Diagram of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with more primitive needs at the bottom.
Maslow's primary contribution to psychology is his Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow contended that humans have a
number of needs that are instinctoid, that is, innate. These needs are classified as "conative needs," "cognitive
needs," and "aesthetic needs." "Neurotic needs" are included in Maslow's theory but do not exist within the
hierarchy.
Maslow postulated that needs are arranged in a hierarchy in terms of their potency. Although all needs are
instinctive, some are more powerful than others. The lower the need is in the pyramid, the more powerful it is.
The higher the need is in the pyramid, the weaker and more distinctly human it is. The lower, or basic, needs on
the pyramid are similar to those possessed by non-human animals, but only humans possess the higher needs.
The first four layers of the pyramid are what Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "D-needs:" the individual
does not feel anything if they are met, but feels anxious if they are not met..... Needs beyond the D-needs are
"growth needs," "being values," or "B-needs." When fulfilled, they do not go away; rather, they motivate
further.
The base of the pyramid is formed by the physiological needs, including the biological requirements for food,
water, air, and sleep.
Once the physiological needs are met, an individual can concentrate on the second level, the need for safety and
security. Included here are the needs for structure, order, security, and predictability.
The third level is the need for love and belonging. Included here are the needs for friends and companions, a
supportive family, identification with a group, and an intimate relationship.
The fourth level is the esteem needs. This group of needs requires both recognition from other people that
results in feelings of prestige, acceptance, and status, and self-esteem that results in feelings of adequacy,
competence, and confidence. Lack of satisfaction of the esteem needs results in discouragement and feelings of
inferiority.
Finally, self-actualization sits at the apex of the original pyramid.
In 1970 Maslow published a revision to his original 1954 pyramid [1], adding the cognitive needs (first the need
to acquire knowledge, then the need to understand that knowledge) above the need for self-actualization, and
the aesthetic needs (the needs to create and/or experience beauty, balance, structure, etc.) at the top of the
pyramid. However, not all versions of Maslow's pyramid include the top two levels.
Maslow theorized that unfulfilled cognitive needs can become redirected into neurotic needs. For example,
children whose safety needs are not adequately met may grow into adults who compulsively hoard money or
possessions [2]. Unlike other needs, however, neurotic needs do not promote health or growth if they are
satisfied.
Maslow also proposed that people who have reached self-actualization will sometimes experience a state he
referred to as "transcendence," in which they become aware of not only their own fullest potential, but the
fullest potential of human beings at large. He described this transcendence and its characteristics in an essay in
the posthumously published The Farther Reaches of Human Nature.
In the essay, he describes this experience as not always being transitory, but that certain individuals might have
ready access to it, and spend more time in this state. He makes a point that these individuals experience not only
ecstatic joy, but also profound "cosmic-sadness"[3] at the ability of humans to foil chances of transcendence in
their own lives and in the world at large.
Maslow's theory of human needs draws strongly on the pioneering work of Henry Murray (1938). This provides
the basis for wide-ranging and extensively validated work relating to achievement, affiliation, power and
ambition."We move toward self actualization". This quote brings in Maslow's theory of motivation, tying along
with the growth, happiness and satisfaction of every person. He believes to be motivated that it is not driven by
reducing tension or avoiding frustration that people look for a positive view.
(How does this theory relate to your development as a True Martial Artist ????????????)
1. Warriors
Sun Tzu’s ideal warrior is consistent, strong, precise, prepared, and adaptable. In the context of
the army, the warrior should feel united with his fellow soldiers and follow his leader’s orders.
The warrior should have the intent to fight to the death, and with that a certain detachment to his
life and material possessions.
2. Leaders
If soldiers or warriors are the limbs and tools of an army, its leaders are the head or brains of this
body. Competent leadership is necessary to unify the body. Unity in the body has several
meanings. First of all, the soldiers must have confidence in the competence of the leadership.
Secondly, the body must be united in terms of cause, and in order to do this, the leader must
embody what Giles calls the “Moral Law” or the “Tao” according to other translators. In other
words, the army must believe in its leadership and the cause for which it is fighting to be
effective.
As the brain of the body, the leader must know how and where to use all of his “limbs”
effectively- this means knowing how to delegate tasks to all different types of individuals. As
commentator Du Mu writes in Thomas Cleary’s translation, “Huang Shigong, said, ‘Those who
are good at delegating responsibility employ the intelligent, the brave, the greedy, and the foolish.
The intelligent are glad to establish their merit, the brave like to act out their ambitions, the
greedy welcome an opportunity to pursue profit, and the foolish do not care if they die.’” This
implies that the leadership must be flexible and adaptive in its use of manpower.
