Lost and Found: A of Blanket of Understanding

Lost and Found: A of Blanket of Understanding

Each of us can recall a time when we felt unwanted and not part of the gang. Whether it was by not being picked first during that game of kickball or having to leave a friend at home because he/she was not able to come out and play home. Facing that drama of solitude can be unnerving. Fortunately, we as humans have developed ways to deal with solitude. One way is to enrich ourselves with like people creating a blanket of understanding that shrouds us in a feeling of acceptance.

According to John Maslow, a leading psychologist in the field of human motivation. We as humans have a predestined hierarchy of needs. Those needs are broken down into five basic levels of importance. The first need being least important and the last need being most important. Those needs are, physiological needs (water, air, food, sleep), security needs (steady job, insurance, place to live), social needs (love affection and belongingness), needs for esteem (personal worth social recognition, and accomplishment), the final need being self-actualization (to be aware of who you want o be and not concerned with what others think). As you can see social needs, the need for love affection and belongingness, are quite high on Maslow's Hierarchy. With this understanding in mind Kwame Appiah in the Essay "Moral Agreement", and Franklin Foer in the essay, "How soccer explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization", had a clear understanding of John Maslow and the human need of socialization.

In the book From Inquiry to Academic Writing, Kwame Appiah writes, "Thin concepts seem to be universal; we aren't the only people who have the concepts of right and wrong, good and bad; every society it seems has terms that correspond to these thin concepts, too. But there are thicker concepts still that really are peculiar to particular societies. And the most fundamental level of disagreement occurs when one party to a discussion invokes a concept that the other party simply doesn't have." (Greene and Lidinksy 380) That concept of understanding and misunderstanding divides us as a society. Furthermore, that division coupled with the human need to belong drives us to search for commonality. Take for example our government, sure we have many smaller government groups, we call them parties. However, our two most prevalent parties are the Democrats and the Republicans. These parties have formed distinct ideologies causing each side to establish an, us versus them mentality. Ironically, upon close examination these two distinctly contrasting groups both have the same ideology. It's just a matter of who comes up with the best idea first. In my opinion these groups are very similar they are just too proud to admit they could be only party for the good of all. Luckily, we as citizens of the United States have found commonality