60 Principles
Members of the LGBTQ+ community need a worldview which includes them – just like everyone else.
Worldviews encompass belief systems and presuppositions which inform our understanding of the world, our attitudes, and our behaviors.
They offer comfort, support, purpose, historical context, hope, a better understanding of the universe and a view to the future. In fact, we can have all those benefits and still be gay.
For two millennia, the dominant worldview in the West has been based on religion, an epistemology that relies on others telling us what God’s will is. Preeminent in this worldview are the precepts that God created human beings, that we are sinful, and, therefore, we need redemption. In the end, we will be judged by an almighty and all-knowing being who will determine whether we go to heaven or hell.
Although science has contributed greatly to our understanding of the universe, particularly over the last two and a half centuries, religion has been little affected by this knowledge. The knowledge provided by science is directly available to anyone employing the scientific method. It does not depend on access to individuals to whom God has revealed truth.
So, the following worldview attempts to take advantage of this new understanding of reality in all its forms. Specifically, it focuses on the following broad categories:
- Dignity and Human Worth
- Maslow’s Needs
- Human Progress
- The Role of Empathy
- The Nature of Human Organizations
- Conflict
- Violence and Peace
- The Future
Worth
Worth
1. Every human being on the planet has worth.
Inviolability
2. This worth derives from a dignity which is inviolable. No person can surrender their dignity voluntarily or involuntarily whether by word or deed.
Inalienability
3. Further, no person or persons acting alone or in concert, such as under the guise of religion, government or otherwise can in any way deprive another of their dignity.
Unconditional
4. What this means is that you have worth regardless of what you have said or done and irrespective of what you might do in the future.
Others
5. This also means that others have similar worth—even those who have or would hurt you.
Maslow’s Needs
Hierarchy of Needs
6. Key to understanding the worldview presented here is discerning the motivational Theory of the Hierarchy of Needs posited by the world-renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Five Categories
7. All human beings have basic needs, the same basic needs. These needs motivate our behavior. Maslow identified five Categories of needs:
-
- Physiological,
- Safety and Security,
- Love and Belonging,
- Esteem and
- Self-actualization.
Each category has subneeds.
Examples
8. For example, human beings according to Maslow have needs for both sex and sexual intimacy. Maslow states that sex itself is a Category One need-Physiological. Sexual Intimacy is a Category Three Belonging need. Security in Employment and Safety in the Home are Category Two needs. Of course, there are many others.
The Oxygen Mask
9. You and only you are responsible for meeting your own needs, regardless of the obstacles you face and this is your first and primary responsibility. Like an oxygen mask dropping down from an airplane, you must first take care of yourself before helping others.
Formidable Obstacles
10. The obstacles one faces can be formidable, such as being born into poverty, living in a homophobic environment, having a physical disability or suffering from mental illness. Whatever is on your plate is what you personally have to deal with.
Internal Harmony
11. Human needs do not have any internal conflict when juxtaposed to each other. We are designed to meet all of our needs without sacrificing one for the other. Society may create unnecessary conflicts—this does not negate the internal harmony of human needs.
Co-Existing
12. Similarly, your needs do not present conflicts for others. We are designed to co-exist, each having the ability to meet their own needs without interfering in the needs of others. Fear of another does not justify interference.
Shifting Responsibility
13. You cannot shift this responsibility of meeting your own needs to another person, even if that other person has promised to help you meet your needs. A spouse does not, for example, ever become responsible for your happiness.
Right of Self-Determination
14. With dignity comes the right of self-determination. This means that you have the right to determine how you will meet your own needs—so long as you do not interfere with those of others.
Rationale
15. Only you can weigh all the factors for making your own decisions and only you have to live with the consequences of those decisions.
Spiritual Need
16. Maslow did not recognize a spiritual need. Subsequent psychologists have. Spirituality can provide comfort, hope and meaning. Spirituality is separate from religion. Religion is a human institution through which some people express their spiritual needs. It is not a prerequisite for meeting the spiritual need. To understand spirituality, one must recognize that the spiritual is that which lies beyond one’s self and their environment.
Language
17. If you analyze the contents of your language, you will find that the vast majority of it is about meeting some form of need. The goal of the human species, after all, is to meet all the needs all the time.
Progress
Constancy of Needs
18. The needs which Maslow identified are independent of time and place. Alexander the Great, Ptolemy 1, and Genghis Kahn all had the same needs that members of our species who have yet to be been born will have.
Definition of Progress
19. The constancy of these needs offers an opportunity. With each generation we become better and better at meeting these needs. This is called progress.