This is especially true in the use of spies. Leaders must be extremely cautious to control the flow
of information within their organization. Information about one’s plans must not be freely
available as there could be spies within one’s organization, even as one plants spies in the
enemy’s organization. Leaders must be extremely subtle in their use of information, even to the
point of spreading disinformation when it can provide an advantage over the enemy.
To paraphrase Thomas Cleary’s introduction, that Sun Tzu wrote a book called the Art of War,
does not mean that he was advocating war. War is to be understood by leaders and governments
according to its true human cost. To engage in battle means to lose human lives. Therefore the
aim of the leader is to keep the war as short as possible, to use as little resources as necessary, so
as not to overburden the citizens who are financing the campaign, and to win with as little human
cost as possible. This could only be possible if the leader also possesses compassion for his
people and his soldiers.
However, to be overly compassionate, what Giles calls “over-solicitude for his men”, is also a
weakness which the leader must avoid. The other qualities which must be avoided are
“recklessness, cowardice, a hasty temper, and a delicacy of honor” that is “sensitive to shame”.
Last, but not least, the most important task of the leadership in war is planning and creating a
strategy for defeating the enemy.
3. Strategy
Strategy is all-important in the Art of War. Sun Tzu says that an accomplished leader must have
won the battle through strategy and planning before engaging in any actual physical conflict.
Strategy in the Art of War might be described as the calculation of advantages possessed by each
side- the deeper and more comprehensive the planning, the better the strategy will reflect the
outcome of a conflict in reality.
When Sun Tzu advises one to “know the terrain”, the strategist must determine how to adapt to
existing conditions and use them to his advantage. However, in order to create advantages, the
main methods employed by the martial strategist are 1) deception and 2) creating discord within
the enemy’s ranks.
Deception is essential to the concept that one must know the enemy, but remain unknown
oneself- having information, while leaving the other uninformed creates a powerful advantage.
Creating discord within the enemy might be most commonly achieved through bribery of
officials, or perhaps through the use of spies who can incite mutinous sentiments in the soldiers
against their superiors. Breaking down the enemy’s leadership structure is a form of
implementing the idea that one should “attack plans, then alliances, and then cities”.
When one’s strategy is perfect, the battle will seem to have been won with little, or ideally no
effort or bloodshed. Ironically, this also means that the greatness of the strategy will never be
recognized, because it will remain invisible to all but those involved in the planning.
Sources:
Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Trans. Lionel Giles. 1910. Available:
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Trans. Thomas Cleary. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1988.
Sun Tzu. The Art of Warfare. Trans. Roger T. Ames. New York: Ballantine Books. 1993.
by Vingrove A. Thomas 03/24/94
This paper will compare the lives of two of the most renown conquerors of Asia
and greatest generals of all time. They are noted for being brilliant as tacticians, troop
leaders, and for their rapidity with which they could transverse great expansive territory.
I will first start with a brief biography of both Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan,
then I will point out some important similarities and differences of these great leaders.
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC)
Alexander the third, the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia, and son of Olympias,
a princess of Epirus, was born in 356 BC and brought up as a crown prince. Alexander
was continuously pressured and encouraged to study hard by his father who obtained
Aristotle as his teacher and mentor (Green 56). Taught by Aristotle he acquired a love
for Homeric ideals and an infatuation with the heroic age. Aristotle's thorough training in
rhetoric and literature stimulated Alexander's interest in science, medicine, and
philosophy. He became obsessed with Greek superiority and a passionate longing to win
glory over the Barbarians in his young training period. As Alex matured, Philip worried,
among other things, that the boy's interest was only on intellect and that he might become
a "girlish invert" (Green 66). Philip decided that it was time to develop his son into a
man by obtaining a beautiful Thessalian prostitute named Callixeina. It is believed that
these continuous pressures of manhood by his father gave Alex his compulsive nature for
conquest at an early age. These pressures also led to a rivalry as Alex matured between
father and son. When Philip divorced Olympias to marry a younger princess, Alexander
fled. Although allowed to return, he remained isolated and insecure until Philip's
mysterious assassination in the summer of 336 BC. Ascending to the throne of
Macedonia, Alex found himself threatened by rebellion. He quickly disposed of all
conspirators by ordering their executions.
After eliminating all his potential rivals he gained the allegiance of the Macedonian
nobles and the Greeks by defeating the local barbarian cities. Using his farther teaching
of Hellenistic Crusades of the barbarians he now set his sights of war toward Persia. He
defeated the small forces defending Anatolia and proclaimed freedom for Greek cities
while keeping them under tight control. He then defeated the Persian army under
Darius III at Issus, in northeastern Syria. The battle of Issus in 333 BC ended in great
victory for Alexander. Alex captured Gaza next and then passed on into Egypt, where he
was greeted as a deliverer. At that time he controlled the entire eastern Mediterranean
coastline and in 332 BC he founded the city of Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile River.
