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Replace activism with responsivism

Responsivism is the belief that responding to the needs of opponents or those in position of influential power can produce more favorable results than adversarial alternatives like political activism. Activists generally seek policy changes that are expected to compel legal compliance to their favored needs. Responsivism aims to respond to the needs of everyone.



Replace adversarial activism with engaging responsivism.


Responsivism defined over image of headless judge pounding a gavel: Responsivism is the belief and practice that responding directly to each other's needs produces far better results than the hostile legal options of activism.
AI IMAGE: You reach more goals by serving the needs of others than by demanding others serve your needs.

Which would likely produce the best results?

Wait for activism to motivate the right changes to improve society.

OR

Respond better to each to each other's needs to improve society.






Need-response answers the baked-in problems of toxic legalism failing our institutions. Responsivism allows you to practice this new profession in your own terms.

 

We apply responsivism in a set of interactive tools you can use on an individual basis. These let you benefit from the new profession of need-response on a personalized level.

 

We currently provide each tool as an Excel spreadsheet, to market test this bold alternative. We can then convert these pilot versions into apps.

 

Responsivism can either complement or potentially replace legalistic activism. Let’s question how well activism delivers.

 

If activism is the answer, I have four questions for you.


You know the score. As pushback to their inflexible need for self-determination and more, Palestinian militants killed over a thousand Israelis last fall. No law currently exists to respect those needs.

 

Now tens of thousands of Gazans die at the hands of IDF soldiers, in the name of self-defense. Israelis’ inflexible need for self-determination compels them to push back. Is the activism on each side helping at all?

 

Both sides insist they face an existential threat from the other side. Both sides exaggerate that threat for political gain. Neither side fully empathizes with the inflexible needs of the other. What about the law?

 

Activism aims to shape policy in one’s favor. That tends to provoke the defensiveness of the other side? Neither side reach their full potential. Both sides expend great energy trying to hold down the other side. Inn short, activism to shape laws is shortsighted.

 

Laws cannot compel each side in a conflict to see through the eyes of the other. We generally expect the international rules-based order to mediate such conflicts. Increasingly, we find the “rule of law” taking a back seat to double standards and diplomatic hypocrisies.

 

Without the preeminence of law, we tend to slide deeper into a morally questionable abyss of might-makes-right. Without shared agreements for how to respect each other’s affected needs, we defer to wars to somehow sort it out.

 

Laws emerge to impersonally convey needs. They incentivize us to respect each other’s easily overlooked needs. “Do not steal” serves our need to freely access our own property. “Do not slander” serves our need to maintain an unspoiled public image.

 

We depend on law as a metaphor for our vulnerable needs. When I say, “It’s my free speech right to speak my mind,” I am really saying, “I need to express myself without government retaliation.” With the law on my side, I can skip the vulnerabilities of uncomfortably exposing my specific need.

 

Apart from the needs they exist to serve, we could care less about such laws. Without the need for accessing property, you could care less about laws prohibiting theft. Apart from the need to receive other’s respect, we scarcely care about prohibitions against slander.

 

When was the last time you said to someone, “Please don’t steal from me”? Or “I need you to not slander me”? Likely never. We defer to legal codes to convey those needs. But how is that working?

 

The further we creep from the law’s originating purpose to serve these needs, the further we collectively (and often individually) slip into poor wellness outcomes. Increasing rates of chronic anxiety and major depression suggest we need more than just our laws to address our negatively impacted needs.

 

The more we ossify the role of law over its original purpose to serve needs, the further we slip into what anankelogy identifies as “toxic legalism”. That refers to established norms and enforced standards that ostensibly serve us but actually harm us in measurable ways.


toxic legalism definition "Established norms and enforced standards that ostensibly serve us but can actually harm us in measurable ways" against background of empty courtroom.

We can find links between rising rates of chronic anxiety and severe depression with the failing reliability of laws to serve our vulnerable needs. There is no such thing as painful anxiety or debilitating depression apart from unresolved needs. The less responsive we are to each other’s needs, under color of law, the more of us slip into pain-coping addictions and entertain suicide.



