Before I go into typing a bunch of shit someone else wrote about Maslow & about the concept of Self-Enhancement, a concept that undercuts Maslow in some way, I want to reiterate that I am perfectly clear as mud on this topic.
Which is to say: No doubt, self-enhancement bias is real. We delude ourselves all the time, it seems.
There is no doubt in my mind that the lower levels of Maslow's pyramid are also accurate.
Also, it's clear to me that those who are struggling at the lower levels of the pyramid are most assuredly going to delude themselves.
What I don't understand about the following passage I'm going to quote from is this: Who is the group of people that is deluding themselves while also being eligible for the upper levels of Maslow's pyramid?
The author is about to claim that because we delude ourselves, & because the top of Maslow's hierarchy is essentially "Sainthood," those two things are clearly incompatible, or they can't be true.
I'm leaning towards thinking, however, that they are not mutually exclusive, unless & until one reaches at a minimum the 3rd level, due to an idea that will recur on this blog: If you are a poor struggling wage-slave schmuck (as most of us are), delusion is REALISTICALLY better than your expected value in this life.
In other words, delude yourself while you can, because if you can delude yourself that means your not working a dumb job for the man. Or even better, if you happen to be currently working for the man, by all means go ahead & delude yourself into thinking your really on your yacht, anchored up to deserted island sipping mai-tais with supermodels, like your company's CEO is probably doing.
& where's his CEO on Maslow's scale? I can't say I've ever had the good fortune to pick the brain of one of the super rich, but from what I've seen, they are nothing but delusion.
***I'm making a part two for the actual passage.
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