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  Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences

    Abraham H. Maslow

        Appendix E.   Preface to "New Knowledge in Human Values"
          (A. H. Maslow. Copyright 1959 by Harper and Row.)



    This volume springs from the belief, first that the ultimate disease of our time is valuelessness; second, that this state is more crucially dangerous than ever before in history; and finally, that something can be done about it by man's own rational efforts.
    The state of valuelessness has been variously described as anomie, amorality, anhedonia, rootlessness, emptiness, hopelessness, the lack of something to believe in and to be devoted to. It has come to its present dangerous point because all the traditional value systems ever offered to mankind have in effect proved to be failures (our present state proves this to be so). Furthermore, wealth and prosperity, technological advance, widespread education, democratic political forms, even honestly good intentions and avowals of good will have, by their failure to produce peace, brotherhood, serenity, and happiness, confronted us even more nakedly and unavoidably with the profundities that mankind has been avoiding by its busy-ness with the superficial.
    We are reminded here of the "neurosis of success." People can struggle on hopefully, and even happily, for false panaceas so long as these are not attained. Once attained, however, they are soon discovered to be false hopes. Collapse and hopelessness ensue and continue until new hopes become possible.
    We too are in an interregnum between old value systems that have not worked and new ones not yet born, an empty period which could be borne more patiently were it not for the great and unique dangers that beset mankind. We are faced with the real possibility of annihilation, and with the certainty of "small" wars, of racial hostilities, and of widespread exploitation. Specieshood is far in the future.
    The cure for this disease is obvious. Te need a validated, usable system of human values, values that we can believe in and devote ourselves to because they are true rather than because we are exhorted to "believe and have faith."
    And for the first time in history, many of us feel, such a system—based squarely upon valid knowledge of the nature of man, of his society, and of his works—may be possible.
    This is not to maintain that this knowledge is now available in the final form necessary for breeding conviction and action. It is not. What is available, however, is enough to give us confidence that we know the kinds of work that have to be done in order to progress toward such a goal. It appears possible for man, by his own philosophical and scientific efforts, to move toward self-improvement and social improvement.

Table of Contents
Appendix F


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