Abraham Maslow has created a table of the opposing values of what he calls the “Old Paradigm of Protection Values” and the “Emerging Paradigm of Grown Values”. [This material was taken from an e-mail, which quoted from Millennium: Glimpses into the 21st Century, copyright 1980 Marilyn Ferguson, edited by K. Dychtwald and A. Villoldo.]
Maslov’s Hierarchy of Values is a significant contribution in our understanding of where the human race might actually be heading. There is the sense in the growth of the Indigo Children, and the race toward 2012 A.D., that such changing values may constitute a major factor in the salvation of the planet Earth -- and that strange, often arrogant species which currently inhabits it. There is also the connection to a male patriarchal mode of thinking as the “Old Paradigm” and a more balance male-female sovereignty in the future. The Paradigm Shift is thus more than merely the technological features of Paradigms, but one involving the very personal view we have of ourselves and our societies.
These changing values may also be available to anyone ready to make their own personal Descent into the Underworld, either in the form of experiencing a spiritual initiation or inadvertently (i.e. unconsciously) taking the path, blithely unaware. In either case, it still gets you where you least expect it.
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| Old Paradigm of Protection Values |
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Emerging Paradigm of Growth Values |
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| Safety: Avoiding risk. Protection via external restraints and constraints; Rules, burglar alarms, and borders to define the places safe from danger, "us" versus "them"; survival is a goal. |
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Spontaneity: Freedom, Willingness to risk and move into the unknown, Survival is assumed. |
| Comfort: Avoiding pain, threats to belief systems, or contradictions; Strive to maintain the status quo at all costs. |
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Meaning: Willingness to confront life as it is, including uncomfortable contradiction and/or paradox. Tolerance of ambiguity. |
| Image: Meeting or exceeding cultural expectations; Conforming to norms and fitting oneself to the "job description"; Status and role valued. |
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Authenticity: Meeting or exceeding one's own expectations; Willingness to diverge from cultural norms out of integrity and/or curiosity. Flexibility; Acceptance of other's nonconformity. |
| Self-control: Ability to restrain one's emotional responses and control of the situation. Repression of anger, fear, sexuality, sentiment. Self-indulgent, an anesthetic against fear for people. |
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Self-knowledge: Awareness of feelings and their role in behavior; Transformation of fear and anger thru self-understanding and trust; Inner confidence from having let go of illusions and survived fear. |
| Ego defenses: Protection of one's self-image by making others wrong or by rationalizing one's behaviors and beliefs. Feeling right or righteous. |
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Vulnerability: The "transparent self" that acknowledges its weakness and draws from its strong points. It does not identify with the ego's need to be perfect. |
| Permanence: Effort to memorialize or freeze the past. Longevity, preservation of traditions, long-range commitments, repeating and recalling past triumphs. |
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Potential: Recognition of the dynamics and flux of life, the impossibility of holding the present moment; Belief that change represents possibility, a future whose capacity to surprise is relished, not feared. |
| Information: Having answers, facts, training, experience, data; Being sure. |
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Insight: Asking the right questions, eager to learn; Acceptance of uncertainty. |
| Adjustment: Human beings are seen as limited in what they can accomplish; Effort if futile; Poverty, starvation and war are inevitable. Belief in human limitations, which excuses from effort. |
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Aspiration: Human beings have built great cathedrals, flown to the moon. Any of us might accomplish something beyond the ordinary; belief in unlimited human potential. |
| Power over others: Being boss, top dog, judge, authority, or being helpless, manipulative, flattering, coercive. |
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Power with others: Cooperation, mutual support, communications, alignment. |
| Feeling superior to others: More attractive, intelligent, successful and/or harder working. Protection from feeling inadequate by being special. |
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Feeling connected to others: Total acceptance of oneself; Identifying with all human traits. |
| Freedom from responsibility: Sense of impotence, Scapegoatology; What ever happened was the fault of others, social forces, and/or fate. Feelings of Woundology. |
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Freedom in responsibility: Sense of one's personal self-empowerment. Past choices acknowledged, and sense of being able to choose in the future. Power to change based on taking responsibility. |
