Farther Reaches of Human Nature

Father of Modern Management

"If one took a course or picked up a book on the psychology of learning, most of it, in my opinion, would be beside the point - that is, beside the 'humanistic' point. Most of it would present learning as the acquisition of associations, of skills and capacities that are external and not intrinsic to the human character, to the human personality, to the person himself."

Abraham Maslow Farther Reaches of Human Nature

"Such a goal involves very serious shifts in what we would teach in a course in the psychology of learning. It is not going to be a matter of associative learning. Associative learning in general is certainly useful, extremely useful for learning things that are of no real consequence, or for learning means - techniques which are after all interchangeable....It is important and useful, especially in a technological society. But in terms of becoming a better person, in terms of self-development and self-fulfillment, or in terms of 'becoming fully human,' the greatest learning experiences are very different." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 163, 2nd paragraph

"Another profound learning experience, that I value far more highly than any particular course or any degree, that I have ever had, was my personal psychoanalysis: discovering my own identity, my own self." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 163, 5th paragraph

"If one thinks in terms of the developing of the kinds of wisdom, the kinds of understanding, the kinds of life skills that we would want, then he must think in terms of what I would like to call intrinsic education - intrinsic learning; that is, learning to be a human being in general, and second, learning to be this particular human being.... Certainly one thing I can tell you. Our conventional education looks mighty sick. Once you start thinking in this framework, that is, in terms of becoming a good human being, and if then you ask the question about the courses that you took in high school, 'How did my trigonometry course help me to become a better human being?' an echo answers, 'By gosh, it didn't!' In a certain sense, trigonometry was for me a waste of time." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 164, 1st paragraph

"There are signals from inside, there are voices that yell out, 'By gosh this is good, don't ever doubt it!' This is a path, one of the ways that we try to teach self-actualization and the discovery of self. The discovery of identity comes via the impulse voices, via the ability to listen to your own guts, and to their reactions and to what is going on inside of you." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 171, 2nd paragraph

"Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 172, 3rd paragraph

"The ideal college would be a kind of educational retreat in which you could try to find yourself; find out what you like and want; what you are and are not good at. People would take various subjects, attend various seminars, not quite sure of where they are going, but moving toward the discovery of vocation, and once they found it, they could then make good use of technological education. The chief goals of the ideal college, in other words, would be the discovery of identity, and with it, the discovery of vocation." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 176, 2nd paragraph

"People whom we describe as healthy, strong and definite seem to be able to hear their inner-feeling-voices more clearly than most people. They know what they want, and they know equally clearly what they don't want." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 176, 5th paragraph

"Other people, in contrast, seem to be empty, out of touch with their inner signals. They eat, defecate, and go to sleep by the clock's cues, rather than by the cues of their own bodies. They use external criteria for everything from choosing their food ('it's good for you') and clothing ('it's in style') to questions of values and ethics ('my daddy told me to')." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 176, 5th paragraph

"An important part of self-knowledge is being able to hear clearly these signals from inside." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 176, 6th paragraph.

"What do we mean by the discovery of identity? We mean finding out what your real desires and characteristics are, and being able to live in a way that expresses them. You learn to be authentic, to be honest in the sense of allowing your behavior and your speech to be the true and spontaneous expression of your inner feelings." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 176, 3rd paragraph

"The technique here is just to wait to see what happens, what comes to mind. This is what Freud called free association, free-floating attention rather than task orientation. If you are successful in this effort and learn how to do it, you can forget about the outside world and its noises and begin to hear these small, delicate impulse voices from within, the hints from your animal nature, not only from your common species-nature, but also from your uniqueness." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 179, 3rd paragraph

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