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Be Yourself! How Am I Not myself?

II. Society and Politics: Between Essentialist and Existentialist Authenticity

  • Symposium: Revisiting Maslow: Human Needs in the 21st Century
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Abstract

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs is mostly animalistic; only self-actualization is uniquely human. Yet even this token of “human exceptionalism” is hampered by subscribing to essentialist, rather than existentialist, authenticity. If the former is just about recovering an innate, latent, core, it robs humans of their freedom to (re)create who they are. If we dare to choose, we cannot but be ourselves.

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Further Reading

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  • Maslow, A. H. 1943. A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological review, 50(4), 370–396.

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  • Maslow, A. H. 1954. Motivation and Personality (First ed., ). New York:Harper & Row.

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  • Maslow, Abraham H. 1999 [1962]. Toward a Psychology of Being. 3rd ed. cNew York: J. Wiley & Sons.

  • Maslow, A. H. 1971. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. New York:Viking Press.

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  • Milnes, Tim, and Kerry Sinanan, eds. 2010. Romanticism, Sincerity, and Authenticity. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Nietzsche, F. W. 2005. The Anti-Christ,Ece Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings. New York:Cambridge University Press.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Uriel Abulof

  2. Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Uriel Abulof

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  1. Uriel Abulof
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Correspondence to Uriel Abulof.

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Abulof, U. Be Yourself! How Am I Not myself?. Soc 54, 530–532 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-017-0183-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-017-0183-0

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