Ways of Knowing as Tools in the Pursuit of Knowledge, Essay Example

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who was well known for developing a principle known as “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, which humans should use to balance their physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs. Despite the fact that his theory was published in 1943, it is still relevant to the human experience today; it has been used to assist with large scale world problems such as determining how to best help children who were homeless and orphaned after World War II. In 1966 Maslow famously said, “When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems begin to resemble nails”. This statement reflects both his “Hierarchy of Needs” and other life works because it demonstrates the concept that one cannot use one solution to fix all problems. In the fields of psychology and social science, this indicates that problems are unique to the individual; even though a general framework can be used to diagnose a problem, the solution pertain to the specific case that is being examined.

In Maslow’s quote, he describes the hammer as a tool than can be used to fix a problem. In the literal sense, it can be used to either remove or add nails to an object. Since the “problem” in this example is a nail, he describes the ability to use the hammer to fix this solution. It is obvious that a hammer is the perfect way to solve a construction problem involving a nail because it is made for this purpose. However, if one were to use a hammer to clean a window, this may not be appropriate. As such, all solutions are not generic; one must analyze the problem at hand and then develop a custom solution to fix this problem. When Maslow says, “all problems begin to resemble nails”, he is indicating that by treating all of our problems similarly, we are grouping them together and become unable to actually fix anything. It is therefore important to reassess our problem and determine potential solutions before we are able to move forward and make progress.

Although Maslow’s 1966 statement was short and to the point, it is a significant summary of his works over many years. Specifically, his “Hierarchy of Needs” indicates that when someone has a psychological or social issue, there are many ways to fix the problem. As mentioned above, these needs include physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs and it is important to maintain a balance among all of these to achieve true health and happiness. According to Maslow’s quote, it would be improper to assist someone who is having physiological problems by increasing their esteem, just as it would be improper to assist someone who needs love by providing them with safety. Each of these human needs are distinct and cannot be likened to one another; they are not all nails just as the solution is not a hammer. While food and water can help a person with their physiological needs, it cannot effectively increase the situation of a person who is already receiving enough for survival.

To effectively understand what Maslow is referring to in his “Hierarchy of Needs”, it is essential to define what each need meant to him. Physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs make up the full account of needs that a human requires, yet each of these are distinct and have no overlap. Maslow defines physiological needs as “food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, and other biological needs”, safety needs as “protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, and stability”, love needs as “belongingness, work group love, family, affection, relationships, and other social needs”, esteem needs are “self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, and managerial responsibility”, and self-actualization needs include “realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, and seeking personal growth and peak experiences”. This hierarchy has been used in many situations to prevent use of the “hammer and nail method” which has been shown not to work.

It is essential to demonstrate that the one-size fits all element of the “hammer and nail method” proves useless in many situations. When considering the physiological aspect of the human experience, it is essential to consider our health and determine ways we can prevent ourselves from becoming sick or dying prematurely. As such, the healthcare field has developed in order to find new ways to adequately diagnose and prevent diseases. Typically, doctors and nurses understand that each of their patients and their cases is unique because everyone has different biology. Age, previous illness, medications, and other demographic, biological, and socioeconomic factors make each patient unique. Even when a group of people share a similar disease, such as breast cancer, physicians are aware that they can’t treat all of their patients with the same drug because it will help treat the cancer for some people while it could actually hurt others.

Before doctors and nurses developed a unique approach to treating each one of their patients, the mortality rate from cancer was significantly high. Patients were all provided with the same treatments due to a lack of available technology before 1950. The primary method of treating cancer would be to remove the main tumor site. For many patients, this would remove a majority of the diseased cells, however, it would lead to a cure for some of the patients while it would lead to eventual death for others. People who were generally successful with this kind of surgery were newly diagnosed patients whose cancer hadn’t yet had a chance to spread; by removing the main tumor, the cancer was gone. However, other patients had cancer for a longer amount of time and therefore had many tumors throughout their body. As a consequence, removing the main tumor would not get rid of the cancer and the patient would eventually die. It is therefore clear that the “nail and hammer approach” is not useful to patients in this situation.

