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List As a departure from current popular notions that man may achieve self-fulfillment and leisure by gaining control over time and engaging in certain constructive activities, the present study suggests that only by teaming the physical and emotional resources of his being with the ra- tional-intellectual can he gain control over his internal and external environments, come to determine what he will be, do and bear, and therein achieve the dynamic conditions of leisure and self-fulfillment. This line of thought is developed out of a synthesis of Aristotle's view of the good life and how it may be achieved, with the findings of the holistic-dynamic school of contemporary psychology on the healthy personality and its growth—motivated competences. E. g. , peOple whose lives are organized along the lines suggested by the hypothesis show evidence of (1) using more efficient and accelerated methods for knowing and, as a result, know more; (2) living by greatly expanded value criteria better attuned to improving the lot of man and of his social institutions, and (3) conducting their interpersonal affairs to much better effect for seeing and enhancing their own sense of worth, commitment and enjoy- Hugo K. List ment and, therefore, that of others whose paths lie with theirs. Findings from current research substantiate the contention of the hypothesis, resolve the old work-leisure dichotomy into a potential unity, and indicate that persons enjoying the condition, leisure, des.-- cribed herein, are more wholly available to and more efficiently fulfill the intellectual, emotional and physical expectations of the growth—producing educative process. This organismic approach to a conceptualization of leisure, then, constitutes a shift in emphasis from problematical conditions external, to potentials internal, to the nature of man, and time and activities assume their more likely roles as useful, rather than dominant, factors in man's pursuit and achievement of leisure. APPROACH TO A DEFINITION OF LEISURE by ,. \ Hugo K.0"List A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DO C TOR O F PHILOSO PHY Department of Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education 1966 PREFACE Over a period of more than twenty-five years in which I had Opportunities to serve as a pastoral counselor in the church, in the U. S. Air Forces, in clinical counseling situations, in public service institutions, in industry, and recently at Michigan State University, I have had occasion to remark the attitudes and acts of men and women who were, somehow, different from what is usual among us in the Western world, in the sense of their being relaxed, joyful, warm, achieving and of seemingly endless patience, resilience and intellectual productiveness. The think- ing, believing and doing of these people were sufficiently arresting for me to become a kind of theme around which I began, in the middle 1930's, to assemble what seemed to me relevant data; and in 1953, the year before Maslow's Motivation and Personality and Carl Rogers' lectures under the title, Becoming a Person, were published, I wrote an analysis of the dynamics of such "human being" from the viewPoint of a conservative Christian theology. The crucial focus of that piece was that the fallible Christian person, having received absolution from his sins, might very well simply and completely believe God, accept his forgiveness, forgive himself and thereafter be so fulfilled by the joy of his release and freedom, that he would come to know love for himself (Jesus had ii said, by transliteration: in the manner in which you love yourself, love your neighbor) and for God, his liberator (this would, in fact, count as a measure of whether or not he believed God). Thus released, he would begin to live as one who could never again lose or be lost, and he would know a beatific existence, unassailed by the worries and reverses which trouble most of the rest of us mor- tal and fallible men and women. The theological and psychological postulates of that writing were all well documented, and the study was not out of tune with what was being published in the field of pastoral counseling at the time, but I did not present the study for publication, as friends in clinical psychology and pastoral counseling had urged me to do, for I realized that a fair number of the self-fulfilled pe0ple I had known, observed and studied had never wittingly had either formal or informal relations with the institutions and teachings of organ- ized religion. This could mean, I felt, that my hypothesis on the power and effect of forgiveness might, for these at least, be in— applicable. In the course of my doctoral studies at Michigan State Univer- sity, I have been exposed in considerable depth and repeatedly to Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Ethics and Politics; to a frustrating, but exciting, study of the existential philos0phy of Kierkegaard and the pragmatism of James; and to a course of study called Concept of Self under Dr. Arnold Isenberg. iii The tentative first theme of my doctoral dissertation, Work, Leisure and Being, as I attempted to construct a proposal and out- line for it, gradually made me aware of what an enormous task I was attempting to undertake. But it also inadvertently produced some- thing more specifically instructive: after making at least a half dozen beginnings in an effort to write about leis ure--I was then under the impression that I knew what work is --I dis covered that there is no really sound or acceptable definition of the concept, leisure. Aristotle and earlier authors spoke of leisure in terms of ”freedom from necessity"; contemporary writers have been talking about ''free time” and leisure ”activities. ” These factors seemed essentially external and perhaps necessary, but not sufficent condi- tions for leisure. I had long since read some of the works of Jung, Adler, Sullivan, Horney, Fromm, Eriksen and, more recently, those of Rogers, Maslow and Goldstein. I had witnessed the singular transformation taking place in two university students who had apparently "found themselves. " I had read through the baffling conclusions of Allen Wheelis in his The Quest for Identity, and taken account of the insouciance of Riesman over ”other—directedness, ” and of the sociological conclusions of G. H. Mead and his followers in the field of social psychology. For me, some questions remained un- answered. In much of the literature of the past four decades, man most iv often appeared to be always and only the product and member of his social groups. Is there ever a time when man is, above or after or in spite of his social origins and environs, simply himself? If so, how and when does this occur? Or how does he achieve this even only momentary, but solid, whole feeling of selfness, unadulterated by demands issuing from his social milieux? By what means or authority might such a lone selfness exist, even if only briefly? Is such a phenomenon, in a more highly developed form, the pecu- liar power or virtue of self-fulfilled pe0ple ? Aristotle had written that the self is viable only if the rational is given hegemony over the appetitive and vegetative faculties. For their own purposes, medieval theologians had interpreted this pre -Christian philosoPher to mean that reason is a higher, nobler faculty and that a dichotomy and constant struggle necessarily exist between reason and the base, ignoble appetitive and vegetative components of the self. Re -examination of Aristotle revealed that he had indeed written that reason guides and controls the other faculties so that they may perform their proper functions and so that all three might, together, supply the self with the peculiar and necessary contribution each makes to humanness. But of dichotomy and struggle he had written nothing, at least, in this connection. Now, Maslow, though critical of Aristotle on related matters, had apparently reasserted and expanded on Aristotle's original meaning, namely, that the self is an undichotomized continuum of simply lesser and greater competences. For me, this counted as a crucial resolution of a number of hitherto inexplicable human phenomena and, among them, led to the formulation of the present hypothesis on self-fulfillment and leisure. For, this resubstantia- tion of Aristotle's original intention explained why I had observed the self-fulfilled both within and outside the church. Why Maslow and Rogers ? I have used the central themes of the works of Maslow and Rogers as references for this study primarily because I believe they have provided the most comprehensive and logical dynamic extensions of what Aristotle may have implied and would surely have concluded with resPe ct to the self, if he had had a hundred years of psychological research from which to borrow; but also because Maslow and Rogers, if we consider completeness in theo- retical formulation, have firmly led American psychotherapy away from the piecemeal and conjectural Freudian tradition of psychol- ogy of the sick and toward understanding of the psychology of healthy being; because, though reared in the tradition of Watson and Hull, they had the courage and the insights to think their separate ways past mechanistic views on animal behaviorism and toward tenable original theories whose central focus is always a whole, judging, determining and acting man; because both have reestablished continuity with some of the feasible ancient views vi concerning transcendent potentialities in man, and broken with the dreary schools which seemed resigned to view man as no more than a measurable, manipulable and predictable victim of whatever controls social engineering might choose to impose on him. To the theories of these men might have been added the work of Goldstein who invented the concept, ”self-actualization, " to account for the dynamic recuperative forces he had observed in injured war veterans; Kelley, whose term, "full-functioning" man, is exPressive of views consonant with those embraced by the referents; Lewin, whose work in gestalt theory is founded on an organismic view of man; and Combs, Allport, Fromm, Horney, Adler and others, parts or wholes of whose works, in their own ways, have led toward the formulation of the hypothesis presented in this study. These and others not named here fall under the general cate- gory of holistic-dynamic psychologists. Since there is general agreement among them, there seemed no need to cite from the works of the last—named what would simply underline the conclu— sions of the former. Of an equal number of those who do not sub- scribe to holistic-dynamic theory and who are also honored in their various ways, however, none would deny that man represents a complex, but inextricable organization of rational, emotional and physical elements and resources, or that the thoughts, feelings vii and acts of which man is capable leave no element of the self entirely untouched, or that no element of the self remains un- affected by the consequences of his thoughts, feelings and acts. Use of the Term ”Leisure" It is for the reasons that leisure has become a highly signif- icant concept in recent times; that achievement of the conditions of leisure has become an urgent quest in the Western world; that man is being misguided in his understanding of what leisure may be and how it may be achieved; that herewith is presented what seems a more tenable theory of what it is, where it resides and how it is achieved, that in this study the term "leisure" has not been discarded for another which may be similar or seemingly synonymous. To go to a different term in discussing what appears already now a crucial issue in our time and culture could imply that a different subject is under consideration he re, and not the one of great magnitude and urgency which has become the object of so much concern. Furthermore, the hypothesis presented in this study is not basically or otherwise related to something commonly referred to as "peace of mind, " and it embraces a great deal more than what has been in the minds of peOple of the past two decades when they spoke of "mental health. " Orientation of the moveme nts, programs and language which dealt with those concepts was civic, religious, narrowly professional, or other, in its scope and viii interests. The present study deals with leisure and self-ful— fillment from an existential viewpoint in humanist phiIOSOphy. Establishing a linkage between contemporary existential psychologists, such as Maslow, Rogers, and others, and the philoSOpher-psychologist Aristotle carries with it no implication that Aristotle is to be reckoned as a member of the Existential- ist school. Nevertheless, the two statements from his Nicho- machaean Ethics, quoted in Chapter One, pages 11 and 13, taken together, reflect a core meaning which is central to the thinking of the positive, or "Optimistic, " movement in existential philos Ophy. ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several pe0ple, within and outside the disciplines of educa- tional philosophy and philosoPhy, have been of inestimable assistance to me in putting this dissertation into its present form. To Dr. George Barnett, Chairman of my Guidance Committee, for his patient insistence on internal consistency and wholeness; to Dr. Harold Walsh, for pointing out the limi- tations of the undertaking and yet encouraging its continuation and completion; to Dr. John F. A. Taylor, for disciplining my somewhat compulsive literary style; to Dr. Wilbur Brookover, for stimulating my determination to assemble the hypothesis; to Dr. Walter F. Johnson, for asking questions after all the questions had been answered; to Professor Frank A. McBride, for his suggestion of the stress adaptation syndrome and re- search materials to demonstrate it, as well as, for the time, willingness and acuity he brought to our interminable discussions of the piece; to Mrs. Agatha Grobaski in printing the manuscript; and to my wife, Harriet, for living with the inconvenience and expense which doctoral studies, in the midst of a professional career, inevitably incur--to these helpful pe0ple, for their various contributions, I am sincerely grateful. