The author is a Lecturer of English Literature at DHA Suffa College, and a PhD scholar in decolonial literary research
One of the vital taught pyramids in Pakistani greater training was by no means drawn by the person it is credited to. But stroll into any psychology or enterprise research classroom, and there it’s: the identical triangle, 5 layers ascended firmly so as, with physiological wants on the base, self-actualisation – that means, success, even a sort of spirituality – on the peak. Credited to Abraham Maslow, who by no means drew a pyramid, relatively warned in opposition to the rigidity of his concept. The form we now deal with as a scripture, was constructed years after him, not by any psychologist, however by a administration guide promoting a system for motivating workers as economically as doable.
In 1943, Maslow laid out his classes of wants in a paper, A Idea of Human Motivation, revealed in Psychological Assessment. In 1954, his guide, Motivation and Character, cautioned in opposition to it straight: “We’ve got spoken as far as if this hierarchy was a hard and fast order however truly it isn’t almost as inflexible as we might have implied… there have been quite a few exceptions” (p. 51). He documented seven exceptions, final and essentially the most putting exception: folks pushed by excessive beliefs or values, “quit the whole lot for the sake of a specific worth” (p. 53) his personal phrase for this was martyrdom. If survival itself might be sacrificed for a great, beliefs cannot solely matter as soon as survival is secured.
His technique for categorising ‘self-actualised’ relied on biographical evaluation relatively than managed research. Eighteen people have been the core group he studied and drew 15 traits of self-actualised folks. Historic figures assessed by way of biography, from Lincoln to Einstein, alongside private acquaintances he selected himself. The pattern tilted closely towards educated, high-achieving white males, with solely two ladies, and nobody from outdoors Western prominence. From it, he estimated solely two per cent of individuals ever attain self-actualisation – a determine with no inhabitants foundation in any respect.
If Maslow did not draw the triangle, who did? In 2019, administration historians Todd Bridgman, Stephen Cummings, and John Ballard traced its origin of their paper, Who Constructed Maslow’s Pyramid? A 1957 textbook by Keith Davis first illustrated the speculation as a staircase resulting in the highest, the place a besuited govt vegetation a flag, echoing the Iwo Jima {photograph}. In1960, Charles McDermid, a consulting psychologist in his article, How Cash Motivates Males, took the identical concept and redesigned it right into a triangle we all know right now by arguing that the form helps managers obtain “most motivation on the lowest price”. It was by no means a psychological discovering relatively a gross sales support to assist managers get extra out of workers.
The pyramid arrived in Pakistan the way in which most of our postcolonial curricula did, by way of inherited Western textbooks, taught as reality, examined by examination, by no means questioned. If the classroom will not query it, artwork and literature have already got. Vincent van Gogh produced over 900 work and bought just one. All through his life he remained destitute and fully unrecognised, but his artwork drew its that means from contained in the deprivation, not after it was resolved. Siddhartha Gautama, the prince of Kapilavastu, often known as Buddha, whose story is normally advised as a clear epiphany – a prince renounces luxurious and turns into the enlightened one. The sharper studying comes from Ashvaghosha’s Lifetime of the Buddha (Canto 3, Canto 5): the awakening started together with his repeated encounters with outdated age, illness and loss of life, not as soon as consolation was secured. Allama Iqbal’s philosophy of Khudi is constructed on the identical inversion: selfhood solid by way of wrestle, not preserved by consolation. Albert Camus closed The Fantasy of Sisyphus by imagining a person condemned to push a boulder uphill for eternity, with no relaxation or decision ever coming, insisting us to image him happy and comfortable anyway. None of those are tales about wants met earlier than self-actualisation arrives; they’re tales about self-actualisation regardless of wants by no means being met.
If Maslow places self-actualisation on the summit, reached solely as soon as survival is secured, one older custom put it on the very base. Centuries earlier than Maslow, Muslim authorized theorists developed their very own framework of three ranges of ma?la?ah (public curiosity): necessities (faith, life itself, the thoughts, household lineage and wealth), wants (issues like commerce or marriage, whose absence causes actual hardship) and enhancements (refinements of customized and conduct that transcend necessity), with every tier resting on the one beneath it, in order that disruption on the necessities stage collapses the opposite two, whereas dysfunction in wants or enhancements leaves the necessities intact. The eleventh century jurist al-Juwayni first introduced these three layers and named 5 necessities: faith, life itself, the thoughts, household lineage and wealth. Later his pupil, Imam al-Ghazali, stored this similar five-part record, positioned faith above the opposite 4, not handled as one merchandise amongst equals. Religion, in his framework, is not one thing to take care of as soon as survival is secured. The idea was later schematised by al-Shatibi, who grounded it straight in scripture and acknowledged the consensus plainly: “The Muslim neighborhood…[agrees] that the Legislation was established to protect the 5 necessities, specifically, faith, human life, progeny, materials wealth and the human school of motive” (Al-Raysuni, Imam al-Shatibi’s Idea of the Increased Aims, IIIT Books-in-Temporary, 2013). On this framework of human necessities, religion isn’t a luxurious attained after survival, however foundational to survival itself.
Al-Ghazali’s framework stood for 9 hundred years. Maslow’s pyramid is barely sixty – and but nobody within the room is allowed to query it. The ask is not to tear Maslow down – it is extra pressing than that: cease educating a 1960 guide’s gross sales diagram as settled science. Train Maslow’s personal caveats. Train al-Juwayni, al-Ghazali and al-Shatibi alongside him. Not as a result of one custom ought to win, however as a result of a classroom that fingers down conclusions as a substitute of educating college students to query them has already failed at its solely job.
