After too long of a hiatus, Scott Barry Kaufman, who's a humanistic psychologist, exploring
the depths of human potential. He's author of the book Transcend the New Science of Self
Actualization. It's great to have you back on.
Thanks. It's great to talk to you again. That was a fun one last time.
So so let's say I have a feeling this one will. Will also be. So two words in the title
of your book, which we should just directly get into because they can mean different things
to different people. Transcendence. First of all. And self actualization. What what
do you mean in your use of those words? What what is self actualization and what are we
looking to transcend to will words. Right. Right. Here I am. I'm a scientist.
You know, I think there's. I start off on that. Say, I think there can
be a lot of wisdom in the world. And I but I've been trying to scientifically put this
on a foundation that's grounded in as much evidence as possible. So Abraham Maslow, the
humanistic psychologist who really was a big inspiration for me in writing this book, viewed
self actualization as whatever that unique part of you that really makes it come alive.
That makes you creative. That really shows the world and that you truly existed when
you were here on this planet. Transcendence, which is something that that Maso does the
later years of his life really felt was missing from his hierarchy of needs. He he saw it
as a great connectedness to others, having being at one with your values. But these what
he called the B values the values of being itself. So values which are no longer A means
to another end. You know, you've transcended having values that are that are perhaps selfishly
oriented, but really get outside of yourself. Is your sense that as you have worked in this
field now for some time and you, of course, are familiar with the history of it and where
the field is now, is your sense that there there will ever really be an achievement of
what a lot of these processes point to? Or is it more this idea that the journey really
is the process? And there is no end point at which we say self actualization has now
happened and and we're done. Transcendence has happened and we're done.
Oh, gosh, what a boring life that would be if you just if you reach transcendence. Then
you were done, right? You what? You just. Watch Netflix. Watch the binge. Watch Cobra
Kai. The rest of your life, I guess. Yeah. No, I'm all about the process, really. And
I actually define the process of becoming a whole person. A never ending process. It's
a process of integration. You can't just consoli things we have to integrate. We are integrating
various warring factions within ourselves. But it's a never ending process, integrating
warring factions outside of ourselves as well. I mean, we have various viewpoints and other
people, various viewpoints. And these days everyone's to wrap their head up. That having
this sense of the north star of Sol Factorization or having a north star of transcendence means
that you're always moving towards. It's like, you know, you're never going to.
You can see the moon. You can walk. Try to walk towards the moon. You're never space
walk to the moon. I mean, maybe someday we'll be able to get to the moon by other means.
But you know what? Just having that self acquisition or transcendence as this this this moon that
you always see in front of you and that you're working towards, I think is a great North
star to have. But it doesn't make any sense that you're
going to actually achieve it. One of the things that's common in in philosophy
and, you know, reading the theory of different philosophers. This doesn't apply to all, but
it applies to many. It's the idea that a particular philosophical approach to life is almost like
a grand theory in the sense that it is the explanation for how things came to be the
way they are or how humans should interact with the world. Or it it purports to be a
sort of self-contained package that tells you not everything you need to know in a literal
sense, but in terms of an approach to living covers a lot of the ground. It seems to me,
and correct me if I'm wrong, that you have a sort of different approach, that there is
no such one prescription, so to speak. That's right. I mean, I I cringed, quite frankly,
when I see a lot of things in the self in space and not cringe for one reason, they're
so out of touch with science and the actual evidence, you might have some hyper narcissistic
gurus or something or or people who are trying to sell a product who because they thought
of it, you know, then they're like, oh, it's brilliant. But but the way science works is
that I have so many ideas in grad school, for instance, that I woke up in the middle
and I, I, I'm brilliant, brilliant. And I presented it to my advisor and I got a reality
check and I was like, actually, that's doesn't make any sense, you know.
So. So, you know, being a scientist means you need that humility. Right.
And so I think that the best way forward is to understand that different their individual
differences. You know, I I've studied personality science and you realize that people are on
different paths of self actualization. We need to be as accepting as we can of other
peoples. This might sound weird, but sacred journey, you know, I mean, there's a sacred
aspect to each person, you know. That's what Mars was trying to get. It was self actualization.
He said we don't try to change roses until lilies. We tried to make a rose into a good
rose. And, you know, I think that that's that's really the philosophy behind this, is that
you need to find out what works for you. You need to find out what what path fits your
unique constitution, unique talents. You need to strengthen your personality. You know,
when you see these days is there are a lot of people who are trying to tell other people
how they should live their life. And it it's really it's really, truly unfortunate.
I want to get to how much of this is about the individual, but how much of it is the
context in which the individual lives, meaning society on planet Earth at a particular point
in time. But to open that conversation, we hear a lot about, you know, social media makes
people less happy because you're constantly comparing your life to the lives of others.