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUC TION ......................................... l I. LEISURE IN A NEW LIGHT ............................ 4 Reasons for Concern about Leisure ................. 4 Current Notions about Adaptation to Stress ........... 5 Purpose and Content of the Present Study ............ 6 Ostensive Characterization ......................... 7 Classical Source .................................. 8 Action and the Self ................................ 8 Excellence and the Self. ........................... 9 The Good Man ................................... 10 Availability of the Good Life ....................... ll Motivation for the Good Life ....................... 13 Leisure .......................................... 14 Conditions and Terms for Leisure .................. 16 The Dynamics of Self-Fulfillment and Leisure ....... l6 Counterfeits ...................................... 20 Current Conceptions of Leisure Examined ........... 20 Components and Their Working Order in Leisure ..... 24 Working Model .................................... Z7 Toward a Theory of Valuing ........................ 28 II. SIGNIFICANT MATERIAL FROM MASLOW ............. 31 MasloW‘s Concept of Self .......................... 31 Sc0pe of Deficiency-Motivation--Less than Adequate Functioning .................... 32 Nature of Growth-Motivation--Full Functioning ...... 33 Maslow's Research Methods ....................... 34 III. THE CONTRIBUTION OF ROGERS ..................... 45 Unification of the Self for Action ................... 46 xi TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued CHAPTER PAGE IV. SOME EFFECTS OF STRESS ON ORGANISMIC FUNCTIONING: LEISURE AND LEARNING .............. 52 V. RESUME OF FOREGOING LINE OF THOUGHT. . . ........ 56 VI. SOME REFLECTIONS OF THE LEISURE HYPO THESIS ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION ...................................... 59 PhiIOSOphical Reflections .......................... 59 Man ............................................. 59 Knowing ......................................... 61 Valuing .......................................... 62 Some Social Conclusions which Emerge from the Leisure Hypothesis ......... 64 Socialization of the Self-Actualized ................. 68 VII. FURTHER QUESTIONS ............................... 69 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................... 72 INTRODUCTION For at least twenty-four centuries men have pondered the problem of leisure, and many considerations in the life and circumstances of man have been suggested and prescribed as means to leisure or ingredients of leisure. Early Greek philosophers thought leisure demanded a certain elevation to economic, social, political, intellectual and moral sufficiency. Theolo- gians have thought it required either loss of the self or achievement of a fuller selfhood through certification of a certain trans —human accord with a higher principle of the spiritual. Political ideologues have written with bitterness about pe0p1e who achieved wealth, power and social eminence and, in a kind of fury of oversimplification, identified these as a ”leisure class. " Moralists have condemned leisure as a prime occasion and cause of character deterioration. For the past several centuries, the notion has obtained that man simply needs time to "sort himself out" and to "be himself"; e. g. , if man could gain control over time and relax in it, he would be at leisure. Or again, it has been said man needs to "play'in the time when he is absent from his work, and his "free time" devoted to puttering about, fishing, playing golf or travelling will give him a sense of leisure. More recently, en- couraged by commercial and industrial interests eager "to sell leisure services and equipment, " the idea has gained hold that man may engage in certain recreational, social, cultural and Spiritual exercises and thereby achieve a state of leisure. 2 This recent emphasis on a combination of time and activities, however, has not brought man leisure in any way commensurate with the "rate of climb"at which he has become merely a fisherman, golfer, traveller, Spec- tator or, indeed, a participant in occasions for increasingly violent pursuits. This last is, in fact, a fertile field awaiting the investigation of someone interested in man's current reaction to the mounting stresses of his life in the Western world. This present study considers some of the prOposed means to leisure and ingredients of leisure. While many of these, such as, freedom, free time, autonomy, activity, pleasure, and so on, make what seem necessary contributions to leisure, they prove insufficient conditions for leisure. In this discussion, a quite different approach to leisure is offered, namely, from a condition obtaining in the human organism. This is regarded as so important to any hypothesis of leisure as to underlie and modify whatever else has to this time been offered as a condition. A theory is suggested to describe the manner in which the older ingredients and the organismic con— dition are interrelated to provide the conditions for leisure. ** The result appears as a cumulative organization of the physical, emotional and rational- intellectual human resources into a condition of organismic potency and activity in which leisure may be said to exist or to be always potential... >M‘It should be noted that throughout the following discussion wherever the term, condition, appears in plural form, i.e. , conditions, reference is being made to necessary conditions prerequisite to leisure and self-fulfillment (time, freedom, etc. ). Wherever the singular, condition, is used, it refers to the cumulative organization of the human resources by means of which leisure and self-fulfill- ment are thought to come into being. This makes possible an ostensive characterization of leisure and, in turn, suggests certain conclusions on human competence, interpersonal relations, knowing and valuing. CHAPTER ONE LEISURE IN A NEW LIGHT Reasons for Concern about Leisure During the past several decades leisure has presented itself, as never before in man's history, in the prOportions of a social -philosoPhical prob- lem, the solution of which has begun to appear crucial to the future well— being of Western man. Science and technology have suddenly begun to overcome ages -old difficulties in health and safety, in the production and distribution of goods andservices, in transportation, in the communication, storage and retrieval of knowledge. More and more, the tasks involved in these areas of productivity are being absorbed by machines and te chno- logical processes, and Western man is coming to be needed less and less as a participant in producing his own superabundance. Gradually, he is being freed from drudgery, _ and time once required to provide himself with the simple necessities of life is being made increasingly available for other purposes over which he may exercisethe prerogatives of decision. But as man has become ever more free to determine how he will use the increasing periods of time available to him, a feeling has developed that his new freedom may not prove an unmixed blessing. Still embedded in his personality, for instance, lie residual prohibitions and admonitions l of a centuries -old work ethic, which score idleness and commend industry. 1L. Fischer and D..R. Thomas, Social Foundations of Educational De- M(Belmont, Cal., 1965), p. 166, 4 Industrialization, urbanization and the growth of large new corporate struc- tures, which demand man's membership while they rob him of identity and individuality, are being blamed for diminishing the scope of his aspirations, 2. devitalizing his goals and inhibiting the integration of his personality. How will man retain his sense of power over life, his desire and will to achieve self-fulfillment; or how will he know any joy in the benefits which may come to him in a future that promises to be, if anything, even more structured by depersonalizing circumstances such as those alluded to above ? Current Notions about Adaptation to Stress These are questions related to the problem of human adaptation to life stresses and they, in turn, raise several questions which are prior and basic to the first, namely: by what means, external and internal, random or directed, does man make his most healthful adaptation to life stresses ? How may man be shored up against misgivings about himself which emerge in him when he is under too little stress, and against his pain when the stresses to which he is subjected are too great? At what point, or in what range, along a continuum representing measures of stress should man's adaptation be called leisure ? The answer to questions such as these has been a proliferation of books and essays suggesting that man may adapt to stress, and his life prosPects become meaningful again, if he makes prOper assessment and use of the uncommitted time which will increasingly attend his life. The majority of works suggesting this rationale depict leisure as free time or as certain 2W. 0. Stanley, Education and Social Integration (New York, N. Y. , 1953), pp. 4-9. 6 kinds of stimulating activities in which man may now engage. They imply that man may, in a random way and from without, inject meaning into a life growing meaningless; that essentially he needs only time and a number of engaging activities to occupy him and his life may again be made to seem worthwhile. Purpose and Content of the Present Study A part of the purpose of this study is to show that leisure conceived in such terms does not, in fact, lessen the stress of man's alienation from the old work ethic and its once-comforting distractions nor add to his sense ./ of self-fulfillment; that,l_p given more time and new activities, man is not necessarily more free or "at leisure; '> The study offers an ostensive characterization of leisure based on observations of the present writer and on research studies quoted by Maslow, Rogers and Ulrich, which takes account of natural dynamic forces internal to the nature of man. It will be shown that a cumulative organization and marshalling of these forces by the individual can be brought to emerge in him as a pleasurable condition of potency and feeling of competence by which he is enabled to exercise ongoing maximal control over his internal and external environments. The pleasurable competence not only pervades and enlightens his ”free time" and activities, but gives its proportioning and value-creating virtue to his work and play, his seeking and contemplating, his sorrow and joy, indeed, to every facet of his waking life. Basic to this approach are Aristotle's theories of the self and of the good life. Excerpts from these are restated and reenforced by core ideas now emerging from dynamic psychology and Q its theory of healthy human personality which provides a closer approxima- tion to a national concept of leisure. The final portion of the study offers to educational philOSOphy some conclusions which follow from this conceptual- ization of leisure. Ostensive Characte rization The present study attempts to show that leisure is a certain pleasurable condition, the effects of which are available to human beings and felt and enjoyed by some. Since this condition is oriented within and among the psychological, physical and intellectual components of the human organism, it is not possible, nor sufficient, to point to it, utter a linguistic symbol, as one might in the cases of woodpile, silo or elephant, for instance, and expect to establish its meaning unmistakably in the conceptual and evaluative framework of another. Here the matter of defining and pointing is necessar- ily somewhat more complicated. Since the condition, leisure, sometimes occurs to adults, however, and we may communicate with them, it is possible to consider the terms they use in responding to such a question as: how or what do you feel when you experience the feeling of leisure? In addition, we may observe the demeanor, deportment, values and attitudes of people who are, or say they are, at leisure and them compare these with the words they have used to describe their feelings. Eventually, out of a degree of consistency which develops, or fails to develOp, between what they say, how they act and what one may judge of how they feel when at leisure, one may outline an area of such consistencies and conclude that it generally encompasses the conditions and feelings of leisure, and all else does not. It is this cumulative -evaluative technique, called ostensive characterization, which is employed in the present study. Classical Source Growing concern with leisure in our time and, indeed, all suggestions offered to solve the problem of leisure are, seen from another quarter, simply further quests for the good life. It seems appropriate, then, to review first the thoughts of Aristotle who set its simple outline into bold perSpective. Action and the Self Aristotle believed that to be alive was to act. One may say that his Ethics and Politics are summaries of his investigations and conclusions of "the best possible Opportunities