Cat’s Cradle and the Threads of Maslow’s Humanistic Meditation

Abstract

Abraham Maslow used “Toward a Humanistic Biology,” published in 1969, to present his future vision of the challenges humankind would face in the growing isolation of persons from each other and themselves. Depersonalization, polarization, and loneliness amid the state of post-pandemic, mid-culture war, warring nations, plagues of economic hardship, racism, nationalism, immigration rejection, and wading deep into a climate cataclysm may cast people out of their societies, or, alternately, huddled alone within them. Ultimately, political power dictates outcomes, as Maslow points out, along with the fate of the world. Mindfulness and its capacity to create more serene and compassionate mind states may hold a model for a new humanistic revolution.