Abstract
Maslow’s usage of “good specimens” rhetoric and methods is examined as a vertical perspective emphasizing hierarchical differences between individuals at different levels of psychological development. Despite its strengths, a number of potentially problematic implications of this perspective are discussed. Maslow’s supplemental usage of horizontal perspectives emphasizing the commonalities of the growth process as they occur in all individuals is also highlighted and suggested as an alternative humanistic approach for the exploration of biological wisdom.
The Master, by residing in the Tao, sets an example for all beings. If you overesteem great men, people become powerless.
The selected quotations highlight both the promise and the perils of Maslow’s (1969) usage of “good specimens” rhetoric and methods to better understand humanity’s innate “biological wisdom” (p. 730). 2 While potentially inspiring us to reach for all that is possible, they may also have the potential to disempower us if they draw attention away from our own personal capacities and potentials.
To complement and perhaps to address potential concerns raised by this vertical perspective, emphasizing hierarchical distinctions, Maslow at times also utilizes a more horizontal perspective, focusing on the growth process as it may be experienced by everyone, including the “average” and “neurotic” as well as the “healthy” person. 3 In both his vertical and horizontal passages, Maslow’s tone is reverential, expressing awe at the fully self-actualizing person’s attainment of transcendence and admiration for the courage of anyone who risks safety to engage in the sometimes difficult growth process. But in ultimately advocating for the vertical, “good specimen” approach as the most effective way to explore “full humanness,” Maslow invites a variety of potential criticisms and concerns.
Perhaps most obviously, vertical passages referring to “psychologically ‘superior’ people” (Maslow, 1969, p. 725) who can “tell us less sensitive ones what it is that we value” (p. 727) open Maslow to charges of elitism. 4 And given Maslow’s recognition of the individual’s innate tendency toward autonomy and self-regulation, which is, “in general, antiauthoritarian” (p. 729), such passages may provoke resistance or reactance, particularly in light of suggestions that the rest of us might “learn to submit ourselves or to defer to [the good specimen’s] judgment” (p. 727). 5
Perhaps more importantly, the vertical perspective may inadvertently undermine personal power, if in the process of giving over authority to external referents, we devalue our own inherent biological wisdom. As Maslow (1999) writes elsewhere, when “faced with a difficult choice between [one’s] own delight and the experience of approval from others, [one] must generally choose approval from others” (p. 60). As a result of this difficult choice, the person may become distrustful of their own judgments, finding “[h]is center of gravity is in ‘them’, not in himself” (1999, p. 60).
To guard against this possibility, Maslow (1969) advocates for a more Taoistic approach, which is communicated beautifully and consistently throughout the article’s more horizontal passages (especially pp. 730–731). When expressing urgency about the need to address Big Problems, however, an implicit tension with the patience required by the Taoistic perspective emerges, which if unchecked might perhaps lead to the temptation to apply “good specimen” findings in a more vertical fashion, where others might be taught to defer or submit to their perceptions and judgments. Maslow himself raises the possible technocratic application of such research with passing mention of “social arrangements that will force [italics added for emphasis] . . . people into either evil behavior or into good behavior” (p. 732). 6
Maslow is a complex theorist, however, and it should not be surprising to find unresolved tensions in his writings. As the contrasting quotations from the Tao te Ching that precede this essay suggest, Maslow may be encountering tensions inherent in the problems he wrestles with, rather than solely within his own thinking. 7 And it is certainly possible that Maslow’s preferred, more vertical approach might yield inspiring fruits, provided its potentially problematic implications are addressed. But in moving away from a value-free approach to promote a humanistic vision of the Good Person and the Good Society, perhaps the humanistic scientist (whether biologist or psychologist) should strive to do so in a way that unequivocally values and affirms the potential for biological wisdom in everyone.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