of living the good life, " which is always conceived by him in terms of the acts and actions of men. In his under- standing of the term, acting means not merely moving or making move— ments of a compulsive, unconsidered kind, nor as re —presenting actions suggested or dictated by others, as stage -acting is understood in our time. Acting is a responsible process in which man considers the ends and out- comes of whatever he undertakes, insofar as they may be ascertained, and then engages in only such carefully-considered acts as will lead to the immediate and long -term goods of the good life. Acting assumes in man the intelligence and moral wisdom to discriminate between good and bad ends, and the sense of balance to engage in right actions, "at the right time, on the right occasion, toward the right people, for the right motives 3 and in the right way. ” Excellence and the Self Aristotle believed that the excellence, i. e. , the ultimate purpose of anything, is the fulfillment of its prOper nature. Man fulfills his nature when, as a citizen, he takes part in an orderly society. Here man seeks a particular good, his vital well—being (eudaimonia), namely, "a good inner working principle of choice and avoidance, " as Wheelwright calls it, or more Specifically, the satisfaction enjoyed by a man in his full status as a living organism and member of society, as this is experienced by his active and reflective cons ciousness. How this is brought about Aristotle explains by a system of conclusions which emerge from his investigation of the human self. The self, he says, has a rational characteristic which he shares only with other men, an appetitive characteristic which relates him with animals, and a vegetative characteristic of which all living things partake. The rational faculty in man can control the appetitive, that is, his impulses, but not the vegetative tendency in the self. Thus, the virtue of reason, its excellence, is twofold: it has intellectual virtue if it deve10ps and uses its capacity to engage in reasoning for its own sake; and it achieves moral virtue if it develops and uses its capacity to control the otherwise irrational appetites. But the self achieves the excellence prOper to its nature only when right thinking and right action are the expressions of a confirmed diSposition, that is, a diSposition formed by an unbroken series of right 3 . . Aristotle, Nichomachaean Ethics (Baltimore, Md.,l962), p. 65.. lO actions . The Good Man This being so, how do we become good men? Moral virtue can be des- troyed by either excesses or deficiencies of thought or action, but can be preserved by observing the mean. [The self may know that it possesses a virtue if it feels pleasure in acting in accord with that virtue. There are many virtues, but the one sought is one which both makes man good and enables him to perform his proper function well] Thus the virtuous dis - J position we seek is the one which consistently guides man to avoid extremes and to choose the mean in his feelings and actions. This mean is one such as would be chosen through the use of reason by a man of prudence and sound character and which takes cognizance of the chooser as well as of all persons and events affected by the chooser's thought and action. It is in the interest of the good life, of the vital well-being of man, that moral virtue be promoted, and this vital well —being, this ultimate good, must be described as a state which is self-sufficient, which requires nothing further to make it complete. Here pleasure alone fails, for though it is necessary to vital well-being, it is no more than a passive, felt experience; and moral virtue alone, though an active and necessary condi- tion of the good life, fails, since the virtuous man may, in other reSpe cts, be a thoroughly unhappy person. i‘What is intended here is not merely a pleasurable sensation, but the condi— tion of mastery, accompanied by its own particular feeling of pleasure. l7 environments, relations and circumstances, suggest that leisure is not a constant condition, and that the feeling content of leisure varies up and down a scale of intensities with the manner in which man, in dealing with / his environments and circumstances, makes demands on and uses his / mental, emotional and physical resources and, in turn, allows them to recover and to be restored. AS both subject and object, the healthy in- dividual is himself a part of his organization of values, beliefs and con- trols. Respect for himself and for his capacities and capabilities and awareness of his limitations are active adjuncts to his autonomic system (Cannon: homeostasis), and this reSpect and awareness comprise the dynamic rational activity of the scanning system which regulates his inner accord and his not-self relations. This realistic self-assessment enables him to determine how and to what extent he will give himself to any of the myriad causes making demands on him, and from which of these and when he will disengage himself. Though he, too, is subject to strain and wear and to the fatigues which follow on these, he remains in control of himself and is therefore readily able to re cover to a healthy level of organismic balance. Thus, the conditions for leisure and its pleasurable feeling content are also more readily available to him, since they are normally controlled by him, and not by the "causes" and their demands. The central principle of the healthy person's life is growth toward his ultimate potentialities. * Awareness of this "call" within him pervades >’n‘This view is held by H. S. Sullivan, G. Allport, Fromm, Rogers, Maslow, and others. 18 his other awarenesses. Whatever he undertakes is illumined by the in- fluence of this prepossessing sense of urgency and, in consequence, his values , his judgements and his choices are all effectors of growth. His faculty of rational self-assessment assures this. He is not overwhelmed by his suc- cesses, though he enjoys them. He is not destroyed by his failures, though he may regret them. The learnings emerging from these are Simply incor- porated in the growing competence of his organism, and thus he is always becoming. He is at all times free to be, but at the same time always attuned to becoming. This is the internal dynamics of self-fulfillment. This oscillatory movement, and hovering, between such experiences of engagement and disengagement--not in the static sense expressed by the contemporary word "plateau-ing, " but in the active, dynamic sense of such a phrase as, eine schwebende Immanez--is the core phenomenon of the pleasurable feeling content of leisure. It provides whatever man may be, do or bear with the flavor of expectancy. What he will be, do, or bear is, in the main, not controlled by the chance concatenation of circumstances or by the demands made on him by causes outside himself, but by the Synergistic action of his autonomic System with his rational assessing of his capacities and limitations which, because it is rational, will guide him to choose good ends and the right means to attain them. The condition of leisure, then, may obtain in the human, whether he is at work or play, abroad or at home, accompanied by others or alone, seeking or contemplating, estimating or using, in the hubbub of our days or in silence. The tensions of pain occasioned by personal exigencies may l9 dim or even suspend the feeling content of leisure in him temporarily, but, short of destroying him, they cannot destroy in him the condition which will, soon again, restore to him the pleasurable consciousness of being at leisure. What is suggested here is that the condition called leisure is one which, so far as we now know, is available only to the total perceptual apparatus of the human organism, * and that the term leisure should be used only when the organism is in such a condition of internal and external control that the feeling content of leisure is either present or potential in the organism, i. e. , when the rational perception of himself and his purposes cooperates with his autonomic system and provides him with ongoing maxi- mal control over hirrs elf and his relations with his human and physical environments. Thus we may say that leisure is the full realization of that pleasurable condition and feeling of competence which is perceived by the human organism when his rational faculty is joined to his autonomic scanning system to pro- vide him with ongoing maximal control over his human and physical environ— ments. It is, perhaps, necessary to note here that organismic "perfection" is not the crucial consideration of the hypothesis; the achievement of or- ganismic accord and control is. In order to pursue any discussion at all about persons achieving leisure and self-fulfillment, however, intellectual, emotional and physical resources sufficient to support such human functions *Physical, emotional and intellectual. 2.0 as assessment, self-assessment, deliberation, judgement, decision, action, etc. , must be assumed. When Aristotle excepts from the hOpe of achieving excellence those who "suffer from some disability or incapacity, " he is patently referring to peOple who fall Short of possessing such minimums of human resources. Counte rfeits Beside leisure, there are intermittent, fleeting perceptions akin to it, called relief, relaxation, surcease, etc. These are also perceived by the person in whom the conditions for leisure exist. But in the person lacking these conditions, that is, lacking the organismic self-perception and self- control to give the above -mentioned perceptions depth and enduring resi- dence, they may count as no more than deceptive, transitory shadows of leisure. Current Conceptions of Leisure Examined In light of this characterization of the conditions under which leisure and the feeling content of leisure may exist, current notions about leisure may be examined. Typical among these is a definition offered by Brightbill, who writes: "Leisure, then is a block of unoccupied time, Spare time, free 8 time, when we can rest or do as we choose. " In his terms, leisure is time not occupied or preempted by occupations over which man may not exercise the prerogatives of choice, i. e. , time not devoted to eating, sleeping, or otherwise caring for bodily needs, and time not spent in work— ing for subsistence. Time Spent in these occupations is under the bond and 8Charles Brightbill, The Challenge of Leisure (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1960), p. 4. 2.1 demand of necessity. Given blocks of time not so occupied, man has leisure. ‘But if leisure is conceived in this way, it Should follow that any concern expressed over man and his increasing amounts of unoccupied, unencumbered time is misplaced. The more of such free time man may achieve and the more cogently he uses it in resting or doing what he chooses, the more leisure he should have. And if he succeeds in wresting all of his time from the toils of necessity, he will be able to live in a condition of total leisure. Our times are eloquent of the growing likelihood, however, that such a View of leisure is not tenable or useful, and that conclusions drawn from or based on it are not warrantable. To imply, for instance, that "occupied" time is not restorative of man's life and powers, is neutral or even des- tructive of his powers, e. g. , that during his "occupied" time man may not achieve a sense of life fulfillment, is to leave out of account untold numbers of peOple who live for and thrive during their "occupied" time and tend to deteriorate physically, mentally and emotionally when not engaged in or with it. Obversely, if "unoccupied" time is leisure, there is pre- sumably little hope also for the many who are unable to disengage them— selves from their involvements with "occupied" time, and who carry its concerns with them wherever they go, even on their "vacations" and to their graves. The alternatives, "free to rest or do what we choose, " are also not helpful, Since a great many peOple find no leisure in resting, and fully as many more become distraught when confronted by the necessity to choose 22 what they Should do with their spare time. For many, comments Robert MacIver, leisure becomes "the great emptiness" they are unprepared to 9 use. And C. Wright Mills remarks: H. . . . for hollow people their leisure diverts them from the restless grind of their work by the ab- 10 sorbing grind of passive enjoyment of glamour and thrills. " Time, then, though a necessary element in the consideration of leisure, is insufficient in itself to create the conditions under which the feeling content of leisure may exist or be perceived. Another of the pOpular conceptions of leisure views it in terms of certain kinds of activities. In fact, the previous concept and this one do not differ so much in essence, as they differ in giving emphasis either to time or to activities. Typical of this view of leisure is the definition of Joffre Duma-a zedier quoted by Anderson in his book Work and Leisure: "Leisure is activity to which the individual may freely devote himself outside of the needs and obligations of his occupation, his family and society, II for his relaxation, diversion and personal deve10pment. " He seems to say: when the individual is not under obligation to serve his occu— pation, family or society, he enjoys freedom of choice to engage in other activities. These constitute for him or bring him the sense of leisure. C)Nels Anderson, Work and Leisure (Glencoe, N. Y. , 1961), p. 59. 10 Ibid, p. 92. 11 Ibid, p. 26. 