Examples
20. One only has to look at the advances in artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, robotics, alternative forms of energy and quantum computing to appreciate how time benefits us. The modern-day automobile is far different than the Model T Ford. With modern medicine, air conditioning, airplane travel and instant worldwide communication, the average American lives better than the richest people alive in 1900. The Me-too, civil rights and gay rights movements, all borne of pain, are other examples of progress.
Pain and Pleasure
21. When Maslow’s needs go unmet, human beings experience pain. Pain is always a sign that there is something wrong. In fact, the only time we experience pain is when one of Maslow’s needs go unmet. When we satisfy these needs, we feel pleasure.
Source of Progress
22. This pain/pleasure principle is what propels us to make progress. We understand this intuitively. We rely on particular solutions to our needs only so long as they remain the most efficient, i.e. they produce the most pleasure and least amount of pain.
Culture
23. It is through culture that we spread new solutions to our contemporaries and future generations.
Backsliding
24. Sometimes, when we find solutions and then abandon them, we backslide. We fall back into old ways of doing things even though they are not the most efficient. The pain/pleasure principle discussed above serves to get us back on track.
Empathy
What Makes us Social Beings
25. Empathy is the ability to experience or understand the pain and pleasure of others. It is what binds us as social animals. When we seek solutions to problems, frequently, we are not doing it just for ourselves but for others as well.
Altruism
26. Human beings can and do feel as much pleasure helping others as helping themselves. MRI studies show that acts of altruism activate the reward part of our brains even though there is no direct benefit to the actor.
A Disadvantage
27. Not being able to empathize can be a decided disadvantage for an individual and for a nation whose leaders are without empathy. Anxiety and certain psychological conditions thwart empathy.
Path of Least Resistance
28. The path of least resistance is the course of action which most efficiently resolves pain for the sake of pleasure. We intuitively choose the path of least resistance.
Eliminating Fear
29. Eliminating fear can open up the path of least resistance.
Sin and Personal Responsibility
Positive Conditioning
30. Human beings respond most favorably to positive conditioning. Negative conditioning creates fear which can backfire on meeting needs.
Sin
31. Sin is an outmoded concept if for no other reason, it utilizes negative conditioning. Rejecting the concept of sin does not negate the concept of personal responsibility. If you “behave badly”, this does not mean that you become a bad person. You never lose your worth. What it does mean is that you must face the natural consequences of your actions. In the course of human affairs, we sometimes harm others. When we do so, personal responsibility comes into play.
Righting a Wrong
32. When you harm another, it is incumbent on the offender to take five steps to right the wrong:
- Acknowledge the harm.
- Admit personal responsibility for it.
- Apologize.
- Make restitution to the extent possible.
- Vow not to repeat the harm.
Excuses
33. In the third step, it is important that one refrain from offering excuses or explanations for one’s conduct. Doing so shifts the focus from the needs of the person who has been hurt to the person doing the harm. The appropriate course is to apologize and allow the other person to react. Only if the opportunity arises afterwards should one offer an explanation for one’s conduct.
Outcome
34. These are the steps to keep progress moving in the right direction. If the person who has been harmed does not accept your apology and you have taken all five steps, there is nothing more that you can do.
Mindset
35. Another aspect to keep in mind is that if you have a growth mindset as the noted psychologist Carol S Dweck explains in her book Mindset, The New Psychology of Success, mistakes should be seen as opportunities to learn and not as personal failure. This applies to more than just harming others.
Organizations
Purpose
36. Organizations exist solely to meet one or more needs identified by Maslow.
Psychology of an Organization
37. All organizations have a psychology. This means that each organization determines for itself what need or needs it will attempt to meet and how it will go about doing so.
Founders and Overseers
38. The psychology of an organization is that of its founders as modified by its overseers (leaders). If the founder or leader acts out of fear, this will be reflected in the culture of the organization.
Examples
39. Governments, corporations and religions are examples of organization which have their own psychology.
Relevance
40. Organizations that meet human needs are said to have relevance. On the other hand, when organizations fail to meet human needs in the most efficient way, they risk the fate of becoming extinct. All one has to do to understand this is to look at the corporations which have come and gone, or the political organizations which have failed, or even the oracles of the ancient world that promoted the mythical gods of Mount Olympus.
Conflict
Definition
41. Conflict occurs when one party seeks to interfere in the needs of others. For example, if your spouse does not fulfill the needs you expected, you may, in turn, attempt to deprive your spouse of a similar or other need to force them to meet your demands. You may make them feel bad emotionally, hurt them physically or try to marginalize them. (This does not make for a great marriage.)
War
42. When one nation seeks to control another through war, this is another form of conflict. Conflict between countries always comes down to conflict between individuals and their psychology. These individuals are usually founders and overseers (leaders) of the countries.
Inefficiency
43. Interfering with someone’s needs is inefficient because it takes away time and opportunities that the transgressors could use to better meet their own needs.
