Opening the Black Box: Reconsidering Needs Theory Through Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory (Report‪)‬

I. Introduction This paper is an attempt to address the challenge posed by Richard E. Rubenstein in his article, "Basic Human Needs: The Next Steps in Theory Development" (Rubenstein, 2001). The very last line of the article reads, "How can the basic needs that, unsatisfied, generate destructive social conflict be identified, described, and satisfied?" Let me emphasize that this question does not appear at the beginning of the paper, which the body of the paper attempts to address, but rather comes at the end, leaving the status of needs a problem yet to be resolved. Why is the theory of human needs--Burton's "great promise", according to Rubenstein--so problematic? In one way, it seems so simple and ^problematic. What can be more clear and indubitable than the fact that every human being on earth has needs for material sustenance; to eat, for instance? If such needs are obstructed, then it seems equally clear that some action will be taken, perhaps one that will lead to conflict. A little less obvious, yet still almost universally agreed upon is the idea that there are needs that do not directly bear upon material sustenance like recognition and freedom from coercion that must also not be obstructed lest there be undesirable consequences.