23 That leisure may manifest itself in activity, that is, as a part of being alive, both Aristotle and our contemporary thinkers would readily agree. But one may doubt that they would include in the concept random, compulsive, ill-considered activities, or necessarily exclude from the concept all activity engaged in because of need or obligation, nor would they necessarily exclude occupation, family and society from the arena in which leisure may be enjoyed. The statement of Dumazedier would be admissible in cases in which the organismic state of the individual is such as to provide the condi- tions under which the feeling content of leisure appears or is potential. But the state of being free from one category of activities in order to engage in others does not, in itself, insure these conditions. Nor does one kind of activities, as distinguished from another, necessarily create the conditions for leisure. The suggestion that an individual may not or does not experience leisure while serving the needs of his occupation, family or society is a singular one eSpecially in light of what social psychologists since George Herbert Mead have determined of the essen-a tially social foundations of man's growth and deve10pment. Dumazedier obliquely approaches the question of freedom in imply_ ing that "the individual may freely devote hims elf" to leisure -producing activities once he is disencumbered of the needs and obligations of his occupation, family and society. This would appear to imply, in turn, that occupational, familial and social obligations are the only, or the significant, kinds of stress which prevent man from being or feeling free. 2.4 That there are others perhaps even. more confining and more destruc- tive of all sense of mental, physical and emotional comfort and plea- sure is reported by Robert W. White: "Chronic personal problems throw the person into frequent states of emotional tension, and this means that the bodily reactions that accompany emotion are severely overworked. Eventually, some organ system, unequal to perpetual stress, breaks down into a state of disease. Physical treatment may produce recovery, but relapse is to be expected unless the psycho- 12 logical irritants, so to speak, can be removed. " He goes on to list a number of physical disorders, discovered by Alexander and his co-workers in Chicago as early as 1934, which are simply psycho- genic in origin. Components and Their Working Order in Leisure In the course of this study a number of concepts have appeared which have bearing on the end -purpose toward which the study has been directed, namely, to know the nature of leisure and in what cir- cumstances it may occur or be available to man. Considered were such concepts as: power over life (autonomy, authority), freedom, time, activity, pleasure. Each of these in its peculiar way is an essential part of self-fulfillment and of leisure, but, as was seen in the cases of time and activity, and as a brief consideration of the others would Show, none is individually sufficient to create or comprise 12 R. W. White, The Abnormal Personality (New York, N. Y. , 1956), ppé 49-50. 2.5 the conditions essential to self—fulfillment or leisur . All together are important to complete the meanings of the concepts of selfnfulfillw ment and leisure and, lacking any of these individual components, self-fulfillment and leisure are incomplete, i. e. , foreshortened by whatever essential quality that part contributes. Furthermore, if in some sequence of composition these components fail to create the conditions under which leisure may occur in man, then self-fulfillment is lacking a crucial quality, for self-fulfillment is conceivable only in the illumination of those conditions under which leisure becomes possible. What this suggests is that the afore -mentioned components, by their content and functions, arrange themselves in a certain working order in making their contributions to the concepts of self=fulfillment and leisure; and indeed, the process by which self-fulfillment and leisure come into being seems to flow outward from selfaassessment to autonomy to freedom to time to activity to pleasure. It appears that the autonomic system, teamed with the rational faculty of selfmassessment, in establishing for any given time both the capacities and limitations of the mental, emotional and physical resources of the organism, and empowered by the life principle of growth toward ultimate potentialities, provide the conditions in which self-control and self—command become possible; and these together supply the conditions in which authority over self and human and. physical environments, i. e. , autonomy, may be said to exist. It 26 is by reason of his autonomy that the individual is, in normal circum— stances, capable of exercising control over his life choices, is free to decide what he will be, do and bear. This does not supply him with time, of course, but it enables him to exercise control over time, so to Speak, to evaluate, distribute and apply time in terms of what he chooses to be, do and bear. By this means, he may also direct and control his activities, that is, evaluate them and select and use those which serve to actualize his potentialities. In this way, he may arrive at pleasures, and these will always be expressions of his joy in being and becoming. With respect to his activities, one which is of cardinal magnitude and constant application, of course, is the cluster included under the terms inquiry or search for knowledge, by means of which he may extend the graSp of his intellectual faculty to the furthest reaches of what may be known, to an understanding of the means by which the fund of his knowledge may be expanded and enriched, and to an expansion of the old and discovery of new ways in which his knowledge may be ' applied. Another kind, in its Sphere of similar Significance, is the range of activities by means of which he may exercise and maintain his body and its powers to be equal always to the foreseeable demands he will make on them. At this time of writing, no regimen of activities paralleling those used to increase intellectual capacity and to build physical health has 27 been suggested to strengthen and maintain the emotional faculty. It appears, rather, that developing a rational sense of balance between such things as demand, commitment and time for recovery, e. g. , the approach noted above, pages 16-18, is the best means by which man may preserve his emotional resources in a condition of healthy resil- ience. Working Model It could be inferred that the human entity, the dynamics of whose self-fulfillment and leisure has been described in the foregoing para- graphs, is the epitome of selfishness, self-seeking and of all that is held least admirable in human character. Many phiIOSOphe rs and men in the religious tradition who have pondered and sought for the highest good for man in man have ended their search with the conclusion that this greatest of values is love of others and self-giving. The findings of this study are in agreement with that ultimate con— clusion. For, man cannot love or give himself meaningfully to anyone or anything until he has succeeded in assessing, knowing, valuing, possessing and commanding himself. If man is to assess himself, he must have and use the faculty of rational self-assessment. If he can assess himself, then he can know himself. If he knows himself, he can value himself. If he values himself, he will possess himself or, in Kierkegaard's words, "choose himself." If he possesses himself, he may command and give himself, that is, join himself, his concern, competence and substance to others and give them aid and comfort and 28 encouragement. This is neither self-denial nor self-sacrifice, but rather restatement of himself, of his own worth and of the worth of others. Anything less is a counterfeit giving, a giving by fearful half— measures which diminishes him even in his own estimation, or a des - perate giving, that is, the "giving" of one who in despair throws himself away. It is under the influence of the reflective rational process that love steps up above the starveling level of instinctoid self-preservation and whimsy, reaches inward to encompass the loving person himself realistically and, having worked its empowering virtue in himself, lets him give himself wholly to others, both people and causes. It is this which, as will be seen in the following review of salient points of Maslow's work, he calls growth-movtivated being. Toward a Theory of Valuing If man cannot assess and value himself, it becomes a matter of question how he will assess and how well he may value anyone or anything else. If he lacks these competences to build in himself a base for the valuing operation, to create and confirm a dynamic ori- entation and method in and for himself and the Significance of his person and place in the world, e. g. , a knowledge of himself and how he relates to and interacts with his self and self-other circumstances, it seems likely that he will be obliged to adopt the valuings of others. This, then, will represent a kind of emotional Opting, performed not from a base of rational measuring and control within himself, and 29 with only the emotional portion of his organismic resources operative. He will, in that case, have no way of knowing whether or not these adopted valuings are other than empty symbols or that the criteria by which they were established are anything more than nominal agree- ments. In any case, he will be without values fully his own, and he will maintain in their stead a random machinery for making emotional preferences, either to fend off the threat of real or imagined dis com- fort or to indulge the whimsical pleasure -yearnings of the passing moment. This is what Maslow refers to as deficiency-motivation, and it is this common tendency in irrational men against which Plato and Aristotle inveigh. Valuing, in the sense in which the word is used here, like loving and self-giving, requires the base of a dynamic organismic sense of conviction and commitment. It is not possible to commit oneself even tentatively to anything or anyone, however sincere one's intentions, unless one first possesses and commands oneself. The conviction of sincereity in one's commitment to ethical or esthetic values must em- anate from what one know oneself to be, knows oneself able to do, and able and willing to bear. Any lack of conviction at this base —level of self-knowledge and self-possession is a crucial deficiency. Man, no doubt, is in great part, as Mead pointed out, the product of his agreeable and disagreeable experiences with his human and physical environments. But unless he is capable of adding to these impressions the quantities and qualities which emerge in his self-self 3O relations and from his self—other interactions, e. g. , unless his residual attitudes, beliefs and values are seen as selective and modifying, man is never more than the creature of his society, living at second-hand. CHAPTER TWO SIGNIFICANT MATERIAL FROM MASLOW The foregoing chapter presented an ostensive characterization of leisure and of self-fulfillment. It becomes necessary now to identify that to which one may point and say: These are the reactions to life situations of people who have, ultimately or ever and again, emerged beyond the realm of a fearful, embattled, traumatic or me rely plodding kind of survival in life and who have lived, or are living, "at leisure" or in the condition previously referred to as self-actualization. Mas - low and his associates made the significant contributions to, and in- creased the hope of being able to improve, such pointing and eventual defining of the phenomena to which one may point. It is his concept of the human self which is most immediately germane to the leisure hy— pothesis presented in the first chapter of this study. Maslow's Concept of Self Maslow regards the human self as a continuum and repudiates the medieval theological position that a dichotomy necessarily exists be - tween "high" and "low" elements in the nature of man. Instead of "good" and "bad" components in a constant state of warfare for supremacy over man's self, he postulates, as will be Shown, areas of greater and lesser competence along a self continuum, which are demonstrated by the 31 32 manner in which man meets, assimilates and accommodates to the experiences of life. ScoLe of Deficiency -Motivation--Less than Adequate Functioning Following Aristotle and an aggregation of notable representatives of older schools of psychology and of the newer dynamic school (Jung, Angyal, C. Buhler, Fromm, Sullivan, Rogers, Allport, Gold- stein, Johoda, Schachtel, Lynd, and others), Maslow accepts the notion of a drive toward fulfillment of his potentialities as being con- genital in man. He chooses to call this drive "motivation, " indicates that by it he means a "felt desire, want, yearning, wish or lack, " reports that as yet no acceptable definition of this concept has been offered, but that it may be indicated phenomenologically. This drive acts in man to bring about the satisfaction of his needs for safety, belonging, identification, love, respect and self-respect, and these _ he ‘calls "the basic emotional needs. " Underlying this formulation are the reports of two kinds of research: one, which demonstrates that the psychologically ill re cover when deficiencies in terms of needs so conceived are satisfied; and two, which demonstrates that psychologically well -balanced pe0ple Show no evidence of deprivation in the satisfaction of such needs. 13 This configuration of needs and the motivating action to meet them Maslow regards as the multi-dimens ional and multi-directional area 13 A. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (New York, N. Y. , 1962), pp. 19-20. 