Conflict Free
44. Because of our human psychology and the way nature designed us, we have the ability to live conflict-free. This requires overcoming fear and respecting each other’s right of self-determination.
Responding to Conflict
45. Human beings have the ability to endure insurmountable pain and not resort to conflict. That means that we have the ability to bypass the amygdala where the fight or flight response originates in our brain and to capitalize on our imagination, analysis and creativity the executive functioning part of our brain.
Material Needs
Material Needs
46. Some needs identified by Maslow require material resources which can be in limited supply. When resources are scarce, meaning there is not enough for every need or person, we must rely on economic systems to allocate these scarce resources fairly and justly.
Preventing Conflict
47. Justice is designed to prevent conflicts. The lack of sufficient resources for everyone does not necessitate conflict among individuals. Rather, it requires a commitment to fairness and justice, concepts which evolve over time.
Our Trajectory
48. We are on a trajectory to meet all material needs all the time. All one has to do is look at the progress being made by Nobel prize winners, entrepreneurs, business leaders, social activists and many others around the world to see where we are headed as a species.
Violence
Understanding Violence
49. Physical violence, at a minimum, results in deprivation of our Safety and Security needs. It is a classic example of others interfering in our Category 2 needs. Violence, particularly war, can affect the fulfillment of needs in other Maslow Categories as well.
Rate of Violence
50. If one subscribes to the notion that we are becoming more efficient at meeting our needs, it follows that the rate of violence should subside over time. That’s exactly what Harvard professor and psychologist Steven Pink says has happened over the last many millennia. In his book, The Better Nature of Our Angels Why Violence Has Declined, he presents compelling evidence that the rate of violence in all its forms has declined dramatically since the dawn of our species. Our ancestors were often quite savage. Even with the recent surge in gun violence across America and the war in Ukraine and Gaza, the overall trend of violence is downward dramatically.
Deterrence
51. This makes sense. We abjure pain and suffering caused by war and so are motivated to eliminate war. It is no accident that with respect to war, there are now numerous processes and institutions in place to deter war and promote peace. The United Nations is a perfect example. Our sophistication in eliminating personal violence has increased, also. The culture of most people reflects this fact.
War and Maslow’s Needs
52. War is a particularly painful form of violence. It is so painful because it disrupts the fulfillment of human needs on many levels. It can adversely affect needs in all five of Maslow’s Categories. War can deprive populations of certain Physiological needs, such as Food and Water, Safety and Security needs of the individual, their Family, and Community and destroy the opportunity to maintain Relationships given to Belonging. Self-actualization in such circumstances can become extremely difficult to achieve.
Kinds of Violence
53. According to Pinker, there are at least five kinds of violence:
- Predatory violence, which is a means to an end.
- Dominance, where one actor seeks supremacy over others.
- Revenge, an urge for retribution.
- Sadistic violence—finding pleasure in another’s suffering.
- Ideological violence—justification for unlimited violence.
Self-Defense
54. It is a basic tenet of this philosophy that people who engage in harmful acts do not lose their dignity. This does not mean we must endure their bad acts. In such cases, the right of self-defense is applicable.
Evil
55. Labeling a transgressor as evil suggests that evil exists in and of itself. Such labels are counterproductive to our evolution as a species because it implies that it has to be that way, that there is nothing we can do about bad behavior. Attitudes and behaviors can be evil, not people.
Changing the Past
56. While it is true that we cannot change the past, we should never give up on changing our culture so that transgressors do not arise in the future.
Interpretation of Pain
57. Understanding why people engage in violence may not eliminate the violence but it will prevent victims from adopting explanations of violence that does not blame the victim. For example, when a person is abused, they may adopt an attitude that they are the reason for the abuse. In reality, the transgressor is trying to solve one of his own problems in a harmful way. It has nothing do with the victim.
The Future
Creating the Future
58. We, as a species, are constantly becoming more efficient at meeting human needs. We are on course to one day met all the needs of all people all the time. This is a goal that should motivate all of us so that we can live in harmony. It is difficult to imagine how our species will have evolved when that day arrives. One thing is certain—we can best predict the future by creating it. This is exactly what we are doing.
World Peace
59. If we can overcome such existential threats as climate change and nuclear war, we face a future of limitless opportunities. World peace is not the end goal of our species but it is a prerequisite for the satisfaction of all needs.
Innately Peaceful
60. Because peace is the path of least resistance for achieving these goals, it is ultimately in our nature to desire peace and avert war and violence. When we don’t embrace peace, we experience pain. When we do achieve peace, we have the opportunity to flourish in the fulfillment of our needs. We are innately directed to peace. In other words, in the long run, we are in our very essence a peaceful species. This is who we are.