This was one of Alexander's greatest success because it became the heart of the Greek
world for science, literature, and commercial trade. Next he extended his dominion to
Cyrene, the capital of ancient North African kingdom of Cyrenaica, and the Carthaginian
territory.
In the spring of 331 BC, Alexander made a pilgrimage to the great temple and
oracle of Amon-Ra, the Egyptian god of sun, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus. It is
believed that from his studies, as a child with Aristotle, Alex envisioned himself then as
the son of this Egyptian god and this was his zeal and quest to reach the great temples of
Egypt. R.D. Milns states:
"The monarchs took one step further Alexander's belief that he was worthy of
deification because of his great deeds and formulated the principle that the ruler
was worthy of such an honor merely in virtue of his position as king: kings, in
fact, were regarded as born of Zeus" (265).
This vision of grandeur might be the motivating force in Alexander's short life.
After organizing Egypt, Alexander crossed the eastern desert, the Euphrates, and
the Tigris rivers, and in the autumn of 331 BC he defeated Darius's grand army at
Gaugamela. After defeating Darius, Alex acted as king of Persia to win the support of
Iranian aristocrats who governed the province. Alex at this time was worried about
major uprisings in Greece because of his beliefs in the unification of all races. He
destroyed a great palace complex at Persepolis as a gesture to quell the disheartened
Greeks and when the rebellion had failed he proclaimed the end of the Hellenic Crusade
which discharged the Greek forces.
Alexander now faced years of guerrilla war in the northeastern Iran and central
Asia, which ended only when he married in 327 BC, Roxana, the daughter of a local
chieftain. This fortified a network of military settlements which later developed into
major cities. During these years his increasingly Asian behavior led to trouble with
Macedonian nobles and some Greeks. Again Alex would execute, on conspiracy
charges, anyone who would not go along with his new policies. His domain now
extended along and beyond the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, including modern
Afghanistan and Balochistan, and northward into Bactria, Sogdiana, the modern Russian
Turkestan, also known as Central Asia. It had only taken Alex three years to conquer this
vast land, from spring of 330 BC to 327 BC, fascinating!
Alexander felt in order to complete his conquest of the Persian Empire he would
cross the Indus River in 326 BC, and he invaded the Punjab as far as the river Hyphasis.
Alex still trying to unify all races but the Macedonians at this point rebelled and refused
to go any further. He and his troop met with great hardship on this journey because of
the shortage of food and water and made the Macedonians even more rebellious.
Alexander spent about a year organizing his dominions and completing a survey of the
Persian Gulf possibly thinking as son of an Egyptian god he would live forever to
conquer all. In the spring of 323 BC, when he arrived in Babylon, mortality became a
reality to all. Alexander contacted a fever and died.
Genghis Khan (1167-1227 AD)
The Mongolian leader Genghis Khan, originally named Temujin, was another
known great conqueror in the history of the world. Born approximately 1167 AD, the
son of Yesugei, he led his nomadic armies to create a vast empire from China to Russia
all under his control. Yesugei was poisoned when Temujin was about 10 years old, and
the orphaned boy later entered the service of Toghril Khan, the most powerful Mongol
ruler of the time. The author of The History and Life of Chinggis Khan, Urgunge Onon
states in his introduction that, "...he emerged after a hard childhood a natural leader and
born diplomat..." (xii). At the age of 13, Temujin succeeded his father as tribal chief.
His early reign was marked by successive revolts of his subjects and intense struggle and
bloodshed characterized the succeeding years until 1206 AD. At that time Temujin
united the warring Mongol tribes and was proclaimed Genghis Khan (Chinggis Qahan),
translated as "universal ruler" or "precious warrior" of the Mongol chieftains. He united
the Mongol and the Tatar tribes and made the city of Karakorum his capital.
In 1207, Genghis Khan led the Mongols on the first series of destructive, bloody
invasions that would result in establishing a foothold inside the Great Wall of China and
result in the conquest of most of the Asian mainland. In 1213 he led his nomadic armies
south and west into the area dominated by the Juchen Chin dynasty (1122-1234 AD),
continuing until he reached the Shantung Peninsula. After defeating the Chin Empire he
moved to conquer Peking in 1215, the last Chin stronghold in northern China.
Genghis then moved on to capturing the Korean Peninsula in 1218 and in retaliation for the
murder of some Mongol traders he turned his armies westward invading a vast Turkish
Empire, Khoresm. This empire included modern Iraq, Iran and parts of western
Turkestan. Genghis and the Mongolian armies swept through Turkestan looting and
massacring the cities of Buhoro and Samarqand (Hartog 101). The invasion spanned to
northern India and Pakistan conquering the cities of Peshawar, Lahore and the
surrounding countryside. In approximately 1223 the Mongol warriors penetrated the
steppes of Russia and totally defeated the Russian army. Genghis and his tribes did not ,
however, continue their victories with the conquest of cities to the west but instead they
returned eastward.