33 of lesser or minimal competence. "Deficiency -moti.vation, " as he calls it, reduces hurtful tensions in the human self, supports the self at a kind of subsistence -level of existence and avoids ill- 14 ness, but does not create the conditions for positive mental health. Nature of Growth -Motivation--Full Functioning Psychological health, or full functioning, or self—actualization, has not been explored or described by anything like the wealth of research data accumulated to describe psychological illness, and Maslow believes that definition of the former concept must be de- layed until it may emerge easily and naturally from well -known facts. Nevertheless, he suggests and uses the term, "growth— motivation, " to represent the central concept around which an hypothesis of psychological health may be constructed, and adds: "Its meaning can be indicated rather than defined, partly by point- 15 ing, partly by negative contrast, i. e. , by what is not. " Growth -motivation is an extension of the drive in man out be- yond the meeting of subsistence -level needs, which describes and exemplifies what Karl Buhler, who during the 1920's first noted its phenomena in the activities of healthy children, called Funktionslust. This German composite translates rather inadequately into "functioning -eagerness-joy. " Phenomena such as those to which Buhler referred have since been observed by Maslow and his asso- 14 M. Jahoda, Current Concepts of Positive Mental Health (New York, N. Y., 1958). p. 34. 15 Maslow, op. cit., p.22. 34 ciates in studies conducted with psychologically well -balanced or healthy adults. He calls these phenomena "peak experiences" and describes themas brief, intermittent, but recurring periods of a kind of transcendence in people who "have sufficiently gratified their basic survival needs, and are motivated primarily by trends to self-actualization (defined as ongoing actualization of potentiali- ties, capacities, talents; as a fuller knowledge and acceptance of the person's own intrinsic nature; as an increasing trend toward l6 unity, integration and synergy within the person) ." Maslow ' S Resear ch Methods In treating of self-actualization and the self-actualizing, Mas - low is dealing with individuals who have transcended what is usual in terms of human growth and the deve10pment of human competences by means of a rational organization of their existential, i. e. , indivi- dual, human resources. Thus it is apparent that only some of the attributes of these people, and only some of the time, could be mea— sured by usual statistical means or examined by scientific methods. There follows here a brief description of what methods and procedures were available to him, both outside and within the realm of statistical means, to arrive at a hypothesis concerning the self-actualized. He and his associates began by looking for healthy individuals who, by criteria used throughout the provinces of psychology and psychiatry, showed an absence of neurosis, psychosis, psychOpathic personality 16 Ibid. ,p. 23. 35 or evident tendencies in these directions. On the positive side, he was seeking healthy pe0ple who appeared to be making full use of their talents, capacities, potentialities, who were fulfilling them- selves or, to use Allport's term, were directing themselves toward "becoming. " In addition, he sought evidence that these subjects had gratified, or were gratifying, their basic emotional needs for safety, belonging, love, respect, self-respect and their cognitive needs for knowledge and understanding. In the process of his search, several thousand college students and adult private citizens were screened, and the biographical literature of this and other countries combed, to find candidates who were suitable to be studied under dire ct and indirect observation or whose life stories could be examined for evidence of the characteristics of self-actualization. To produce what may be called the model of these character- istics, Maslow employed the technique called iteration. By this means a tentative example of a self-actualizing person was con- structed and the characteristics, attributes and ways of acting repeatedly analyzed and reconstructed until logical and factual inconsistencies had been eliminated. With this model, then, two groups of subjects were selected, a group representing an optimum number of the self-actualizing characteristics in high degree, and a group representing few or none of the characteristics. These were given thorough clinical study and the model was corrected to meet the requirements of gradually accumulating data. The original 36 group of subjects was then reselected, some members dropped, some retained, some new members added. This second-level group was then clinically and where practicable, experimentally and statistically studied and the model again corrected. On the basis of each new model (representing an always -improved level of refinement and sophistication), a new group of subjects was selected, and so on. In the self—actualizing subjects, as will be noted below, Maslow found both idiosyncratic and Species -wide characteristics and potentialities. Underlying Maslow's penetration into this area of study are his own more than three decades as a psychotherapist, researcher and student of human personality development, and a copious bibliography representing an already thorough inter- and intra—disciplinary search and comparison. His findings on the life reactions of self-actualizing pe0ple follow here. 1. Self-actualizing pe0ple showed a more efficient perception of their human and physical environments and more comfortable relations with them. They were better able to distinguish between the Spurious and the genuine in art, peOple, music, things of the intellect, scientific matters, politics and public affairs. They were more apt to perceive "what was there, " rather than their own wishes, hOpes or fears about what was there. They were not apprehensive about the unknown, but more often attracted by it. They Showed interest in the ambiguous and unstructured. Doubt, uncertainty and the necessity of holding decisions 17 in abeyance were to most of them pleasantly stimulating challenges. 17A. Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York, N. Y. ,1954), pp. 203-4. 37 2. The self-actualizing seemed singularly, though not entirely, lacking in guilt or shame or anxiety. They could accept themselves, others and nature without chagrin or complaint, in fact, without dwelling on them. They were not self-satisfied, but took the frailties and sins of human nature with much the same equanimity as they accepted the phen- omenal characteristics of nature, indeed, even illness and death. This appears an outcome of the genuineness and simplicity in which they perceived and related to their environments. They tended to be lusty, hearty, direct, devoid of posturing or defensiveness, and to share in a distaste for artificiality in others. They seemed to live, experience and enjoy life for its own sake. But also they shared broadly the feeling of a kind of sadness, of regret about their own improvable shortcomings and the shortcomings of the group or culture with which they were 18 identified. 3. Self-actualizing people showed a distinctive Spontaneity in their overt behavior and in their inner life, thoughts, impulses, etc. Their deport- ment tended to be simple and natural. The processes and products of their thinking showed a lack of forcedness or artificiality or strain. They were not either markedly conventional or unconventional, and neither tendency hampered them in doing what they believed to be basic and important. They could be observed to discard all manner of conven- tional rules, to which they ordinarily conformed, when in the presence of 18 Ibid., pp. 206-208. 38 or absorbed by matters near to their central concerns. They appeared conventional, when they did so, "voluntarily or by design. " They had codes of ethics which were relatively autonomous and individual, rather than conventional. They were among the most ethical of people, yet they seemed to feel neither guilt nor shame when they gave way to expressions of unconventional behavior. They seemed to know fully who and what they were, what they wanted and what their opinions were. It was such observations which led to the discovery of a profound qualitative and quantitative difference between the motivational life of self—actual- izing and of other people. They seemed not to strive in the ordinary, often external sense, but were moved to seek to grow toward perfec- tion within themselves, in their own styles, eXploring and expanding 19 their competences, their understanding, their feelings. 4. Self-actualizing pe0ple tended to be problem-centered, rather than ego—centered, giving the impression that they were not problems to themselves and ordinarily not much concerned about themselves. They seemed commonly to have some mission in life, some task to perform, something outside themselves which called to them and aroused their sense of obligation or responsibility. Most often these were missions ethical or phiIOSOphical in nature, concerned with the basic issues and the so-called eternal questions of life. There was about them generally, therefore, also a lack of "smallness of soul, " 19 Ibid., pp. 208—211. 39 pettiness, triviality. They exhibited a kind of serenity and sense of almost imperturbable certainty which shed its settling, gentling influ- 20 ence on their social and interpersonal relations. 5. There was in the self-actualizing subjects of Maslow's research a quality of detachment. They were not solitary or sequestered peOple, but they could disengage themselves from others and give themselves to solitude without discomfort or negative effects. Average peOple feel a "deficiency need" to be shored up, reassured and comforted by others, and the intermittent withdrawals of the self—actualizing were regarded among these as a puzzling quirk, puzzling, because most often accompanied by serenity, aloofness, a kind of strength and resilience of spirit. The self-actualizing remained calm in the face of adversities, retained their dignity in the midst of imposed indig- nities, remained objective and curiously analytical when their wishes, hopes or asPirations were dashed. They seemed to exercise, or to be under the influence of, an inner control, a greater vision, which 21 made inconsequential even their personal misfortunes. 6. Since their deficiency needs are satisfied and they are under the influence of growth motivation, self-actualizing peOple tended not to depend for their fulfillment on the usual extrinsic satisfactions of the "real world, " on other pe0ple, on means -to-immediate -ends processes, on culture, etc. , but found fulfillment rather in their 20Ibid., pp. 211-212. Ibid., pp 212-213. 4O own personal deve10pment, continued growth and the extension Of their latent potentialities and resources. For them, the determin— ants Of satisfaction and of the good life were inner-individual, rather than primarily social-contextual. They had the strength to do with- out the good Opinion, status, honors or rewards others might provide. Maslow says that the background Of such peOple invariably gave evidence that from infancy they had been given a sufficiency of love and respect by parents, families and Significant others, and that this tends to enhance the individual's sense of autonomy and self- 22 confidence. Other characteristics Maslow and his associates found among their healthy subjects were: an unchanging freshness Of apprecia- tion and wonder over the simple goods Of life; a richness of emo— tional -experiential reactions; a high frequency of the mystical peak experiences; heightened or increased sense of identification and empathy with humankind and changing, e. g. , constantly improving, interpersonal relations; a heightened sense Of respect for any human, for instance, a tendency not to degrade even scoundrels unnecessarily, and democratic character structure; philOSOphical, non-punitive sense of humor; creativeness to an extraordinary degree; and cer- tain differences from the usual in their value systems. Examination of at least two of these characteristics, namely, their peak exper- 22 Ibid., pp. 213-214. 41 iences and their values, seems necessary here to round out the 23 "pointing" phenomena of Maslow. 7. Perhaps by reason Of the largely unobstructed clarity with which they dare to view and appreciate life within and about them, the self-actualizing tended to report experiencing visions of seem- ingly limitless grandeur Opening to them, and Of feeling simultan- eously more powerful and yet more helpless than ever before; of emotions Of great ecstasy, wonder and awe; of timelessness and expanding spatiality; and of a conviction that something of ineffable value and importance had happened to them, which did not entirely vanish with the passing Of the peak experience, but in part remained to enlighten, strengthen and transform their relations with daily life. Apparently, because James had written of such transcendent experiences in his The Varieties of Religious Experience, Maslow hastens to explain that "none of our subjects Spontaneously made any such (religious) tie -ups, " and he concludes that this mystical experience is simply an extreme intensification Of any experiences in which there is loss or transcendence Of the merely adequate, 24 subsistence -level self. To the suggestion that these mystical experiences may occur and be available only to a few select peOple in any human group, 23 Ibid., pp. 214-228. 24 Ibid., p. 216. 