H04 Love Principle

If stuck in a tyrannical situation, which do you think would produce better results?

Political change that replaces one ideology with another.

OR

Political change that inspires us all to be more loving to all.What we can now understand with anankelogical insight.

Anankelogy

Academic anankelogy. For now, this serves as placeholder text. When I find the time, I will post the full deal here. Any drastic change that favors one group’s needs over another easily provokes pushback. Anankelogy posits a predictable cycle unfolds for each revolution. If accountably more responsive to the people’s needs, then that revolution can take hold. If violently more reactive to the point of neglecting the people’s needs, such a revolution cannot last.

This cyclic pattern presents in for phases:

• Dynamic – new following: A fresh approach to neglected needs gains a foothold, then gains popular support with growing traction.

• Dogmatism – new extremists: Much of it gets watered down to make it easier for wider adoption, which overlooks some needs.

• Disillusion – new detractors: Critics emerge to call out its neglect of the bigger picture, and these gain their own counter-following.

• Distinction: new ideas: Detractors champion a counternarrative that tends to pit themselves against the old guard.

You could think of the third phase as the contrary group entering their first phase. And the fourth phase occurs when the contrary group steps into their version of the second phase. The more adversarial the revolution or introduced change, the more the new group predisposes its own eventual demise.

Let’s illustrate this by comparing the American Revolution with the subsequent French Revolution. The US Constitution persists as a governing document, while the French approach ignited more resistance.

• Dynamic – new following: American revolutionaries called for more disciplined forms of governance, more responsive to the needs of the governed. French revolutionaries called for an overhaul of society will minimal attention to the affected needs of the governed.

• Dogmatism – new extremists: American revolutionaries amicably split between pro-central government Federalists and decentral government Anti-Federalists, sliding toward civil tensions mostly resolved. Frech revolutionaries split between monarchist Girondins and anti-royalist Jacobins, sliding towards insurrections and the Reign of Terror.

• Disillusion – new detractors: American revolutionaries spurred ideals that attracted calls for greater democracy by the early 19th Century, complementing the republican foundation. Frech revolutionaries spurred drastic changes that crashed the revolution within a decade, replaced by Napolean as Emperor.

• Distinction: new ideas: American revolutionaries eventually inspired greater inclusion of historically excluded peoples. Frech revolutionaries expelled the clergy and royalists to champion their own short-lived supremacy.

The American system provides more room to honor the needs of others as one’s own. The French system imposed one’s own needs at the uncompensated expense of others. The American system encouraged mutuality, of a shared connection. The French system exploited adversarialism, of infighting and self-destruction.

The more the American system now gravitates toward adversarialism, and away from mutual support of each other’s needs with love, the closer it draws to its own demise.

Need-response

Need-response seeks to replace adversarialism norms with mutuality practices. Instead of seeking drastic changes to relieve the pain of your own socially neglected needs, your supported as you endure the natural discomfort of resolving your own needs on par with others resolving theirs.

The needs themselves never clash. Only how we respond to our competing needs. Adversarialism squanders our human potential to work through how best to address our competing needs, wasting precious energies and scant resources opposing each other’s inflexible needs.

Mutuality, encouraged by the discipline of need-response, cultivates our human potential to love one another, to honor the needs of others as our own, and to maintain awareness of how each other’s actions impact each other’s inflexible needs.

The aim is not to relieve pain, which risks perpetuating pain by neglecting the needs prompting the pain. Rather, the aim is to resolve as many of each other’s needs as possible. To improve wellness outcomes of all.

Any drastic change that enables all to resolve more of their needs, with minimal to no negative impacts, tends to hold in place. The more response to needs, the better we all become. The more reactive to the pain of unmet needs, the worse we all become.

Reactive Problem

You may find the words of Jesus and others inspiring who assert love as our highest ideal. But then you regard that as merely aspirational, too unreachable to take seriously in our modern worlds.

Instead of honoring the needs of others as your own, you’re quick to oppose them. Your own unmet needs burn inside you with a clawing sense of urgency. You find no space to consider what others may need. Especially if they seem cold toward you and your affected needs.

Modernity expects you to take charge of your own needs. You agree that it’s irresponsible to wait on others. Each person must competitively fend for themselves.

This hyper-individualism narrative fuels your false sense of urgency. If you must solve all of your own problems, even if part of it stems from elsewhere, then you best start now. But you honestly cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps in every situation. Oversimplifying your individualism spells trouble.

From your standardized isolation, you tend to react in ways worsening the situation. You generalize how to relieve the resulting pain, which overlooks the needs causing you pain. You cling to your trusted generalizations more as their familiarity provides your only promise for relief.

Meanwhile, you lose sight of how the power of love can liberate you from this mess.

Responsive Solution

Need-response flips the script on overgeneralizing personal responsibility. Not be vacillating to the opposite extreme of collective responsibility. But by applying the discipline to exhaust all internal and external contributors affecting each need.

And much more. Need-response can either complement or compete with current institutions and modalities trusted to address our needs. Only need-response asserts the power of love—or honoring the inflexible needs of others as our own—as its central guiding best practice.

Need-response could revolutionize how we address our problems. Legalist systems of politics and adversarial justice tend to perform poorly. Need-response could replace much of their built-in limits.

• Instead of championing your self-interest, you seek to understand the inflexible needs of others.

• Instead of disagreeing with their questionable views, you relate to what shaped those views.

• Instead of provoking their defenses, you mutually engage each other’s affected needs.

• Instead of getting trapped in mutual defensiveness, you mutually understand each other.

• Instead of seeking policies to favor your interests, you mutually support resolving each other’s needs.

• Instead of provoking outrage and hate, we all encourage each other’s social love.

Compared to the legalistic options of political change, a need-responsive revolution has potential to grow much deeper roots. The more responsive to everyone’s inflexible needs, the more sustainably it can improve our personal and shared wellness. That’s the durable power of 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:

• The more I honor the needs of some, the more they exploit me. So what do I do about that?

• What if I don’t want any revolution because I am content with the status quo?

• As a person of faith, I believe the power of God is the only source for a good revolution.

• I sense we need a revolution right now, before we all destroy ourselves.

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.