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Updated Wednesday, October 21, 2009 9:27 am TWN, The China Post news staff

Time for societal evolution in Taiwan

Taiwan has evolved a great deal. A visitor who first came to Taiwan in the 1960s would likely not be able to recognize much of this nation just one generation later.

The major cities of Taiwan have made enormous strides towards “livability.” Just in the last decade, Kaohsiung City has seen a metamorphosis from a heavily polluted industrial center to a town filled with ultra-modern infrastructure such as world-class stadiums and a new MRT system. Kaohsiung has gone beyond infrastructure and has begun to embrace a more holistic approach to living. After former mayor Frank Hsieh and current Mayor Chen Chu established bicycle trails, riverside cafes, coastal paths, leisure areas and open “green” spaces, today Kaohsiung City is on the path to becoming Taiwan's best place to live. Likewise, Taichung City is moving forward. Under the auspices of Mayor Jason Hu, Taichung has blossomed into a cultural hub and the city now sports some very attractive urban architectural designs as well.

Abraham Maslow was a Jewish-American psychologist who is best remembered for coming up with a concept known as “Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.” Maslow thought of humanity's requirements as a pyramid with the most basic needs at the bottom. Critical needs, according to Maslow, are physiological.

We all have to breathe, wear clothes and find shelter from the elements. Without these basic physiological needs, happiness or satisfaction in life would obviously be impossible. As soon as we've satisfied these essential needs, Maslow's pyramid moves on to the next tier: safety needs, including things such as basic financial security, good heath and freedom from attack. When this tier is satisfied, Maslow says we move to social needs such as links with family, having friends and finding a mate.

The next level is self-esteem. We all have a need to be respected and when all the other levels of life are satiated, we can focus on getting people to respect us. Finally, Maslow says humans are able to work on the final apex of the pyramid: self-actualization — or a kind of transcendence — which can lead to creativity, morality, openness, a lack of prejudice and other positive effects.

Maslow has been criticized by his modern peers, but many accept his basic idea — that each more basic need must be attended to before upward progress can be made. If we view Taiwan as an individual, it's easy to see that this person has made it through the first few levels of Maslow's pyramid.

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October 22, 2009 eddie@

Taiwanese society is so far away in terms of self-actualization from Japanese society that comparing the two is pretty much pointless.

October 22, 2009 in.sanxia@

eddie is absolutely correct. Until we respect our neighbors, we will be a Banana Republic, where it is dangerous to cross the street and breath the air. What happened to the morality teaching we use to have in school before the DPP came to power? Almost everyone thinks of only their own comfort and convenience.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.....

October 22, 2009 elumpen@

One sign that Taiwan is still an immature society is that articles like this tend to conclude with 'look at Japan/Switzerland/USA', as if these societies represent models that can be aspired to and (should be) emulated. Yes, there are elements of other societies that are admirable, but they're usually bound up in some complex way with other elements of their culture. Until Taiwanese can thoughtfully and objectively assess their own culture and generate their own ideas, not much will change. Perhaps the first thing to fix would be education, which discourages (punishes, in some cases) freewheeling thought.

October 27, 2009 jensdamm@

""What happened to the morality teaching we use to have in school before the DPP came to power?" What a nonsense! Crossing a street was a nightmare 20 years ago despite KMT morality teaching. It is better (not good) today, but anyway: younger people offering seats to elder and handicapped (unknown in the good old times of KMT rule), cities are cleaner, Taipei and Kaohsiung changed only when they had DPP mayors (but the successors from the KMT in Taipei followed that course with urban planning, MRT and bicycle paths) .. who made illegal mainlander settlements in Taipei to Parks? Who introduced a national health insurance? Who fought for MRT and High Speed Rail ... either Lee Tenghui or the DPP, not the old KMT and only to some degree the new KMT.


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