42 Maslow replies: ""We may also learn from our subjects that such ex- periences can occur in a lesser degree of intensity. The theological literature has generally assumed an absolute, qualitative difference between the mystic experience and all others. AS soon as it is divorced from supernatural reference and studied as a natural phenomenon, it becomes possible to place the mystic experience on a quantitative continuum from intense to mild. We discover then that the mild mystic experience occurs to many, perhaps even most individuals, 25 and that in favored individuals it occurs many times a day. " 8. With respect to the values of the self-actualizing, Maslow writes as follows: "The principles and the values of the desperate man and Of the pSychOlogically healthy man must be different in at least some ways. They have profoundly different perceptions (interpretations) Of the physical world, the social world and the private psychological world, whose organization'is in part the responsibility of the per- son's value system. For the basically deprived man the world is a dangerous place, a jungle, an enemy territory pOpulated by (1) those whom he can dominate and (2) those who can dominate him. His value system is of necessity like that of any jungle denizen, domin:-.. ated and organized by eSpecially the creature needs and safety needs. The basically satisfied (basic-needs -satisfied) person is in a different case. He can afford out of his abundance to take these needs and their satisfactions for granted and can devote himself to 2 5Ibid., pp. 216-217. 43 higher gratifications. This is to say that their value systems are different, in fact must be different. "The topmost portion of the value system of the self-actualized person is entirely unique and idiosyncratic-character-structure- expressive. This must be true by definition, for self-actualiza- tion is actualization of the self, and no two selves are altogether alike. There is only one Renoir, one Brahms, one Spinoza. Our subjects had very much in common, as we have seen, and yet at the same time were more completely individualized, more un- mistakably themselves, less easily confounded with others than any average control group could possibly be. That is to say, they are simultaneously very much alike and very much unlike each other. They are more completely individual than any group that has ever been described, and yet also more completely socialized, 26 more identified with humanity than any other group yet described. " From these considerations of the points of Similarity and dif- ference in the self-actualizing people, Maslow proceeds to a singu- lar theoretical conclusion, namely, that in them, many of the Old value dichotomies tend to disappear. They continue as antitheses for the deprived and unhealthy, but for the psychologically healthy they merge and coalesce with each other and form unities. For example, the Old Opposites, heart and head, reason and instinct, cognition and conation, in the healthy person become synergic, 26 Ibid., pp. 230-232. 44 rather than remain antagonistic. In one who values and uses all of his nature and regards no part as "lower" or "higher, " the processes and products of what were formerly thought to be antagonistic forces in him begin to say the same things and point to the same conclusions. Selfishness and unselfishness tend to disappear, for every act can be seen unabashedly as both, selfish and unselfish. The self- actualizing, Maslow reports, are both "Spiritual" and "pagan, " i. e. , sensual. Duty and pleasure, work and play coalesce in the same acts: the person doing his duty and being virtuous at the same time is finding pleasure and experiencing happiness. So also with the social and individual, the mature and childlike, the ethical and lusty-natural, the kind and ruthless, the self and society, the serious and humorous, the conventional and unconventional, and so on. E. g. , the intellectual, emotional and physical are under the same central inner control; deficiency and growth motivation are continually on the same holistic continuum. These "parts" Of man's nature which were once believed to be at war with each other, in the self—actual.- izing work together in light Of the same values toward the same uni- 27 fied and unifying goals. 27 Ibid., pp. 232 -234. CHAPTER THREE THE CONTRIBUTION OF ROGERS Chapter One hypothesizes that in order to provide the conditions for leisure and self-fulfillment the conscious rational competence "teams" with the subconscious autonomic scanning system to maxi- mize for the individual the clarity with which to see and understand and the candor and strength with which to determine what he will be, do and bear. It was seen also that, whereas this would seem to produce a human individual who is a contradiction of the loving, self-giving epitome Of the world-cultural ideal, it is really only a person thus prepared who can truly love and wholeheartedly give himself to others, either peOple or causes. And this was seen to be true, because this individual is not controlled from without, not carried to and fro by "every wind of doctrine" nor called by any and every cause, but rather because the full range Of his physical, mental and emotional resources is available to him to mobilize his feelings and direct his actions, as Aristotle has sug~ gested, "at the right times, on the right occasions, toward the right peOple, for the right motives, in the right way and in the right measure. " This, then, is what it means to be alive, to act, to be a fully -functioning human being. 45 46 Unification Of the Self for Action In a series of addresses which preceeded the publication of his book, On Becoming a Person, Carl Rogers described what he be— lieves to be the process by which this "teaming" of the rational with the physical and emotional faculties of the human organism takes place. As was indicated above, Rogers is prominent among posta Freudian, dynamic psychologists who accept as basic, that the human individual wittingly and unwittingly pursues a life -long pur- pose toward fulfillment of his potentialities, toward becoming himself. Beside seeing this growth-outward phenomenon constantly re- enacted by clients moving from emotional disorientation and dis- organization to emotional control and satisfaction, Rogers reports that his strongest cue for maintaining this position has been Kierkegaard's pre -Freudian views on what constitutes the epitome Of human deSpair and the epitome of human hOpe and confidence. In Rogers' re -phrasing Of Kierkegaard's statements: "The common despair is to be in despair at not choosing, or willing, to be one- self, and the deepest form of despair is to choose 'to be another than himself'. On the other hand, 'tO will to be that self which one truly is, is indeed the Opposite of deSpair'; this choice is the 28 very epitome Of confidence and the deepest reSponsibility of man. " In psychotherapeutic situations, excerpts from which are 28 Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Oberlin, Ohio, 1.954), p. 11 47 liberally scattered through Rogers" report, it was the creation of an atmOSphere Of uncritical acceptance of the disoriented adult and whatever he might choose to do, be or say, which pers mitted that person to confront and examine the "layers" Of accumulated counterfeit material or masks, as Rogers calls them in which, by externally and then internally—imposed stresses, the individual had become enwrapped and obscured. 3" It is by reason of such social, interpersonal and eventually internalized personal impositions that the individual came to choose and to be someone other than himself and came to deSpair of himself. And it was by daring to choose himself, as disoriented and ill, and to divest himself Of these counterfeits which he had become, that the individual could gradually know who he was in reality, assume reSponsibility for and autonomy over that "who", and gradually gain control over his life and move toward the pleasur- able prospect Of becoming. Focal in this process, according to Rogers, were four recognizable sets of conditions which emerged in the regeneration Of the client: 1. He gradually became more Open to his experience, i. e. , to the experience of himself and of his social and physical environs. *If one onsiders the terms Rogers uses in describing the state of mind of the competent psychotherapist in confronting his patient, it fits rather specifically into the diagram, Chap. One, p. 15, and might easily be termed one Of "interest-Openness. " E. G. one might easily conclude that this is the condition in human organisms in which the most productive interpersonal relations and commun~ ication may take place. 48 AS Rogers explains, this is the Opposite of defensiveness. Psycho- logical research has shown the way in which sensory evidence, if it runs counter to the pattern of the organization of the self, tends to be distorted in awareness, e. g. , we cannot see all that our senses report, but only the things that fit the preconceived and fixed picture we have. In the safety Of the therapeutic situation, defensiveness and rigidity tend to be replaced by an increasing openness to exper- ience, whatever it may be. The individual becomes more aware Of his feelings and attitudes at an organic, rather than merely cognitive, 29 level. He also grows more aware of the social and physical environs outside himself, not in terms Of preconceived, defensive categories, but in terms of what is there. He becomes more "realistic" in dealing with new people, new situations, new problems. In the fact that his life stance is no longer rigid, he can now tolerate ambiguity. He can receive "much conflicting evidence without forcing closure 30 upon the Situation. " He can be tender when he feels tenderness, he can be tired when he is tired, he can feel pain when his organism is in pain, he can express love (when he feels love. 2. A second condition which emerges in the outward-growth process is the strengthening trust in his organism, the development of con— fidence, that is, that his own organism is trustworthy and a suitable instrument for discovering the most satisfying behavior in each imme — 29Ibid., p. 16. 30 Ibid., p. 16. 49 diate life situation. AS he is confronted by the need to make deci- sions, being Open to all of his experience, he has access to all Of the available data on which to base his attitudes and actions. He has knowledge of his own feelings and impulses, he is able to sense freely the social demands involved, he has access to his memory of Similar situations and Of the consequences Of varying former reac- tions. He is better able to permit his organism, with his rational faculty in full participation, to consider, weigh, and balance each stimulus, need and demand and its relative weight and intensity. Out Of this coimplex weighing and balancing, much of which, as Adler Observed, takes place in the autonomic system and at such incomprehensible Speeds as tO seem an automatic reaction, the individual is able to choose both the immediate and long-range action or reaction which comes nearest to satisfying all of whatever of his 31 needs are involved in the life situation. Because he is Open to his exPerience, there is also a greater and more immediate awareness of unsatisfying consequences and a quicker correction of erroneous choices, which arise from the residual mod- icum of weakness and fallibility in the individual and which causes him , ever and again, to include in his weighing and balancing information which is not a part of his experience, and to exlude information which is a part of his experience. 3. A third condition which Rogers has found to emerge is that the locus 31 Ibid., p. 18. 50 for evaluation lies increasingly in the outwardngrowing individual and not in his social and physical contexts. He tends less and less to seek approval or to heed disapproval in others, and he recognizes ever more clearly that he must and does guage his choosing by a central criterion: Am I living in a way which satisfies and expresses 32 me ? 4. A final condition which Rogers sees as significant in the emer- gence of the healthy individual is that he becomes content "to be a 33 process, rather than a product. " Whereas the less competent person generally wishes to achieve a fixed state, a point at which his problems are solved, at which he is effective in his work, at which his marriage is completely satisfactory, the healthy individual seems aware that he, a dynamic organism, is involved in life, a dynamic process, and is content to let himself and his potentialities be a part Of the stream Of becoming. It is in the process Of relaxation and growth which follows on his daring to face the reality of his illness, on his daring to choose and acknowledge himself as in need Of reorientation, that a gradual re - integration of the rational with the emotional and physical components of his self takes place and is "teamed" with these to produce gradually increasing degrees of awareness and self-mastery. Similar precondi- tions may be observed in at least two other kinds of human emer— 2 33 Ibid, pp. 19-20. Ibid., p. 21. 