G06 Law Principle

Which do you think is more likely?

You must take a firm stance on every issue so that others don’t take advantage of you.

OR

Only by affirming the inflexible needs on every side of an issue can we find sustainable solutions.

Anankelogy

Defensive posturing easily ignites a defensive posture in return. Reacting to injustice with a counter injustice is no justice at all. Hurting those who hurt you ultimately hurts us all. The measure applied sets the standard replied.

Opposing each another's inflexible needs never solves a moral conflict. Such mutual opposition typically perpetuates the conflict, as both sides must dig in their heals to guard their accosted wellbeing. Compromise on one or both sides may provide a temporary peace, only to explode later as those ignored painful needs refuse to be ignored.

Laws by themselves do not solve conflicts; people do by how they responsibly address each other’s affected needs. Not by how they oppose each other. That almost always leads to ruin, often privileged by law, yet easily blamed on the other side.

The adversarial structure of our law-based institutions pulls us toward mutual annihilation. The typical winner in a court or ballot contest gains relief, but no disciplined path toward sustainably resolving their needs. The ignored inflexible needs of the losing side persist to spur more conflict.

These adversarial institutions convincingly present themselves as the only available solution to this conundrum. Consequently, we are persuaded to rely more on laws and authorities to provide fleeting relief from these perpetuated conflicts. We overlook how these institutions benefit from keeping us embattled against each other.

Adversarialism incentivizes these institutions to trap us into mutual conflict. To pit us against each other. To divide us. To claim only one side can be right, while the other wrong—overlooking disconfirming nuance. And obscuring the amorality of our inflexible needs.

We need an alternative to this battle fatigue. We need something that more effectively addresses our affected needs. We need a visionary new profession that incentivizes greater responsibility to our many neglected inflexible needs.

Need-response

Need-response is that new profession. Instead of serving laws, it serves your needs for which laws exist. Authority proves less necessary where needs can freely resolve.

Instead of pitting us against each other as legalism does, need-response incentivizes each side to engage and honor the inflexible needs of the others. It cultivates our potential to be more loving to each other.

Instead of spurring destructive selfishness as legalism does, need-response draws all sides out of their shells to engage and honor each other’s needs. It’s set to redirect self-interest into shared interests.

Instead of hiding behind rational arguments as legalism does, need-response cultivates a shared environment of mutual engagement, where each can safely drop their guard and vulnerably know each other and themselves.

Reactive Problem

Law-based adversarial systems easily pull us into opposing each other’s inflexible needs. This spurs what anankelogy identifies as oppo culture, which normalizes opposing each other in ways that squander our potential to be more loving to each other.

Opposing another’s errors is one thing, but opposing their inflexible needs is a greater error. Since every need exists as an objective fact, it is objectively wrong to oppose such needs.

Legalism privileges you to rely on generalizations. You then overlook the specifics essential to resolve needs. What seems right can actually be wrong, protected by law.

Legalism privileges you to avoid the natural discomforts of resolving needs. It offers pain relief, which guarantees more pain as the unaddressed needs trigger more pain. What you trust to relieve your pain seems totally right, but is actually wrong while protected by law.

Legalism privileges you to oppose each other’s inflexible needs. This surely triggers their defensiveness, which then provokes yours. You insist you’re right to protect yourself as is your legal right, but you ultimately suffer in ways protected by law.

The further both sides overgeneralize to avoid uncomfortable specifics of each other’s needs, each tends to believe their pain-easing norms represents the defensible truth. Both sides are wrong when insisting they are right.

Both sides can end up believing and pursuing the opposite of what is true and have it backed up law. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah identifies this “moral inversion” (Is. 5:20 NIV): “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

If you take a political stance so extreme that you oppose another’s inflexible need as your “right”, then you are wrong. If you seek to win an adjudicated conflict by opposing another side’s inflexible need as your legal right, you are wrong. When both sides oppose the other’s inflexible need under color of law, both sides are wrong.

But politics and the judiciary encourage you to be wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they sure can be privileged by some law. And more laws get created to keep both trapped in such conflicts, to keep them relying on legalism to cope with the grinding pain that it helps create. 

Tragically, the more we get sucked into this morass, the less likely we can see it for what is honestly is: a self-destructive form of legalism. If this is all we know, and depend upon it for protection, we easily latch onto it even as it costs us from reaching our higher potential. 

Responsive Solution

Need-response counters such toxic legalism by emphasizing inflexible needs over flexible laws. It tries to this in at least three ways.

1. Degeneralize, to get to relevant specifics to resolve inflexible needs. Does a legalist approach overgeneralize? Or get to relevant specifics of the affected needs?

2. Dealienate, to engage each other’s identified inflexible needs. Does an applied legalist approach evade discomfort? Or willingly engage others no matter how unpleasantly challenging?

3. Depolarize, to mutually understand and support resolving each other’s inflexible needs. Does the tried legalist approach instantly take sides? Or affirm inflexible needs before questioning how they’re addressed?

Need-response asserts the higher authority of properly resolving needs in love. We can improve our wellness the more honor the needs of others as our own, to incentivize more resolved needs. Laws exist to serve our inflexible needs, not legalist institutions.

Need-response holds itself accountable to improving measurable wellness outcomes. All legalist systems lack such accountability. Psychotherapy tends to perform better, but in the name of personal agency it routinely overlooks external contributors to poor wellness outcomes.

If impeding our attempts to properly resolve needs under privilege of law, we hold such legal authorities and psychotherapeutic authorities to the same level of accountability. Or we must insist they step aside—or coordinate their efforts with ours—to resolve needs to improve wellness outcomes, for which laws exist to serve.

Wellness outcomes from resolving needs matters more than laws. Toxic legalism is empirically wrong. Two or more legally privileged wrongs will never make things right. What can make things right is a more loving approach that results in more fully resolving needs, resulting in greater levels of measurable wellness.

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:

• Who or what keeps these need-responders accountable to prioritizing inflexible needs?

• Conflicts tend to emphasize some needs while ignoring others, with or without laws.

• I cannot envision a society where the rule of law is not paramount.

• Not all legalism is toxic, right? There must be some good to emphasizing the role of law.

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.