[Neurons] 2022 Neurons #45 VALUES --- WHAT ARE THEY?

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2022 Neurons #45

October 31, 2022

Values Series #3

 

VALUES-WHAT ARE THEY? 

 

If there ever was a word that is suppose to convey an understanding of human
psychology, motivation, purpose, ethics, pathology, and much more which
utterly fails in its communication endeavor-it is the word "values."  It
fails because it sounds like a thing, and yet it is not.  As a noun, it
sounds like something external, yet it is not.  It is not a true noun nor is
it external.  The term "value" is a false-noun, a nominalization-a verb
turned into a noun.  To value, as a process, is to think, deem, and treat
something as important, significant, and/or meaningful.  That's what we do
when we value.  We think, "X is important."  Actually, saying that something
is important is the easy part, living that value-that's harder.  When we
have to act according to our espoused values by devoting our energy, time,
effort, and priorities to it-that makes it most challenging.   And yet,
that's what a value true is-a lived significance.

 

This raises the next question, a critical question for your well-being.
"What is valuable to you?"  "What do you value?"  Fortunately this was one
of the key subjects Abraham Maslow began studying.  Then, out of the years
of his research, he discovered that we humans have a built-in value
system-namely our socio-biological needs and our higher semantic needs.  He
called the first our D-needs (for deficiency) and the second, our B-needs
(for being).  The first set of needs drive us with an impulse energy so that
we would figure out how to gratify that drive.  And these needs are at the
same time our most fundamental values.  Because we need oxygen, food, water,
sleep, and shelter, so we value these items.  We value these for survival,
for life, for well-being.

 


We need safety and security-a stable world to live in, one that we can
figure out how to protect ourselves, be safe, and have a sense of structure.
So needing these, we value them.  We need love and affection, belonging, a
sense of attachment to others, a community and so we value the same.  We
need social recognition, respect, and dignity, and so we value these.  Our
needs are our values.

 

Then, above and beyond these first needs/values which enable us to have
health and well-being are the truly unique human needs/values-knowledge,
meaning, justice, equality, love, beauty, music, contribution, excellence,
making a difference, etc.  These are the higher needs, the being-needs,
which are the human needs/values.  While the first needs/values make us
fully alive, these higher needs/values enable us to be fully human.  So
within them are our highest and most important values.

 

What are the intrinsic human values?   They begin with the D-needs along
with the B-needs.  All of the things that the classic philosophers said were
among the most important human values- truth, beauty, and justice are part
of the Being-values.  What's amazing about what Maslow discovered was that
he reached the same conclusions, not philosophy but through psychological
research.  As he extended his studies about "good humans," he started
identify "good specimens."  He started identifying people who were using a
lot, if not most, of their talents and potentials and using them as those
who had happened upon the highest human values.  He reasoned that if the
healthiest among us, those "fully functioning" or nearly so, and whose
well-being and productivity was of great value to mankind, their lived
values must be innately significant.  From that, he, his colleagues, and his
students began making a list of these being-values.

 

This was and continues to be quite revolutionary.  What truly and adequately
gratifies the D- and the B-needs consist of the essential and intrinsic
human values.  This enables us to generate a list of values which are not
imposed from the outside and on which you must take them on faith or because
you believe in some ideology or philosophy.  We accept these values because
these are the ones which enable our well-being and full functioning.  Anyone
looking for a set of values to guide one's life by or a set of values to
invest your time, money, effort, etc, into can start here.

 

If that doesn't convince you, consider the converse.  Again, that's what
Maslow did.  He looked at people who failed to gratify the need-values, and
especially the B-values.  What he found was that those who failed them
suffered various pathologies.  In the D-realm, the pathologies were physical
and psychological addictions and in the B-realm, they were loss of
motivation, depression, anhedonia, uncertainty, etc.  He called the problems
in the B-realm, meta-pathologies and he created long lists of these
"sicknesses" of the spirit.

 

Values are what you need-what's required-to be fully alive/ fully human.
That's why when a person suffers from value sickness, they have problems
being human.  It is why a value-crisis can be so devastating.  It is why we
live best when we live by the highest values.  It is why education,
coaching, therapy, parenting, and other domains desperately need to recover
the highest human values-the being-values. 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

ISNS Executive Director

P.O. Box 8

Clifton Colorado 81520 USA

(970) 523-7877

drhall at acsol.net  

 

The newest book ---- Meta-Therapy is now available on "The Shop" and within
a few days--- it will be available as a book.  Look for the announcement.



 

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