A Psychology for the Peace Table

At the beginning of World War II Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist, was moved to tears by a patriotic parade. He wrote: 'As I watched, the tears ran down my face. I felt we didn't understand - not Hitler, nor the Germans, nor Stalin, nor the Communists. We didn't understand any of them. I felt that if we could understand, then we could make progress.... It was at that moment that I realised that the rest of my life must be devoted to discovering a psychology for the peace table... I wanted to prove that human beings are capable of something grander than war and prejudice and hatred. I wanted to make science consider all the problems that nonscientists have been handling - religion, poetry, values, philosophy, art.

I went about it by trying to understand great people, the best specimens of mankind I could find'.

[From Motivation and Personality by Abraham Maslow, Third Edition. Revised by Robert Frager, James Fadiman, Cynthia McReynolds and Ruth Cox]