51 gencies. In the literature of theology, no hOpe of conversion Of an individual is said to be present until he accepts himself as a lost Sinner; and the literature centered about the syndrome called. alcoholism now reports that no hope Of recovery or rehabilitation of the alcoholic patient may be expected until he admits that he is a helpless drunkard. From that point forward, the phenomenon of recovery is almost always literally dramatic. But the therapeutic process of holistic reintegration appears to stem specifically from the act Of self-acceptance, even though, as Kierkegaard Observed, the act of self-acceptance may initially be grounded in deSpair. CHAPTER FOUR SOME EFFECTS OF STRESS ON ORGANISMIC FUNCTIONING: LEISURE AND LEARNING It is essential to introduce here the findings of a final piece of research which was conducted to establish the relations between stress and the functioning of the human organism. In general, it has been found that whenever homeostatic balance of the body is up- set from any cause, the human organism attempts to adjust in such a way that balance is restored. Until balance is restored, a state of internal or organismic stress exists. The imbalance resulting from homeostatic upset may be caused by psychic, physical, or social agents or conditions. However, whatever the cause, the human organism reacts generally to the stressor and in resolving the stress does not differentiate among stressors. Specific adapta— tion is to focal stress, while general adaptation is the reaction to total stress, i.e. , to stress which is sufficiently intense to elicit 34 general homeostatic upset. The entire process, from balance through stress to balance, is called the general stress adaptation syndrome. The outlines of the process have been satisfactorily established by quantitative 34 W. R. Johnson, ed. , Science and Medicine of Exercise and Sports (New York, N. Y., 1960), p. 251. 52. 53 studies of adrenal cortical secretion, especially by the measurement of the body's production and use of eosinOphil and ketosteroid in cone trolled stress situations. There is at the present time no precise qualitative assessment of the effect of stress on the human organism, though it has been shown that both too great and too little stress are detrimental to effective organismic functioning. What has been ob- served is that quantitatively the effect of stress varies from person to person in each situation, and that stress is Specific to the situa_ 35 tion and peculiar to the individual. Celeste Ulrich has reported the findings of research directed toward discovering the effects of various kinds of controlled stress on individual kinds of organismic functioning in normal or healthy persons. For example, Kohn had subjects study pictures under experimental conditions of anticipated electric shock. He found that perception was least effective when the pictures were studied in an environment in which shock was anticipated, and most effec~ tive in an environment of low emotional intensity (in an area slightly above the mean measured in terms of the production of eosin0phil). He concluded that severe emotional stress reduces the scope of a complex perceptual activity and that the disruptive influence of emotional high tension is directed toward the unimportant and irrel- evant, rather than the relevant, loci of the perceptual task. These conclusions have since been substantiated by the work of Johnson 5 Ibid., p. 251. 54 36 and others. Hartogs reported on the basis of his exPeriments that anxiety reduces intellectual functioning and the activity of imagination, and that high anxiety curtails visuomotor control. Osler and her associates experimented with the effects of psychological stressors on intellectual performance. She administered tests to achieve a base score, then re -.administered the tests under conditions in which psychological stressors of failure and fear were introduced. She found that the failure stimulus markedly depressed performance, but that fear did not. Further experiments disclosed that failure was directed by association to the immediate task, while fear was 37 associated with a generalized social pattern and diffused. Using a Specific motivational technique (inducing the expecta- tion of success in the task) as a stressor, Burke and Ulrich found that greater work output was elicited, and that the gross mechanical efficiency of the body was greater, than when neutral stressors or 38 stressors suggesting the possibility of failure were employed. It becomes apparent from the foregoing, then, that a productive linkage exists between the organismic condition this study. has des- cribed as leisure or, in terms of perception, as interest-Openness, and the process of learning. It will also be noted that a correlation 6 . Ibid., p. 263. 7 Ibid., p. 263. 8 Ibid., p. 264. 55 exists between the aforementioned findings and the figure in- cluded on Page 15 of Chapter One. CHAPTER FIVE / RESUME OF FOREGOING LINE OF THOUGHT What has emerged to this point in the study is evidence that popular views which support the notion that man may achieve lei— sure amid the increasing stresses of the present time by gaining more unoccupied time and using it to engage in hobbies, sports, travel, and so on, are not supported by even a cursory examination of lives of almost any segment of contemporary Western civilization. A portion of Aristotle's Ethics reveals his concept of self and principles which describe the drive toward self-actualization as being congenital in man, and which declare that achievement of a kind of transcendent excellence is widely available to those who deve10p and extend their mental powers. The theory is then advanced that leisure, a pleasurable condi- tion of organismic control and well -being, may be achieved only by integration of the rational with the physical and emotional resources of the human being, and this is shown to be the process by which man also moves toward self-fulfillment. In this process, as subject and object, man becomes a part of his organization of values, beliefs, and controls, gains respect for himself in his capacities and limita— tions, assumes mastery over himself and his engagements with and 56 57 disengagements from his social and physical environments and, as he chooses, can then more fully and realistically give himself to his own and the purposes of society. It is suggested, that is, that only by establishing a viable system of choices and avoidances controlled by and from within himself may man move toward self—fulfillment and so achieve the eXperience of leisure; and this experience is available to him or potential in him, then, almost irrespective of the stresses to which he is subjected. Indeed, in exercising choice over what he will be, do and bear, man also exercises rational control over what kinds and degrees of stress he will accept from any quarter. It also becomes apparent that those whose competences are so organized and controlled are able to engage in a more genuine and wholehearted loving and giving of themselves, and that they have a more dependable basis from which to approach the process of valuing. The findings of Maslow's research are then introduced osten- sively to indicate that such growth-motivated people exist, and to give an impression of the range of their both usual and extraordin— ary strengths, capacities and talents. Rogers' psychotherapeutic theory of the gradual integration of the human personality which emerges in clarity of perception, Openness, trust in the organism and relaxation into self-confidence, is adduced to demonstrate that rational, emotional and physical may be and are combined to be- come a stronger and more viable human unity. 5 8 Research cited by Ulrich is introduced to show that perception, imagination, intellectual and physical potential and learning are all Optimized when stress levels are controlled at slightly above the mean, measured in terms of the body's secretion of adrenal cortical materials. In combination and cumulatively, the foregoing determinations then lead to the conclusion that the growth-motivating potentiali- ties of the hypothesis may be actualized in the teaching-learning situation, but, to make this feasible, the social and phi1030phical foundations on which educational theory and practice now rest will need to be generally extended and modified to accommodate a new conception of the nature of man, of knowing and of valuing. CHAPTER SIX SOME REFLECTIONS OF THE LEISURE HYPO THESIS ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION PhiIOSOphi cal Refle ctions If we accept the statement of the hypothesis in the first chapter, that it is by means of integrating the rational, physical and emotional resources of the human organism into a coordinated unity that, first, autonomy and, thereupon, the other conditions of self-fulfillment and leisure come into being, then it seems likely, at least in prin- ciple, that the growth—motivating dynamics of the hypothesis may be actualized in the teaching —learning situation. To do this, however, would appear to necessitate some modification of the philosoPhical and social foundations on which education theory and practice now rest. Man In the realm of educational philosoPhy, new beginning would call for adoption of a concept of the child as neutral or pre -moral, as gifted with vigorous, open-dimensioned potentialities, and as only temporarily limited and limitable at any given time by what he is able to perceive and conceptualize and by what his environs are capable of offering and communicating to him. Only a self- 59 60 actualized man or woman, for instance, could be expected to serve productively as the ”teacher" of such a child, for learning Oppor- tunity for him would require: (1) a mediated and unmediated>z< atmos- phere of wonder and encouragement; (2) freely—given understanding and permissiveness for the flights and pauses in the child's modes of inquiry and experimentation (e. g. Freehill's "leap -test" phenomen- on’k’k); (3) agreement in the often unstructured manner of the child' s proceeding; (4) acceptance of the content of his thrusts of fancy and innovation; (5) sensitive management of variation between engagement and disengagement in the teacher-child relation; (6) recognition of the child as the only center and emphasis of his own searching and growing process. Such competences are not ordinarily, or more than 39 momentarily, available to the defensive deficiency-motivated adult. *What is suggested here may be hypothesized as a force which seems to interact between peOple of fuller identification without employing the usual visual, tactile, gustatory, _olfactory or auditory signals, and by means of which certain rare qualities of awareness are dis closed to the self-actualized. This phenomenon may eventually be reveal~ ed as one of the faded or lost com etences of man's instinctoid nature, of which Maslow writes. >3*The leap -test phenomenon Freehill observed is used with remark- able success by gifted children, who tend to generalize to hypotheses often so far removed frplm observable data as to seem, at first glance, quite illogical. 39 "Perceiving, Behaving, Becoming, " Yearbook of 1962 (Washing- ton, D. C., 1962), Chap. 8. 40A. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (New York, N. Y. , 1962), pp. 179-181. 41 M. Freehill, Gifted Children (New York, N. Y., 1961), p. 85. 61 Knowing Beginning anew would mean orientation in a theory of knowing which, while it used the experimental method as one of its tools and retained a core of objectivity, would be Specifically geared also to maintain enabling transactional flexibility and fluidity between what is ”known" and the constantly-accumulating new products of >,‘= experiment, thought and peak experiences. The capacities and proportions of the house of knowledge would need to be infinitely extensible, its walls, windows and doors fabricated of a resilient epistemological screenwork. For if the testing, authentication, administration and use of things known and to be known were to continue moored, as now, to the rigid, impervious walls of the laws of averages, usually determined by and for the deficiency- motivated, and the experiencing and knowing of the self-actualized already now reach beyond what the former have the means to test or the competence or courage to accept, then impoverished old mediocrities and banalities would continue to perpetuate them- selves and to destroy in man the full confidence needed to effectuate his emergence beyond the banal and mediocre. >4< What is Specifically intended here is that society must be guided toward accepting the reality of an as yet imperfectly —explored, but immensely richer and fuller knowing, which Maslow and James in recent times, and Socrates and Job in earlier times, have reported to be potential in and available to men, and which may be seen, along with the further logic and fuller awareness mentioned else- where in this study, as belonging to a further dimension of human identification. 