Consider the alternative of responsivism for responding directly to the needs those laws fail to fully serve. Then consider how to complement or replace activism for restoring wellness.


Consider these five reasons to prefer responsivism over activism.

  • Each starts with an originating purposes for law.

  • Each looks at how we’ve drifted from this original need-responsive purpose.

  • Each points to how responsivism can restore our crumbling wellness.

 


Activism seeks to shape laws to compel personal responsibility for how we treat each other. How much responsibility should be individualized or collectivized defers to vacillating politics.

 

Responsivism recognizes how you resolve more needs the better you balance what you can do for yourself and letting others serve what you cannot provide for yourself.

 

Originating purpose. The law holds us personally accountable. We rely on written standards to check our selfish behaviors. Without laws, we risk ignoring how our behavior may negatively impact others.

 

Drift from wellness. Western society’s emphasis of individualism easily oversimplifies personal responsibility. Yes, we have personal moral agency to act in ways respectful to the needs of others. But personal moral agency depends heavily upon available options.

 

You drift from enjoy wellness when prioritizing the individual over the collective, or the collective over the individual. That always painfully restricts wellness. Wellness is psychosocial. You can only maintain wellness when balancing personal rights with social responsibilities.


Drifting into hyper-individualism is a kind of ‘symfunction capture’.


Restoring wellness. Need-response holds institutions and social entities as equally accountable as individuals. It incentivizes powerful groups to respond faithfully to the needs of vulnerable individuals they impact. It challenges the legitimacy of those who don’t.


Anankelogy sees how we prioritize self-needs and social needs with our psychosocial orientation'.

Need-response holds us all personally and socially accountable. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone.

Activism puts impersonal laws over personal needs. Laws impersonally convey your needs. Emotions personally convey your needs. Your intensely irrational emotions react to your painfully unresolved needs, which reasoning can never contain.

 

Responsivism appreciates how you resolve more needs the more you can drop your guard and let others in to vulnerably relate to the inflexible needs behind each charged emotion.

 

Originating purpose. The law rationally keeps our emotions in check. We rely on laws to curb our irrational tendencies. Without reasoned standards, we risk emotionally exploiting others or provoking severe psychological or physical harm.

 

Drift from wellness. Increasingly, we irrationally apply laws to others in ways we refuse to have applied to ourselves. We can convince ourselves we are being reasoned and rational while denying we have any distorting biases.


Drifting into hyperrationality is a kind of ‘symfunction capture’.


Restoring wellness. Need-response recognizes how your objective needs exist independent of your subjective experiences of them. Instead of trying to repress your emotional tendencies, as the role of law may do, it nurtures your emotionally charged reactions to be more responsive to needs.


Anankelogy realizes how we interact with others with our ‘vulnerability orientation'.

Need-response guides subjective experiences to serve objective needs. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone.

Activism builds on coalitions to appeal to as many as possible. This increases the risk of overgeneralizing, of skipping over relevant details, and overlooking your specific needs.

 

Responsivism understands how you resolve more needs the more thoroughly you process each relevant detail and process more of the nuance in situations impacting your life.

 

Originating purpose. Laws are kept vague to apply to various situations. We rely on laws to fit a vast array of social situations. We keep our laws intentionally short on specifics, lest too many details prevent their applicability wherever needed.

 

Drift from wellness. When legalism drifts off into excessive generalizing, it tends to overlook your specific needs. The less your specific needs can resolve, the more pain you will be in—as your body warns of this continuing threat to your ability to fully function


The law’s focus on harm reduction often prioritizes comforting generalizations over necessary specifics. Legalism can suck you into a vicious cycle of endlessly pursuing pain-relief without ever getting to the cause of your pain: unresolved needs.


Drifting into overgeneralizing is a kind of ‘symfunction capture’.


Restoring wellness. Need-response identifies your specific needs and theirs. Only by bringing all affected needs to the table can there be enduring peace among you. It raises the higher standard of properly resolving needs by cutting through legalistic generalities with relevant specifics.


Anankelogy appreciates how we each negotiate matters with our ‘relating orientation'.

Need-response replaces neglectful overgeneralizing with relevant nuance. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone.

