Some time back, casting about for a reason that roughly a third of the American population has been swept up in a collective mental illness, I suggested that feelings of threat and insecurity that have become increasingly widespread in American life have led many people to seek safety within cults and mass movements, citing the “safety needs” of the second level of Abraham Maslow’s well-known hierarchy of needs. But single-cause explanations are always suspect. The third level of Maslow’s hierarchy is the need for love, and as lack of security breeds anxiety and paranoia, lack of love produces loneliness. A sharply insightful article in
October 8, 2021
October 8, 2021
October 8, 2021
Some time back, casting about for a reason that roughly a third of the American population has been swept up in a collective mental illness, I suggested that feelings of threat and insecurity that have become increasingly widespread in American life have led many people to seek safety within cults and mass movements, citing the “safety needs” of the second level of Abraham Maslow’s well-known hierarchy of needs. But single-cause explanations are always suspect. The third level of Maslow’s hierarchy is the need for love, and as lack of security breeds anxiety and paranoia, lack of love produces loneliness. A sharply insightful article in