Maslow x The Club ft. Nelly Furtado

Can a 78 year old psychology theory be satisfied by The Club?

Aug 20, 2021

Welcome to Edition 16 of Laughing Stock, our thinly veiled ‘music writing’ newsletter. This week, the kids jolt Rich Walker’s memories of his Business Studies A-Level, prompting him into deep rumination on whether or not Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can be fulfilled by The Club.

Ah, A-Level and GCSE results time. Young people’s hopes and dreams are either thrillingly realised, or hopelessly crushed by grades on some cheap paper stuffed into a brown envelope, representing your work (or lack thereof) over a two year period. Those pieces of paper are an entry or exit ticket, one way or the other. Entry into the next stage of education in whatever form that may take, academic or vocational, or exit from the scholastic environment into the somewhat harsher ‘real world’ of trying to work for a living (of course, they can also be both an entry and exit ticket, for those lucky/wealthy enough to gain a year’s deferred entry to university, choosing to exit in the short term for what is commonly known as a ‘gap yar’ to find oneself). Yet for some reason, despite the joyous pictures of smiling youths, inspiring stories of adversity overcome, vacuous celebrity platitudes, and the ‘back in my day you had to get 99.9% just to get a C grade’ discourse, the main thing that springs to my mind when exam results day comes round is a 78 year old non-scientific psychology theoretical framework.

I didn’t do psychology at A-Level, yet I am intimately acquainted with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (MHoN). I know its ins and outs because it was also taught in Business Studies, that bizarre subject that for some unknown reason I chose to do over History, despite not having any interest in ‘business’ and, to my knowledge, never having used anything from it in my adult life. Until, perhaps, now. In Business Studies (BS for short?) MHoN was applied to motivating workers in the workplace, as far as I can remember, in that in order to get the best out of them owners and managers need to meet the most basic needs of their workers to motivate them to achieve higher level needs, and thus become better workers. In its most basic form, the model consists of 5 levels, from ‘physiological needs’ through to ‘self actualisation’ (although later models add up to 8 layers in - for simplicity and brevity, the smaller version will be used here). This is most commonly represented in the form of a pyramid:

I don’t quite know why MHoN springs to mind when I think of my mid-level education. I learnt many other much more valuable and interesting things from my English and Media Studies A-Levels, but for some reason the Hierarchy sticks with me. Maybe it’s the absurdity that work could ever propel you to ‘self actualisation’? Maybe it’s the fact that the 78 year old theory is still taught when many more useful things could be applied? (there are many criticisms of the model for another day). Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because actually yes, it’s quite a functional and adaptable model that can be applied to all sorts of contexts. I have also been missing going out properly. It was here that I found myself thinking, as one does…‘can Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs be applied to The Club’. So here we are.

Physiological Needs

For the avoidance of confusion, ‘The Club’ (always capitalised to denote its absolute importance) refers to that space, wherever or whatever that space may be, where people come together to worship at the altar of a DJ. It can be a sticky carpeted palace on Rochdale high street; it can be a derelict car garage in the depths of Salford; it can be a ‘super club’ in the midst of Smithfield Market. The Club is The Club and should be respected as such. It cares not for cool, it cares only that it houses a good time for its inhabitants via the medium of fucking loud music and community (more of which later).

But does The Club satisfy the most basic of Maslow’s needs? Of course it does, it’s a place, normally within at least three walls and with some semblance of a roof, where one can spend an entire day/night/morning out of the elements. There are usually readily available drinks, if you are lucky there may be a hatch in which to pick up food, and as explored in this Laughing Stock piece, you may also be able to pick up some club related clothing (do not do this). Once you have negotiated the outside queue, The Club, definitively, has everything else you need to satisfy your physiological needs. Some clubs (in Berlin, naturally), literally provide shelter for those in need. Tick!

Safety Needs

Dance and electronic music, born out of the underground, always has, and always will, attract the weirdos, the underrepresented, the outcasts, the cultured, the inquisitive, the marginalised; basically all the best kinds of people. It’s because of this that The Club can provide a safe haven for any type of subculture, any kind of gathering of people who need to find their own place in the world with a group of like minded people also looking for that connection. The Club is a place where people can come and seek refuge and be utterly themselves for 12 hours, out of the glare of the real world, in a dark, sweaty box filled with kindred spirits. It is a place where people can find a community and feel part of something bigger.

It is integral that LQBTQ+ communities, PoC communities, disabled communities, and many others have safe spaces to celebrate their collectives, and The Club can do this. As Tom Rasmussen so eloquently put it in this Vice article on safe spaces in clubs:

‘So we build clubs, cafes, bars and homes away from home. We build spaces to recharge. We build spaces, as marginalized communities, to feel like we are celebrated, heard, seen, represented. These spaces make us feel valid, powerful, sexual, loved’

In countries where LGBTQ+ people live in the shadow of constant danger of violence and oppression as in Poland, The Club community has come together to fight back via electronic music. With the call to arms ‘We Dance Together, We Fight Together’ as their motto, organisations are providing safe spaces where queer people can both celebrate and plan social action. In Georgia, clubbing is intrinsically linked to politics, providing oppressed young people with a place to meet others to fight against their right wing government. There are raids, there are arrests, but the communities pop up in new places, rebuilding, fighting back. The Club enables this.