Activism typically settles for relieving the pain of unresolved needs. Your body then insists with some form or emotional or physical pain to warn you of the persisting threat to your wellbeing.

 

Responsivism sees how you resolve more needs the longer you endure the associated discomfort of processing a need, long enough to fully remove the threats causing you pain.

 

Originating purpose. Laws are impersonal to avoid favoritism. We rely on laws to treat everyone impartially. “No one is above the law.”  We cannot trust law enforcement if enforcing standards on us but not upon those they personally know.

 

Drift from wellness. When legalism drifts into a kind of depersonalizing avoidance, you rightly feel objectified. Lawyers, prosecutors and police tend to talk past you. They routinely avoid the most uncomfortable aspects of your situation. It’s not their problem, they could claim.

 

This cold distance can fuel suspicion on neither side. From this chasm of mutual alienation, both sides can easily suspect the other side will not respect their own vulnerable needs. So legalism tends to engender mutual defensiveness.


Drifting into alienating avoidance is a kind of ‘symfunction capture’.


Restoring wellness. Need-response incentivizes all sides in a legal situation to engage each other more personally. Each side gets to know how they impact each other’s needs. In the process, each side can more meaningfully resolve their overlooked need for deeper social connections.


Anankelogy recognizes how we each respond to pain with our ‘easement orientation'.

Need-response replaces harmful avoidance with beneficial engagement. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone.

Activism takes sides against others, to the point of opposing their needs which they cannot change. Both sides incite each other’s defenses. Neither side empathizes much with the unbendable needs of the other.

 

Responsivism affirms how you resolve more needs the less you provoke other's defensiveness and instead incentivize their cooperation with mutual understanding and respect.

 

Originating purpose. Laws are punitive to incentivize compliance. We rely on laws to punish wrongdoers. Law enforcement serves as an arm of government with exclusive privilege of force. To compel our compliance to the rules of society.

 

Drift from wellness. When legalism drifts into self-serving hostilities toward each other, it strays from helping us resolve our affected needs. Such “adversarialism” goads us further into mutual defensiveness. Energies we could spend to resolve needs gets wasted on divisively opposing each other.


The judicial system presumes they must mediate the threat we ostensibly present to each other. Little to no effort goes to identifying and solving each other’s affected needs. Law enforcement tends to serve as a hammer of force that treats us as a nail to pound into the pavement of the expected social order.


Drifting into avoidant adversarialism is a kind of ‘symfunction capture’.


Restoring wellness. Need-response incentivizes mutual understanding of each other’s inflexible needs. Instead of normalizing hostilities, it holds each other accountable to how we affect each other’s inflexible needs. It’s a win-win approach to mutually resolve needs on all sides.


Anankelogy shows how we each deal with incited differences with our ‘conflict orientation'.


Need-response replaces destructive adversarialism with mutual support. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone.



Who is ready to try the untried? Who is willing to test the waters because they immediately need to solve a problem overlooked by legal systems? Who is able to reprioritize love?



While no one sits above the law, no law sits above the needs it exists to serve. We can change our laws to fit our needs. We cannot change our needs to fit our laws. Laws are flexible. Needs are not.

 

With these responsive tools, we can replace toxic legalism in these five ways.

  • We can replace its hyper-individualism with psychosocial balance to improve our wellness.

  • We can replace its hyperrationality with safer vulnerability to improve our wellness.

  • We can replace its overgeneralizing with relevant specifics to improve our wellness.

  • We can replace its alienating avoidance with engagement to improve our wellness.

  • We can replace its adversarialism with love-inspiring mutuality to improve our wellness.

 

We can do all these to resolve more of our overlooked needs with the new professional service of need-response, which is applied anankelogy. Need-response presents an alternative to escape the monkey trap of such toxic legalism.

 

No longer must we vainly hope that simply following better policies will somehow produce better results. No longer shall we remain blind to the oft-overlook fact that they don’t. No longer must we suffer threats simply because they’re permitted by law.

 

The bottom line is the wellness outcomes of all involved. Not money. Not prestige. Not power. Only the freedom of all to resolve all needs to remove pain and restore wellness. Period.

