Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a fundamental thing you learn when you learn about learning (or so I learned). It goes from fundamental human needs (food, water, air) and rises up through safety, love, belonging and up to self-esteem and realising your potential. The needs get more sophisticated as they reach the top; in lectures at the Institute of Education, the hierarchy always reminded me of this excerpt from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams:
The history of every major galactic civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question ‘How can we eat?’ the second by the question ‘Why do we eat?’ and the third by the question ‘Where shall we have lunch?’
So, apropos of nothing at all, I present Maslow’s Hierarchy of Cheese. We all need cheddar. We can but aspire to Pont l’Eveque.
