Social Justice and the Hierarchy of Needs

Yesterday I spoke on the theme of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs relative to self actualization. An interesting after-service conversation considered how social justice issues might be predicated on this famous hierarchy, that poverty and its injustices preclude an individual from ever participating in a value-rich life. That is, a person always concerned with securing food, shelter, and safety can hardly begin to consider healthy self-esteem let alone rise to self-actualization.

This morning an article The Obesity-Hunger Paradox in the NY Times sketched circumstances of hunger and obesity in the South Bronx: " A 2008 study by the city government showed that 9 of the Bronx’s 12 community districts had too few supermarkets, forcing huge swaths of the borough to rely largely on unhealthful, but cheap, food.

'“When you’re just trying to get your calorie intake, you’re going to get what fills your belly,” said Joel Berg, the author of “All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?” “And that may make you heavier even as you’re really struggling to secure enough food.'”

In my estimation there's insight here regarding the timeless debate regarding the influences of nurture versus nature. Circumstances matter, not a little but a lot in the formation of character. In this regard social justice, at its best, seeks to change circumstances for the better, so that a person might become all that he or she can be.