|
p.9 Land states that social indicators should be the constituent parts of some social model or theory about
how society operates. Olsen views them as part of a coherent system of socioeconomic measurement which can facilitate comprehensive
and balanced judgment about the condition of major aspects of a society. Sawhill describes social indicators as quantitative
measures of social conditions designed to guide choices at several levels of decision making. According to Smith,
their compilation and use should be related to public goals. For these definitions social indicators are considered as strategical
variables included in a model which enables decision makers to make efficient and effective policies concerning social well-being.
p.40 Man is a "wanting" creature. The nature of human activity consists of his persistent effort
and of his failure to reach a state of complete satisfaction. No sooner is one want satisfied than another surfaces to take
its place. As Maslow clearly stated:
The appearance of the drive or desire, the action that it arouses, and the satisfaction
that comes from attaining the goal object, all taken together, give us only an artificial, isolated, single instance taken
out of the total complex of the motivational unit. This appearance practically always depends on the state of satisfaction
or dissatisfaction of all other motivations that the total organism may have, i.e., on the fact that such other prepotent
desires have attained states of relative satisfaction. Wanting anything in itself implies already existing satisfaction
of other wants. [Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 1970, p. 24.]
|