62 Valuing As has been suggested above, valuing, too, would need to be a matter of constant intera ction between the self-actualized, with their full-human competence of perceiving, their deeper vision and broader perspectives, their gifts of judgemental clarity and integ- rity, their tendency to seek and understand and champion trans cend- ent values without denigrating or forsaking honest common goods, on the one hand, and the processes by means of which the whole gradually increasing and improving range of things valued might be commended and exemplified to society, on the other. There is a simple, logical necessity for extending the para- meters of what will be accepted as knowable and valuable and for giving initiative in these matters to the growth-motivated. As Mas- low points out, the latter are at least not intolerant of the circum- scribed knowing and valuing of the deficiency-motivated, and are concerned with the constant extension of the realms of truth and value. The organismic limitations and attendant defensive fears of the deficiency -motivated, on the other hand, make it improbable that they would tolerate, let alone, develop or foster the search for truths and values which are beyond their comprehension and immediate use. It is these, indeed, who have historically "stoned the prophets and killed those who were sent" to them. The idea, for instance, that the comfortable old dichotomies may be and, for the self-actualized, not infrequently are resolved in unities, 63 e. g. , suggesting the possibility of a further logic, would be regarded among them as hardly less than dangerous doctrine. And there would be other , even more crucial, things to baffle and threaten those less wholly identified. Necessary enlargement of and changes in emphasis and locus of responsibility in the meaning of the concept of control; extension of the boundaries of personal free— dom- and, therefore, the greater latitude for participation and action to be expected along these boundaries and beyond; the gradual eclipse of material, money and other traditional criteria of status from their ancient seats of authority; and the more fluid and, therefore, more ' basically man-oriented (as distinguished from structure -oriented) conceptualizations of interpersonal and social relations and cohesions; the gradual disappearance of those norms and moral systems that tend to be obstructive and which are now already largely meaningless, which have traditionally been measured to the inadequacies of the unloving and fearful who also invariably interpreted and administered them; and relocation of moral and ethical responsibility in greater measure with men and women moral and ethical by nature --and therefore free--such needed considerations do not lie comfortably among the tendencies of the deficiency-motivated to welcome or allow. The idea that our notions of scientific method and logic present too limited a view of reality and of the sense of both actuality and potentiality in man is not new with this Study. Old Testament writings, 64 as well as those of Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Brahmanism and Taoism are liberally interspersed with evidences of human identification, repeated incidents of which so far and insistently transcend what may be compre- hended and authenticated by tools and techniques now available to the five senses and the human intellect, that it actually becomes quite illogical to dismiss them as untenable. To these have been added, in more re- cent times, the views of Ortega, Stace, NorthrOp, Tillich and others of the your-God-is -too -small school of thought who argue the point, that while logic and scientific method have indeed succeeded in provid- ing categories of comprehensible "facts, " there is nevertheless no cer- tain way to demonstrate that these Systems are more than circumscribed circular views of reality. What is maintained in the present study is not a question of whether logic and the scientific method are acceptable methods of knowing, but that evidence of the knowing, valuing and acting of self-actualizing people extends beyond the competences of methods of measuring accept- able in our culture, and that a "further logic" will need to be consid- ered to encompass the dimensions of what is real, valuable and demonstrably possible for self-actualizing peOple. Some Social Conclusions which Emerge from the Leisure Hypothesis The area of the social foundations of education would be no less in need of re ~examination and here one might be assailed by the strong temptation, for instance, to avoid all reference to the concept, social 65 institution, if for no other reason than that it has so often come to epitomize the antitheses of life, healthy growth and continuing integ- rity; but more particularly because the social institution has so often been chosen by the sick, the loveless and inadequate as the vehicle in which to careen ruthlessly over the prostrate bodies of their "friends" and ”co—workers" toward a fatuous, hand—made illusion which they call ”the tOp. " But in the existence, in the epistemology, axiology and taxonomy of the self-actualized, there is no such concept or term as "the top. " There are only wayside stations, all of them marked "leisure, " and beyond each of these only a continuation of movement, adventure and growth outward. In making his claim for "rootedness" as one of the prime conditions of the sane society, Fromm pointed out most clearly: "The psychic task which the person must and can set for him- self is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity. Free *42 man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertainl' Since social institutions have always counted as the bastions of comfort against insecurity and uncertainty, they could, at a glance, hardly be thought to have a place in the phiIOSOphy of peOple growth— motivated toward becoming. Yet it is the very tendencies Maslow *Here Fromm is distinguishing between a traditional "rootedness" as orientation in the soil and relationship with, and desire to return to the security of, mother, home and the childhood parameters of security, and a new rootedness oriented in ”universal brotherliness, human communication, love and understand. " 4ZP. Bertocci and R. Millard, Personality and the Good (New York, N. Y. , 1963), p. 85. 66 and Rogers have remarked as being characteristic of the self- actualizing which could at last wrest the institution from its centuries -old history of ossification and ethical-moral prostitution and give it the place of worth and social usefulness Plato and Aris- totle insisted it must occupy in any productive organization of human affairs. An interesting aside in Maslow's ponderings gives hope to the prospect of rehabilitating the social institution. He says, in effect: Only the sick and fearful have a need to dominate their fellowmen; where issues central to their concerns are at stake, the self- actualized may be counted on to give their penetrating judgements and courageous leadership to the cause. The latter half of the state- ment is reminiscent of the way in which Plato, in The Republic, arrives at a solution to the dilemma, that those most capable of leading and guiding the social institution have the least need or 43 desire to do so. It could appear that in the whole concept of self-actualization We may have moved one small, subtle, but significant tone out be- yond the fear Plato cites as a reason why his philOSOpher—kings may be persuaded to assume leadership reSponsibility for better adminis - tration of the social institution; and perhaps one subtle pace outward from the long, ponderous, inexorable educational press in which he i m .— 43 Plato, The Republic (London, Eng., 1963), pp. 231-235. 67 proposed to prepare individuals for leadership. The leisure hypoth- esis, as applied to education, suggests that the impulse toward self- actualization is congenital and needs only sensitive guidance and a helpful atmOSphere to actualize its emergence. Plato and Aristotle insisted that the individual must be carefully and deliberately condi- tioned by prescriptions and prohibitions to arrive at a higher level of human identification. Maslow and Rogers suggest that, given only an atmosphere of hOpe in the normal social and physical milieu, the self-actualizing may be exPe cted to emerge Spontaneously--that the individual will be brought to the furthest reaches of his innate potentialities by having opportunity to know fully, that is, organismi- cally, who and what he is and that he has a fully legitimate, uninter- dicted right to his being-in -becoming. As Maslow has observed, there would be little strangeness or feeling of alienation between these and the peOple in need of their leadership, since these somehow acquire and possess the democratic character structure, Collegiality, ease and empathy with their fellow— men of whatever station in life and a peculiar, deep-seated personal interest in the improvement of the human condition. Feeling in them- selves what this can mean for others, they would have the long—range objectives toward which to aim and guide the social institution, as well as the perceptivity and volatility to keep it attuned to the relevant in a world of change. 68 Socialization of the Self-Actualized Some doubt could remain as to how the self-actualizing child, for instance, could arrive at a realistic view of the limitations im— posed upon him in the normal social arrangements in which he, too, would be obliged to live. There is no thought here of suggesting that the self-actualizing child should be isolated from usual move-a ments, relations and experiences or, e. g. , that he be pampered or sheltered from a life of social reality. What is emphasized is that the debilitating negatives unavoidable in such usual relations and experiences could and would be more than counterbalanced by integrating and strengthening, from the outset, the total organismic self-concept of the child, so that he could come to honor and govern himself from within and avoid becoming the always -dependent creature of social -environmental stimuli. CHAPTER SEVEN FURTHER .QUESTIONS Several problems beyond the scope of this study suggest them:— seIVeS for closer, more intensive or more Specialized examination. It could be important, for instance, to know whether there is an established hierarchical order in which the individual component conditions mentioned in Chapter One, page 25, make their cumula— tive contributions to the condition, leisure. A further search could be made to determine whether a physical correlation corroborates the suggestion of the hypothesis, that pain and pleasure appear at the same, namely, the "high" end of the stress continuum, which in turn suggests that leisure, a pleasurable condition, represents what Aristotle would have regarded as a mean, and pain, as an extreme. It could be both interesting and profitable, also, if a competent student of classical Greek would undertake the search of what original sources exist, to determine precisely what Plato and Aristotle, writing in and for their own pre -Christian culture, did and did not assert with respect to the composition, organization and resulting nature of the self. Similarly, the departure of the present hypothesis from persisting popular views of what leisure 69 70 is and how it may be achieved intimates that an ordinary language analysis of the concept, leisure, might bring to light the existence of several variant meanings and usages of the concept. For at least seventy centuries the idea has persisted and recurred in the literature of both East and West, that a further dimension of reality exists out beyond that which is readily comprehended by the rational-sensory tools and techniques now available to man. Among recent writers, James suggests that the rational—sensory is only 44 one form of human consciousness, e. g. , way of perceiving. Stace writes that the "mystical consciousness is destitute of any sensations at all. Nor does it contain any concepts or thoughts. . . . accordingly, it cannot be described in terms of the elements of sensory-intellectual 45 consciousness. " Northrup has suggested that man's ways of per- ceiving may be expanded by bringing about a meeting between what he calls the "aesthetic" (immediate, empirical, intuitive, a priori) knowing of the East and the tested, a posteriori knowing of the West 46 by means of "epistemic correlations. " He quotes Einstein, in expatiating on this theory, as saying that ”Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logi- cally uniform system of thought, " and goes on to show that Eastern ways of- know in g co uld'be greatly enhanced“ by‘be ing brought under the orderly 44 W. T. "Stace, The Teaching of the Mystics (New York, N. Y. ,1960), p. 3. 4%Ibid., p. 14. 46F. S. C. NorthrOp, The Meeting of East and West (New York, N. Y. , 1960), pp. 440-454. 71 and somewhat more rigorous tutelage of the logic of Western methods. Conversely, he suggests Western knowing might be considerably ex- tended by maintaining an Open-minded attitude toward the products of ”aesthetic, empirical" perception. One may wonder whether a system thus circumscribed may not, in spite or, indeed, because of the very care with which its criteria are conceived, be a disparagement of what man may know. Or, better, perhaps, does a further, more complete realization of leisure await the synthesis of Western and Eastern approaches to knowing? It would appear that these and further questions in this area of inquiry could bring an even more satisfactory approach to a definition of leisure. Ortega y Gasset remarks that our theories are merely used to explain our universe and that as time and change intervene, they grow unsatisfactory and we seek new and more adequate eXplana- tions. As before indicated, that is the case with the present study; it is not posed as a full and final answer. But it is presented in the expectation that this conceptualization may provide the stimulus for further probing of the nature of the problem, and eventually produce an eXplanation that will prove fruitful in providing an answer to the question which severely troubles our times. N 10. ll. 12. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Nels, Work and Leisure, Glencoe, N. Y., Free Press, 1961, pp. 6, 26, 59, 92. . Aristotle, Nichomachaean Ethics, Baltimore, Md. , Penquin Press, 1962, pp. 43, 44, 65. . Barker, Ernest, The Political Thoght of Plato and Aristotle, New York, N. Y., Dover Pub., 1959, pp. 359-364. Bertocci, P., and Millard, R., Personality and the Good, New York, N. Y., MacKay Pub., 1963, p. 85. Brightbill, Charles, The Challenge of Leisure, Englewood Cliffs, N. J., Prentice-Hall, 1960, p. 4. Fischer, L. and Thomas, D. R., Social Foundations of Educational Decisions, Belmont, Cal., Wadsowrth Pub. Co., 1965, p. 166. Freehill, M., Gifted Children, New York, N. 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