Of course, there are problems, and not all safe spaces are actually safe at all (trigger warning for link - Orlando club shooting). Our own government’s boneheaded idea to put undercover police in clubs to help make people feel safer is so far from what is needed it’s unbelievable it was actually leaked to the press as a policy consideration. Yet despite these issues, The Club has, and always will, provide a safe haven for minority communities to come together and celebrate their spectacular diversity. The Club passes the ‘Safety Needs’ level.

Belonging Needs

Belonging needs are inseparable from the safety needs explored above. The Club providing a safe space for people of all backgrounds to come together in turn satisfies the need for belonging. At The Club you can find like minded people, and it can be exhilarating and liberating. You can find your place in the world by becoming part of a scene, a regular, a part of The Club furniture. You can meet people who share your interests and who want to share those interests with you. You can discover new things you never knew you were into, you can explore with no judgement. The dancefloor is democratic.

I found a place at the Erol Alkan run Trash club night in London in the early to mid 00s, which helped me make the transition from skinny-jeaned-Camden-haunting indie kid into someone who absolutely lived for the beat, the thrill of a synth, the anticipation of ‘the drop’. I made friends there, I found new things to obsess over, and it bridged my transition into the world of electronic music perfectly. When I went to Trash I knew I was amongst my people. I had dabbled in scenes previously, namely the reach-for-the-lasers trance scene at Slinky in Bournemouth during my uni days, but Trash was where I felt most alive and the strongest sense of belonging. It was also the first place that I properly found out how much MDMA could elevate a situation onto another plane altogether. There is nothing quite like the sense of belonging on the come up, surrounded by friends and beautiful, sweaty like minded strangers, all galvanised by the pounding music pouring into your very being, running through your veins and firing your synapses; it is electric. Trash was home to a host of weirdos, my weirdos, and as such, The Club passes this level with flying colours. Next!

Esteem Needs

If the Belonging stage is the come up, then the Esteem stage is the peak. The Club provides absolute freedom, as established, via a safe space where you can find like minded people and truly be yourself. It gives people the strength to power on through the week to reach its hallowed concrete and its inviting neon glow, it gives people something to live for, to look forward to. It is a place of liberation from the tyranny of the working week, the tyranny of your own mind, the tyranny of the culture wars outside its walls. It is that feeling as the peak of the pill hits; the ‘nothing matters now more than this’; the ‘here are all my friends and I love them dearly, and the strangers nearly as much’; the ‘fuck me this tune is The One’. It is the feeling of everything in its right place.

The Club also demands respect, culturally speaking. In Berlin, night clubs have been recognised as Important and have been awarded culturally protected status on the same level as The Opera. In the UK we do not value The Club in the same way, astonishing given how much it has contributed to the cultural scene in the country. But people are fighting for it to get more recognition than current draconian thinking about young people having a good time allows. The Club is culture, allow it. The Club recognises your Esteem needs and supasses them, giving it a leg up to the top level of MHoN. Well done The Club.

Self Actualisation

Is this a need too far? Is The Club to stumble at the final level of Maslow’s pyramid? Can The Club really fulfill the desire to become the most that one can be? Let’s bat it around a bit before we write it off.

On one hand, you could be in The Club to escape from the drudgery of your life, to be amongst your own people, to find a place in this world. On the other hand, you could be there to get mashed up to dance music with some mates at a generic night with a great DJ where you don’t know anyone else. Maybe self actualization can be achieved amongst the right crowd, the right drugs, the right music; a moment where you are in perfect sync with the world, however briefly, a moment where everything is perfect. Perhaps, at a stretch, that is a space in time where you have achieved the goal of being the best person you can be. Or maybe you’re just outside having a ciggie chatting some bollocks to someone you’ve just procured a lighter from, a conversation you’ll vaguely remember with someone ‘sound as fuck’ in the morning, before getting back to throwing some mad shapes to Ben UFO dropping Nelly Futardo’s ‘Maneater’; no epiphany, no clarity of purpose, just raising your hands to a legendary banger.

In conclusion to this non-scientific (following in Maslow’s footsteps) analysis of Maslow vs The Club, I think it is plain to see that you can get one foot momentarily onto the top slab of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs via The Club, and honestly, isn’t that all you need? Physiologically, Safely, with a sense of Belonging and Esteem, The Club has led you to a moment of Self Actualisation and you are the best you can be. Embrace The Club. The Club will provide.

Each week we will share some tracks that the contributers to Laughing Stock currently have on heavy rotation. You can follow the rolling playlist on Apple or Spotify.

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