Needs: Affection
The second in our series of post on needs
By Olivia Sprinkel
The Twitter chat (about ‘affection’) will take place on Friday, November 19, at 4 PM CEU, 3PM UK and 9:00 AM Central. The hashtag that organizes our tweet stream will be #creativistchat. We recommend the very simple, easy-to-use Twitter application TweetChat to follow and participate in these weekly chats.
I’m going to be bold enough to challenge Max Neef on this one. I am going to say that the third need should not be affection, it should be love. As the song goes, “Love is all you need”. “Affection is all you need” doesn’t quite have the same ring about it.
Gary Hamel in his article ‘The Hole in the Soul of Business’ challenges us to start using the language of love in business. He gives the example of John Mackey, founder of Whole Food Markets, who said that he wanted to build a company on love not fear. Gary Hamel asks “Why are words like “love,” “devotion” and “honor” so seldom heard within the halls of corporate-dom?”
In the interaction or settings part of the needs matrix, Max Neef lists ‘privacy, intimate spaces of togetherness’. He doesn’t mention the workplace. Or the communities that we live in. Why shouldn’t love or affection be part of the public sphere as well as the private? What would this change in our relationship with others?
In ‘being’, Max Neef includes ‘respect, sense of humour, generosity, sensuality’. This ties in with Erich Fromm’s description of love in ‘The Art of Loving’ – “Beyond the element of giving the active character of love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic elements, common to all forms of love. These are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge’. As Fromm says, love is primarily about giving, not receiving. So love is a need, but it starts with us – we can’t just be looking for love.
In ‘having’, Max Neef includes ‘friendships’ and ‘family’, which you would expect to find. I like the fact though that ‘relationships with nature’ is included. If we are in tune with nature, are we more open to being love?
Under ‘doing’, there are actions that you would expect – share, take care of, make love’. But it also includes ‘express emotions’. This reminded me of the practice of ‘Non-violent communication’ – at the heart of this is the expression of your emotions and needs. Learning how to express our emotions and needs in a non-violent way, that respects ourselves and those around us, is fundamental to successful, loving relationships – whether at home, in the workplace or in our communities.
As Erich Fromm wrote, ‘Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love’. Or as the sampler on my kitchen wall says, “Loving is living”. Love – all we need?
Notes