand or Hitchens, Maslow understood that science does not have all the answers. Science can tell us much about material reality, or what is. Science can even suggest possibilities, what could be. But the poet or the religionist offers a vision for us of what ought to be. And science without values builds bigger bombs and more efficient gas chambers. Dr. Maslow fought hard to break down the barriers between science and religion:
"I [have] pointed out that both orthodox science and orthodox religion have been institutionalized and frozen into a mutually excluding dichotomy. This separation into Aristotelian a and not-a has been almost perfect … Every question, every answer, every method, every jurisdiction, every task has been assigned to either one or the other, with practically no overlaps. One consequence is that they are both pathologized, split into sickness, ripped apart into a crippled half-science and a crippled half-religion."
Unfortunately,
Maslow was never able to distill his ideas for
mainstream readers; he wrote almost exclusively for
his peers. The world is the poorer for this, because
Maslow uncovered truths about the human condition
that are tremendously uplifting and inspiring—and
are easily within the understanding of nearly every
person on the planet. With this book, nearly four
decades after Maslow's death, individuals at last
have a program that shows them how to put these
truths to work in their lives.
From Chapter Eight of The MetaValues Breakthrough:
Dr. Maslow's hierarchy of needs has now been around so long that it is a yawner for most students in Psychology 101. Although important progress has been made by many pioneers, the great new frontier of the human mind -the summit of the pyramid- has not yet been fully explored. There is no recognized science of values. And the vast majority of humankind still actualize only a small fraction of their potentials. The time has come to propose a new model of humankind that is based upon Maslow's metamotivation theory- a model that better embraces the farther reaches of what a human being could become.