Technology, shorter attention. You know, there's this idea that things are really bad right
now in terms of happiness because of particular characteristics about society today. How would
you answer the question of whether people on balance are less happy today than they
were at some point in the past? Well, you know, if you look at every generation,
no one is ever happy in the history of the human species. There's always been I mean,
there's been obviously prosperous times and there's been droughts. There's been horrible
times right now where, you know, we're going through a historic moment now, which. You
know, 500 years from now, they'll probably talk about us as a really difficult time,
but but it is to be part of human nature, to never be content, to never be satisfied,
to always strive for more. To always be unsatisfied with the attainment of our basic needs. Now,
there are few people who really can cultivate a really deep mindfulness practice, who cultivate
a really as a practice where they're seeking wisdom and the wisdom they are seeking. Is
that enough ness, you know? But I do think it's it's part of human nature. Every generation,
you know, you have you have people complaining. You know, it's not like it's that unique.
You know, there's there's some people had argued that this is the narcissistic generation,
you know that. But then. And then and then there's some criticism that came out. Well,
actually, you know, every generation of it's just kids narcissistic, you know, unless you
eradicate from the gene pool, you know, youth, you're not going to eradicate narcissism to
it to a large degree. There's there there certain things that are
reoccurring because they're part of human nature.
What do you make of the I not what do you make of. But how should the average person
who's trying to figure out their path to deal with the very present conflicts that exist
between different philosophies and idea? So. So it's just like one example. The mindfulness
movement has has become very in vogue over the last 10 to 15 years. And meditation, as
part of the path to self actualization and transcendence is something that many people
are talking about. On the other hand, if you look at the ancient stoic philosophers like
Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and others, they are not so big necessarily on meditation in
the sense of clearing the mind and is sort of sort of focusing on breathing and the like.
And they have a different approach about sort of the practical steps that someone might
take to solve some of the issues that we might look to meditation for help with. It seems
to be sort of a conflict, at least to some degree. How can the average person navigate
with that as one example and of course, hundreds of others? The conflicts between these different
ideas about how to how to live presently and transcend for lack of a better term.
Well, it's a great question, and I think it goes back to your earlier question about is
there one way to live a good life? I taught at Columbia. I taught this course the science
of living well. And I a whole history lecture where I go through in-depth different conceptualizations
of what a good life entails throughout the course of human history. And my goal for my
students is to see what resonates within the most. I mean, you do you have the, you know,
the right holidays. I love that guy. You know, I thought he's been on my podcast a lot of
times, and he he's gung ho about the S2P, about the Stello trade. But that doesn't mean
that everyone has to be as gung ho about the Stoke. Some people might resonate more with
some of the things the Buddha said. Some people might resonate more with what David Pakman
says. You know, like like you you really have to open up the space that that no one discovered
the ultimate truth that works for everyone and all of humanity. No one. The Stoics didn't.
Certainly. Now, what could be an interesting question is what which philosophy is closest
to the science? Is cost actually, what the science shows is most likely to lead to a
good life? That's a reasonable question. And what's the answer to that one? Oh, good. I've
never answered that. In public before. Because I'm very wary of a. You know, some sort of
like a fight saying there's the winner being moving. But. I think that there are the science
shows that there is there are grains of truth in all of them. And then my talent, a bit
of a cop out answer, but it does, too. Yes, it does. In our head to Lake. Mix and match,
you know. So if I was. Well, actually, that's what I tried to do in my book. Transcend,
to be honest, is I didn't put it to a particular ancient philosophy. I tried to present a integrated
framework of what all the science looks like. So my preferred approach is science. My preferred
approach is to take the what we know best and put together into an integrated scientific
framework as opposed to a philosophical framework that's untested. Now, though, that might be
fighting words to some philosophers. But about a philosopher, I'm a psychologist.
There are people who will no doubt listen to this conversation and they'll say, guys,
you're missing the boat. This is not about Maslow. This is not about stoicism. There
is no way that anybody can really self actualize and transcend unless we deal with the structural
problems in society. When we had some people might point to neo liberalism. Others will
point to capitalism. Some will point to the military industrial complex or inequality.
And they will say what you're doing is like a retail strategy. But unless you do the wholesale
first, you're not going to get there. What would you say to that argument?
Well, I think it's funny that you use the word boat, because that's my new hierarchy
of needs metaphor is a sailboat. So I, I very much take into account and appreciate the
fact that we can't have too many holes in our boat or too much insecurity or too much
stressors on the boat itself for us. We're not going to go anywhere. But I also try to
point to the fact that we must not neglect our higher possibilities either. So this is
very much in the spirit of what Maslow talked about. And I'm really trying to bring back
a lot of these ideas and make the argument that we need to work on both. We need to work
on security. And we also need to work on growth to get too stuck in talking about secure insecurity
and and, you know, safe spaces and and systemic of all these things, which are fair enough.
But if we talked too much about it, we can start to neglect and forget that there's still
beauty in the world. We can start to forget that there are still opportunities, no matter
what, how dire your current circumstances are. There are still opportunities for meaning,
making their opportunities for connection. In fact, if you if you get too caught up in
what MASO called the deficiency realm of human existence and neglect the be realm or the
being realm, a growth realm. You actually start neglecting all these amazing opportunity
for connection that may exist because you're so focused on grievances.
Let's pause our conversation with Scott Barry Kaufman there.
We will
have the full conversation in its total glory on the David Pakman show, YouTube channel,
YouTube dot com slash The David Pakman Show The David
Pakman Show David Pakman dot com.