Akshually, Maslow

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs shouldn't be a pyramid.

This visual representation wrongly implies that Self-actualization is the cherry on top. The top of the hierarchy is just a small triangle, but the other levels are large trapezoids. But that little triangle is the only part of the pyramid that is unbounded, arguably to a destructive extent. 

The right to choose is a cornerstone of Western culture, protected by the political philosophy that comes with liberal democracy. Usually, this right doesn’t pose any systemic problems. People’s basic basic needs are largely the same. Water is water, nutrients are nutrients. “I’ll have what they’re having” is generally how we make our choice regarding these needs. 

But at the higher levels of the hierarchy, it’s not clear what we need. At first glance, it’s a great thing that we get to choose how we self-actualize. Playing guitar, becoming a talented chef, or training to be a star athlete are all options. I like that I get to choose challenges and prove my worth to myself and others. Swimming isn’t appealing to me, but cycling is. Fortunately, my choice between the two is free. 

Similarly, but to a lesser extent, our Self-Esteem and Social Needs differ. How I choose to value myself is up to me and I can determine what I look for in a community. The hierarchy widens, not narrows, as we travel up it. There is more choice, not less; more freedom, not less.

But is there a dark side to this freedom? In The End of History and The Last Man, Francis Fukuyama made the case that communism, socialism, fascism, and other forms of political organization contained the seeds of their own demise. Liberal democracy is far more robust. That said, Fukuyama was looking for – and perhaps found – its intrinsic fault.

Liberal democracy’s emphasis on freedom and equality provides the foreground for strong individualistic tendencies to emerge. We tend to focus on individuals, rather than communities, collective identities, or networks. It’s possible that by prioritizing our own beliefs and desires, we erode our social connections. This, in turn, leads to increased isolation and decreased social cohesiveness.

The right to choose operates along two major axes in a liberal democracy. First, in economic life. Markets segment consumers based on increasingly narrow differences in what they desire. Consumers fulfill their preferences, engaging in a self-actualization arms race with their peers. The market is there to meet the diverging needs of people, supplying new colors, qualities, and trends. Second, the right to choose tessellates private life. Citizens have a right to leave their families, reject values, and adopt or create new ideologies. Combine the right to choose with powerful algorithms that cater to our preferences and people quickly get fenced off from each other.

The pursuit of self-actualization might be the seed of liberal democracy’s demise. On the economic side, it provides an engine for relentless consumerism. We pursue fulfillment, and we’re happy to buy stuff that promises to get us closer. On the political side, the unboundedness of self-actualization means that there is an ideology for each of us, and no ideology for all of us. The square footage of our common interests shrinks to zero and the incentive to participate in political life is eroded by how combative debate has become.

Several authors have questioned what these patterns of increasing isolation may mean for society. Cass Sunstein, in #Republic, talked about what the world would look like with a “Daily Me” – a bespoke newsfeed tailored precisely to your interests. In this world, your information diet would be ick-free; it would contain nothing triggering (unless you wanted it to). While the Daily Me insulates individuals from psychological discomfort, it evaporates the public commons. 

The endless, individualistic pursuit of informational self-actualization drives people apart and they gradually lose their tolerance for different perspectives. By the time people reemerge from their newsfeeds, they’ve lost their ability to debate. In a world with a Daily Me, it’s impossible to feel seen by another person because their values are so different and so tightly held. 

The phrase, “You are not your ideas” can become untrue. In the world with a Daily Me, I would only be recognized by what my ideas are. My identity would be based on which ideas I appear to stand for, rather than based on being a fellow human. Eventually, I would simply morph into a substrate for ideas, which are competing with each other for new hosts. 

Fortunately, this hasn’t happened. It’s possible that social media has brought us closer to a Daily Me, but we’re not living in a total dystopia. Democracy still works, elections still happen, and plenty of people get out to vote. We haven’t devolved into a civilization of hermits. 

However, we need to fix how we create community and common knowledge. Building a community requires limiting your horizons. You have to invest in a city, aesthetic, discipline, skill, or economy in order to grow a community. Community is a quadratic function of depth. Spread yourself too thin, and it will be difficult to grow roots. Focus too narrowly, and you won’t have peers. 

It’s important to note one overlooked downside of community: less privacy. One of the reasons we’ve moved toward a more individualistic lifestyle is to avoid other people in our business. Fortunately, the tradeoff between privacy and community is flexible. You don’t have to go all in on one or the other. 

Fixing common knowledge is a harder problem. On the one hand, we don’t have a true Daily Me. But the version we do have can be manipulated to manufacture common knowledge that is not beneficial to a majority. For example, social media campaigns by political parties can adjust the trajectory of people’s self-actualization by spreading content that aligns with their party’s platform. The writers at Epsilon Theory talk about this a lot. In this recent essay, they cited Greta Thumberg and Oliver Anthony as examples – two everyday people who were adopted as marketing material. 

So, it’s possible that The End of History is not here. Liberal democracy’s fatal flaw could rest in its protection of the freedom of choice, which enables self-actualization to spin out of control. A clunky version of the Daily Me could be accelerating this process, making us polarized and intolerant.

But I’m optimistic that this is more like a cold than a cancer. A lot of people are getting away from click-baity social media and focusing on building communities, both online and offline. Different mixes of privacy and connection will allow people to connect in new ways while still democratically selecting common values. And there are some interesting things happening in the regulatory space with social media and internet technologies. Google’s antitrust suit, Twitter's transition to paid membership, and new decentralized socials like Farcaster and Bluesky all might correct some of the Daily Me’s drawbacks. All-in-all, still looking up.

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