Bellystar Sneetches Analysis

Valentin Weidlich
Dr. White
Psychology
2.5.2018
Maslows Connections
Abraham Harold Maslow was a psychologist who tried to explain human needs, with the help of a hierarchy system. At the bottom of the “Needs Pyramid” are the psychological needs, this needs must be fulfilled to get a chance to comply all the other, less necessary, but still important, needs. Maslow said that “Self-Actualization” is on the top of the “Needs Hierarchy” for most people.
We watched a short clip about Sneetches, the clip had the purpose to show us an example of “Maslows Hierarchy of Needs”, and how the hierarchy can change in groups. The clip was about the “Bellystar Sneetches” and the Sneetches without stars on their bellies. Both group of Sneetches looked exactly the same, the only had one thing not in common, the stars on their bellies. The “Bellystar Sneetchs” were the dominant race because of their stars, and they did not want to have anything to do with the not “Bellystar Sneetches”. This clip showed us how

we subordinate self-actualization, which is among others about morality and esteem, which is among others about respect of others, to be part of a group (need for belonging). If we look at this example we can see that we always try to stick to the “Hierarchy of Needs” we try to comply the more important needs before the “less important“ needs.
Which leads us to the next example of people subordinate needs to comply other needs.

This time it is about two different communities, the jewish and the catholic community. Both buildings, the church and the synagogue are built in the same street, actually right counterpart of each other, but the jewish narrator tells us in his story that he was not allowed to interact with the christian people (same at the Sneetches Story). Furthermore he tells us that one day a guy from his community told the police that a father of the jewish community (which is his community) is abusing his son. A lot of people knew about it but they just closed their eyes to the reality, and after the man informed the police about the criminal activities which were going on he got kicked out of the community. They knew that something wrong was going on but nobody dared, or wanted to inform the police about it. That shows us again how people subordinate morality and respect of others to group

conventions.
I can not think of a solution for this problem, because I think that we do not follow the needs hierarchy on purpose, I think it is a subconscious process, that means we can not control it, or we can only barely controle it.