Leland R. Beaumont is an independent wisdom researcher who is seeking real good. He is currently developing the Applied Wisdom curriculum on Wikiversity.
Researcher Abraham Maslow recognized that people have many needs, and they are motivated to meet certain basic needs before turning their attention to higher levels of fulfillment. His insights are often represented using a pyramid to illustrate this hierarchy. The physiological needs of air, water, food, shelter, sanitation, and sleep form the base of the pyramid because people seek to meet these needs before attending to safety, belonging, esteem and other higher levels of fulfillment.
By assessing needs that are met and unmet, a person can determine their current position in the hierarchy. Because people seek higher levels of fulfillment, the higher levels of the pyramid generally represent greater life satisfaction. We strive to move up the pyramid.
When governments are formed “ for the people,” we can use this hierarchy to assess how well any particular government is meeting the needs of its people. Governments attain better results when they allow more people to meet more of their needs. To determine how well the government is doing, plot the position of each person against the needs hierarchy. Two examples are shown in the diagram and described below.
Better governments allow more people to meet more of their needs.
The results of a poorly performing government are represented on the left. Here many people are lacking clean safe drinking water, some people are hungry or homeless, and even their most basic physiological needs are not being met. These unfortunate people are shown in red in the diagram, where each icon represents one percent of the population. When people feel unsafe because of crime, terrorism, threats, oppression, humiliation, violence, war, or other human rights violations, their safety needs are not being met. These threatened people are represented on the diagram in orange. When social systems lead to isolation rather than foster community, these alienated people don’t feel like they belong. They are represented by amber icons.
In contrast, the government represented on the right is attaining better results for the people. Here everyone has met their physiological needs, and most have met their safety needs. Many people will attain higher levels of satisfaction by fulfilling their belonging, esteem, cognitive, and aesthetic needs. These people are flourishing as they become engaged in the culture, gain self-esteem, continue to learn, develop moral reasoning, and enjoy frequent encounters with beauty. A few will “become all they can be” and reach their full potential as they attain self-actualization. Some especially wise people, shown in violet, achieve transcendence — experiencing deep connections beyond themselves. (Beware of delusions and charlatans.)
This approach to evaluating government results can transform abstract policy questions and speculative theories of government into empirical questions that can be reliably answered by carefully evaluating evidence. We can determine what governments are attaining better results, learn from their successes, and continue to develop and improve.
Although this may be simple, it won’t be easy; we must get started.
This article originally appeared on Wikiversity.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.