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Within
this conception of man’s nature, the total psychology of the
mature organism changes when the conditions of his existence
change. A qualitatively different state of psychological being
emerges cognitively, emotionally, motivationally, value wise and
otherwise. The way one believes people should be managed changes,
and the way people want to be managed changes. Man’s
institutions – political, economic, social - change, and so do
his attitudes and beliefs.
The first
five of these levels are call Subsistence Levels because people at
any of these levels behave in order to remove a deficiency, in
order to get something, which is needed. The other levels are
numbered consecutively Being Levels because they have in common
growth or expressive motives, doing because one wants to, not
because one has to.
Today, we will be
concerned only with the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth levels.
There is no business, industry, or commerce at the first two
levels, and today, so few humans operate at the seventh, eight,
and ninth levels that is not worth our time to consider the later
appearing levels. Therefore, I shall describe briefly only the
third, fourth, fifth, and sixth levels. I will then discuss them
in relation to your fourth and fifth generation problems.
The third subsistence
level of behavior emerges in man when he perceives that basic
physiological needs are being met and will continue to be
satisfied, but when he is still endangered by predatory man,
predatory animals, and a predatory world. There is a flood
of free energy in his system released from considered and
continuous attention to maintaining physiological life. At this
time, he becomes a human awakened to inner man – physiological
self and the external world. He is a human who becomes frightened
by an influx of inner and outer stimulation he can neither
comprehend nor control. He is in a state of frightened existence.
Since he now perceives himself caught in a world of
unpredictability and chaos, he strives with all at his command to
achieve safety and security in this world. To attain safety and
security, he seeks to create an orderly, predictable, stable,
unchanging world – one in which the unexpected does not happen.
As he sees it, only complete denial of this inner world and
complete control of the outer world can keep him safe from the
many stimuli of which he has just become aware. Peace in this
world is safety and security, and the way to achieve these is to
divine the immutable laws of living and submit to and obey them
and, once having found them, let no change take place. This is the
way it always has been. This is the way it is today, and such is
the way it shall always be is the lesson of life to be learned.
Time for him has stopped. The world is right at it is, as he now
sees it to be and should not be tampered with, but such is not
living as perceived by fourth level man.
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