A Creative Adaptation to a World of Rising Shortages

Predictions for the future among intellectuals have swung in the recent past from an optimistic view of man's capabilities and a continuing abundance of material goods to a fatalistic pessimism regarding man's inability to respond adequately to current and imminent crises—the population explosion, limited food and resource supplies, and environ mental pollution, to name a few. Among the various predic tions, the only knowable aspect of the future is that it will be different from whatever is expected. The humanistic psy chology of Abraham Maslow, while at odds with most current views, holds that man's immutable needs for love, dignity and self-actualization separate him from the rest of the animal world, though he shares many basic animal needs which must be satisfied first. A critical question is at what point man will shift his attention from "acquisitive" values to "post- bourgeois," or nonmaterialistic, values. What effect will the recent economic downturn and energy crisis, as well as future shortages, have on society—a rededication to materialism, or the evolution of new societal values which de-emphasize con sumption in favor of Maslow's "higher" goals?