Eventually, doctors and researchers made many medical advances that helped develop different types of surgery and chemotherapy that would treat cancer patients based on their underlying biology in a method known as biomarker therapy. According to this theory, each person’s tumor cells have different proteins in them so the “nail and hammer approach” won’t be able to maximally help all patients even when standard chemotherapy is used in addition to surgical techniques. Doctors found that small groups of people have similar proteins, and different drugs can be used to attach to the tumors. Now when someone gets breast cancer, the doctor will perform a genetics screen on them to look at their specific proteins and the patient will be prescribed a treatment regimen based on the specifics of their disease. It is now unlikely that two patients will be following exactly the same treatment plan and treatment without relapse has improved and the death rate of the disease has significantly decreased. Because the doctors realized that they needed to replace the hammer with another tool and that their patients weren’t all nails, they have been able to save thousands of lives.

Another situation that people usually incorrectly use a one size fits all treatment is under the category that Maslow defines as “safety”. Safety is one of our basic human needs because it requires us to be protected from the elements; even early man required the ability to construct a dwelling or hide in a cave to ensure that they would remain healthy. Even though humans live in many different types of houses depending on how much money we make, the size of our families, and where we want to live, protection from the elements is an absolute requirement for our well-being. Unfortunately however, there are many homeless and needy people who don’t have housing. While city governments and charitable organizations do try to help these people, we constantly either see the same people on the street or new ones too. Both organizations give money for homeless shelters, food, job programs, and other necessities for homeless people, yet we still see these people on the streets and their situation is not improving. It is therefore necessary that we begin to recognize these homeless people as unique people and what is helpful for one person may not be for the next. In addition, we must consider that there are different reasons these people live on the streets.

Governments and charitable organizations who wish to assist homeless people make a major mistake by adopting the “nail and hammer approach”. Many government workers and volunteers assume that the typical homeless person lost their job, have no family to turn to, and are generally out of luck. They assume that providing people with homeless shelters, they will take advantage of them. However, they fail to consider the other reasons that people could be living on the street and reasons why they may not want to move into a homeless shelter. Firstly, a lot of people who live on the street were once in psychiatric care and are no longer are on their medications because they don’t have the ability to take care of themselves; these people are regularly in and out of mental institutions and enjoy the freedom of being on their own on the street because it is their one chance to control their lives. According to Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”, this is an example of esteem. Furthermore, there are people who wish to live on the street together as a family rather than risk separation, those who don’t wish to conform to the rules of the homeless shelter, and those who simply prefer to live on the streets as a choice. This all involves the concept of “independence”.

In the above example, the homeless people are really in need of “esteem” while we try to offer them “safety”. As a consequence, it is important to understand what one group of people wants and needs is not equivalent to what another group wants and needs. For many people who have never been homeless, it seems strange that a homeless person would not want to live in a home out of the elements. However, since many of these people lost control and want to gain it back, this is their way of doing so. If the government and charitable organizations truly wish to assist the homeless people living in the streets, they must abandon their “nail and hammer approach” and begin to think the same way that the people they are trying to help do. They will be able to do a lot more good by providing them with control than giving them housing.

In conclusion Abraham Maslow’s quote reflects his “Hierarchy of Needs” which dictates the unique needs of people. Although his hierarchy is a pyramid shape, he emphasizes that people have different needs and need to fulfill different aspects of these needs. As such psychologists, sociologists, and people in general need to shift from treating similar problems as the same and begin to focus on differences and unique solutions. It is essential to prevent oneself from solving a problem using the “nail and hammer approach” because nothing will be accomplish. Maslow was ahead of his time in this recognition and has allowed us to restructure the way we address our problems and their solutions have become more effective.