G03 Law Principle

Which do you think is more likely?

Quietly following all the given rules will allow us all to thrive.

OR

Linking cited rules to expectations can allow more of us to thrive.

Anankelogy

Laws impersonally convey needs in ways letting you avoid vulnerability. If some law exists to address your every need, you never have to be fully aware of your own needs. You simply wait for others to obey all laws in order to satisfy whatever you expect from them.

But how is that working? Since laws cannot address your specific needs, dependence on laws set you up for disappointment.

We mindlessly let “law” stand in for “need”. I say it’s against the law to steal, for example, when I really mean that I need to freely access my property without fear of it being expropriated by others. Short of serving some need, no one actually cares about a law.

Laws keep our public behavior more predictable. To ideally serve our needs. But the law can never be detailed enough to address all of our publicly affected needs.

Passive compliance tends to pull us further from knowing our specific needs. Alienation from ourselves creeps in. To avoid exposing our sense of powerless in society, we cite law to suggest enforcement regimes will compel respect for our exposed and vulnerable needs.

Along the way, we normalize not communicating the details of our specific needs. Others should somehow know what not to do to us. Nondiscrimination laws, for example, should warn others when they are being unfairly discriminatory. But the law itself cannot force others to be culturally competent towards minorities they hardly know.

We increase our frustrations with others when our hope in law repeatedly disappoints. We typically cling to our expectations to legalistic norms to ease the mounting discomfort of our unmet needs. We tend to react by clinging more tightly to our disappointing legalistic norms, ad nauseum.

Need-response

Need-response presents an attractive alternative to impersonal hostilities of legalistic activism: responsivism. Responsivism is the belief and practice of responding directly to each other’s needs instead of relying upon impersonal laws.

Responsivism counters the tendency of toxic legalism to perpetuate the problem we vainly trust laws to fix.

1. Activism easily sparks extremism; responsivism nurtures balance.

2. Activism generally hides behind rationality; responsivism engages deeper feelings.

3. Activism evades reality; responsivism engages reality.

4. Activism perpetuates pain; responsivism removes pain.

5. Activism provokes mutual defensiveness; responsivism incentivizes mutual support.

The more you try to pressure others with the weight of the law, the more they often push back. Their inflexible needs trump the social demands of cited laws. Your pressure provokes them to dig in their heels. What you reactively resist your reflexively reinforce.

Reactive Problem

Toxic legalism functions like a monkey trap. It’s hard to let go of something so familiar that you rely upon. The less it serves your needs and leaves you in pain, the more tightly you cling to it for familiar comfort. Your attachment may persist even after stepping back and realizing it isn’t helping you all that much.

You think less about what the law is supposed to do, and blindly hope your obedience keeps you out of trouble. Or keeps everything okay.

You trust the law works something like social glue, holding society together. It should motivate people to do the right thing, whatever that may be.

When expected to follow the law, or even some widely agreed upon social norm, you typically react with compliance. You don’t want any trouble. You do your best to at least outwardly obey.

Responsive Solution

Responsivism unpacks such cited rules with citationization, or “law-fit”. Whenever anyone expects or insists that you follow their trusted norms, whether written laws or popular social norms, you invite them to link that law with a need they expect it to serve.

Without being defensive, you amicably ask, “Cui bono?” That’s Latin for, “Who benefits?” Is your compliance only to serve them, or some institution at your expense? Or to maintain social order that you ostensibly also benefit?

Or you could ask them, “Quid opus?” Which is Latin “for what need?” You break the spell of passive compliance with this active response to the underlying needs of cited rules.

Informally at first. But gradually more formally if necessary to compel a response to the affected needs. With either need-responsive question, you encourage them to give the why for their normative what. You let them know you seek to internalize the rule, so you can meaningfully follow it. In good faith.

This basic practice allows us to incentivize one another to better identify and address the needs that laws can never fully identify or address. Instead of repeated disappointment of imposed norms, we cultivate more mutual understanding and need-honoring love.

Responding to your needs

How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these:

• But I still must work with legal institutions and not against them willy nilly.

• I can’t break the law just because I don’t see how it fits any need.

• I prefer to see how this works for others who ask cui bono or quid opus.

• What if need-response itself gets bogged down with legalistic norms?

Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below.