A Point of View 2

greatly reinforced by the attitudes conveyed by others, who may not see beyond the roles played out – particularly in many ‘low status’ jobs, such as those of cleaners, waiters, factory hands, and so on. Self-actualisation, though not identical with happiness, must surely be integral to that profound, abiding, almost ‘spiritual’ contentment enjoyed by a fortunate few, if only because to fall short of this goal could leave one with an intrusive sense of dissatisfaction that is bound to detract from one’s happiness. What is self-actualisation? It is simply realizing one’s full potential; or fulfilling one’s ‘destiny’, as those of a more esoteric bent might have it. It is argued that people who manage to attain self-actualisation exhibit various concomitant traits like being creative, highly ethical, autonomous, capable of deep interpersonal relationships, capable of awe, pleasure, wonder, ecstasy, democratic vis-à-vis others, honest. Now this is interesting. Because much of this resonates with what I’ve said about communism/socialism (I use the terms interchangeably). Communism, I would contend, is certain to create a social climate that would be fundamentally democratic and egalitarian in nature, as no one individual or grouping would lord it over others. Without the profit motive driving a coach and horses through ethical deliberations, decision-making under communism would be directly and highly attuned to what is right and wrong, with the pros and cons of any proposal being subjected to democratic arbitration. Autonomy would be integral to this sort of society: People would at last be able to make up their own minds as to what they wanted to do with their lives, and not be railroaded into taking up stultifying and

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35