 

Just as the monkey refuses to let go of the tasty nut inside the coconut trap, we refuse to let go of the tasty morsel of legalism. We cling tightly to our laws to protect us from threats of violence, instead of dealing with known causes of violence. To maintain social order. To coexist with our many ingrained differences.


AI create image of monkey trap: monkey about to get hand caught in a coconut with a hole

With the rise of hyper-individualism during the decline of religion and other socially engaging institutions, we easily fall back on the rule of law. If you view our system of secular laws as the only game in town, you typically cannot see past it. You can easily overlook the five shortcomings covered above.


Do you literally believe that "no one is above the law"? Properly applied, that means no one's impactful behavior is beyond the scope of law. But you as a person is above the law. Human existence predates any human laws.


Everyone's inflexible needs sit above flexible laws. You cannot change your life's requirement for food to eat and clean air to breathe to fit some legal requirement. Legalism coerces us to fit our needs to serve some law or appease some authority. Wellness then declines.


You don't need anyone's permission to breathe. "The Sabbath was made for humanity," Jesus clarified, "Not the Sabbath for humanity." Needs come first, then laws to serve them.


Need-response, with its responsivism tools, helps us to not be so backwards. You don't exist for human authority; human authority exists for you. Or it lacks legitimacy.


If you experience laws as your last hope for a civilized life, you understandably resist any suggested alternative. The tighter your grip, the less likely you would try something boldly different. Let alone adopt something that could remove your familiar pain and restore you to unfamiliar full wellness.


Familiarity bias—clinging to the unhealthy stuff you know out of fear of the healthier unknown—may have you tightly in its grip. Need-response can inspire you to break free, to live more of the life you've likely been missing under legalism's suffocating grip. Responsivism puts love over law. You can be among the first to adopt this pioneering approach.


new solution adoption curve, a bell curve with early adoption of the solution on the left curve and later adopters on the right curve
Adoption Curve: The more you need this responsive alternative, the more likely you'll try it while it's still new

You’re invited to observe this new service of need-experience unfold in practice. I shall be its first guinea pig. I will be working with a few others I personally know and who personally know me. Together, we will incentivize our employers to be more responsive to our overlooked needs.

 

Your needs exist as objective fact. Their needs exist as objective fact. Need-response dares to hold us all accountable to this refreshing reality. No longer can we stay vulnerable to fickle laws. Or to employers who we avoid challenging directly, lest we risk reprisals.

 

Moreover, need-response gives good cause for all sides to harmoniously come together to address each other’s affected needs. In ways the law can never do. My early attempts to attract my employer to this fresh approach has been positive.

 

I provide them a preferably alternative to a nasty legal battle, or online smear campaign, or presenteeism of only giving my minimal effort on the job. As they gain my trust as a loyal worker, my improved wellness lets them benefit from my improved productivity.

 

This pioneering alternative features love. We honor the needs of others as we would have them honor our own. But we make the first generous move, to demonstrate our good faith intent. To apply inspiring words ascribed to Gandhi, we become the change we wish to see in the world, by planting powerful seeds of responsive love.







According to anankelogy, all natural needs sit equal before nature and everyone's needs must fully resolve to realize their full potential. With its mutuality approach, these responsivism tools can nurture far more wellness than adversarial activism.


Wellness Initiative tools

These tools can prepare you for a wellness campaign. Or you can opt to simply use it once.

  • Personally Responsive – for those close to you, to melt alienation with kindness

  • Properly Responsive – for colleagues in your life, to respect your overlooked needs

  • Professionally Responsive – for professionals in your life, to support your wellness

  • Powerfully Responsive – for authorities over your life, to speak truth to power

 

Wellness Development tools

These tools establish your credentials as need-responsive enough to resolve needs.

  • Holistically Responsive – to counter reactive vacillation

  • Vulnerably Responsive – to counter reactive defensiveness

  • Specifically Responsive – to counter reactive generalizing

  • Resiliently Responsive – to counter reactive avoidance

  • Mutually Responsive – to counter reactive hostilities

 

Specialized tools

These tools focus on a particular set of needs not effectively addressed elsewhere.

 



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