The empire that Genghis Khan established extended from the Pacific Ocean in the
east to the Black Sea in the west. Its north to south extension was no less impressive,
reaching from Siberia to the northern borders of mainland Southeast Asia, than the span
of Alexander the Great's Empire. At his death, on August 18, 1227, the Mongol Empire
was divided among his three sons and gradually dwindled away. However, four of his
grandsons became great Mongol leaders in their own times. Genghis Khan conquest
were of vast historical importance long after his death. Although he never learned to
read, he left behind a military system of organization and strategy that probably
represented more than a mere codification of existing practices.
Comparative
One of the major differences between Alexander and Genghis, even though they
were both great conquerors at an early age, was their childhood. Alexander as previous
stated was pampered by his father with royalty and great teachers. He had the ability to
explored great learning resources in medicine, science, and philosophy, but this was not
the situation for Genghis. It can be said that both had natural abilities but what would
have happened if Genghis was given the education that Alex had and adversely Alex the
status of an orphan and uneducated. Just looking at what Genghis accomplished without
education and through hardship should attest to the fact that he might have been a tactical
genius.
Alexander, on the other hand, can be said to have been as Green depicts as having a
compulsive and obsessive nature which drove him the desire of conquering. I agree with
this theory after reading how much emotional pressures were put on him by his father in
order to have him mature quickly. Hornblower in reviewing Green's book, in the New
York Times Book Review, September 22, 1991, suggests that Green was right on target
with the reference of Alex's behavior as "all-absorbing obsession" (54). Alexander's zest
(obsession) for a new enlightenment of "world brotherhood" and the unity of the east and
the west often got him in trouble with fellow statesman of Macedonia. Some theories
state that Alex was an alcoholic and that he was said to have burned a city, and even
killed his friend Clitus (died 328 BC) in a drunken fury. This behavioral problem, which
was psychological, was not the case of Genghis Khan. He arose from hardship by
learning how to survive and kept a sound mind in order to get control over his enemies.
Their similarities are how rapidly they were able to conquer at a young age,
basically the same regions of Asia. The fact that they were brilliant tacticians and
possessed the ability to control massive armies and each battle remain victorious. They
both came into power at youth and had great oppositions at first, possibly because of their
ages, but destroyed their oppositioners with very little trouble. Politically both were fair
but handled rebellion harshly and quickly. There might be some similarities in the fact
that the Mongols believed in the worship of a sun god called Tengri and Alexander
believed in the Egyptian god of the sun, Amon Ra. The difference though here is that
Alexander did not just worshipped but his obsession led him to believe later that he
actually was the son of this Egyptian god.
Another major difference is that with the policies that Alexander had of unification,
he did very little major damage to the cities he conquered. He tried to share and cultivate
the cities, to express his ultimate goal of unification especially with Asian ideals.
Genghis, on the other hand, looted, raped and massacred the cities of his conquest, not
based on a behavioral problem, this was part of the barbarians culture. This of course
would be the actions of a barbarian of which Alexander's training would be totally
against.
As a comparative I have found that it was easy to find lots of information about
Alexander the Great and that most of the reviews of the books written about him were
good and informative. In contrast I found that the information on Genghis was some
times not up to date or not exact. A professor of the University of British Columbia,
Daniel L. Overmyer writes in a book review in the fiftieth volume of the Pacific Affairs
(Winter 1977-78) on Brent's book, The Mongol Empire that:
"It is a pity, I repeat, because we badly need a coherent general account of history
about Genghis....What Peter Brent gives us instead is a catalogue of names and a
recital of individual deeds" (687).
I have found this to be true with most of the books that I used for my research as
well. Still though I have enjoyed exploring the conquests of these two Great Generals
that existed in two different time periods but had the same direction.
Bibliography
Brent, Peter. The Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan: His Triumph and his Legacy.
London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976.
Green, Peter. Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1991.
Hartog, Leo de. Genghis Khan: Conqueror of the World. London: I. B. Tauris & Co.
Ltd., 1989.
Hornblower, Simon. "Lived Fast, Died Young." The New York Times Book Review 22,
Sept. 1991: 54.
Milns, R. D. Alexander the Great. New York: Pegasus, 1969.
Onon, Urgunge. (Trans.) The History and Life of Chinggis Khan: The Secret History of
the Mongols. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990.
Overmyer, Daniel. "Book Reviews." Pacific Affairs 50 (1977-78): 687.
