Vertical and not lateral differences compromise our politics TLDR: click here for the text to this short video above. "The Quality of Politics" HOOK Left or right? Wrong question. The real divide in politics isn't sideways. It's vertical. It's quality. THE TWO ERRORS Political elites on both sides benefit when we stay divided, because division keeps us dependent on low-quality options. And they rely on two errors. One: treating one side of the spectrum as better than the other. Every side's prioritized needs carry equal weight. How to address them is debatable, but the needs themselves are not. Two: treating name-calling, lying, and demeaning the opposition as no different from empathy for an opponent's needs. Those are not the same. THREE LEVELS First, let’s define politics: Politics is the art of generalizing how to agreeably address needs in differing social situations. Done well or badly, it lands on one of three levels. Standard politics negotiates agreeable policies: self-interest, rational debate, safe generalizing, necessary but short evasion, and mutual opposition. But when needs go unmet, pain narrows our thinking, and standard slides into toxic politics. Self-interest becomes selfish demands. Debate becomes petty arguing. Opposition becomes mutual defensiveness. Optimal politics flips each of these five elements: a selfless offer instead of a demand, emotional honesty instead of petty arguing, relevant nuance instead of rigid generalizing, bold engagement instead of avoidance, and mutual understanding instead of defensiveness. FOUR MORE UPGRADES Optimal politics adds four more. Lead with the positive, using the praise sandwich. Describe before you prescribe. Replace "consent of the governed" with earned legitimacy: measurably improved wellness outcomes. And put liberty over legalism, resolving needs directly, with courts and politics as the backup. CLOSE The bottom line: the less responsive a politics is to real needs, the more it fails. So stop asking which team a leader is on. Ask how good their politics is, and rate them on evidence. The highest standard is love: honoring others' needs as your own. For more on improving the quality of politics in your life and community, follow Politically Homeless. Click to view full table of contents The more political elites divide us, the more they hold us down. Both Democratic and Republican leaders benefit when hindering us from resolving our politicized needs. Typically, they remain unaware of this quantifiable evil of benefiting from such harm. They generally lack awareness of how they enslave us to depend upon low-quality options. They trick us into thinking our ideological differences matter more than the quality of our interactions. They likely believe this demonstrable falsehood. Both parties unethically benefit from two unchallenged errors. Two common errors Error #1: Treating the lateral POLITICAL SPECTRUM as vertical Regarding one side of the political spectrum as better than the other when actually each side's prioritized needs exist of equal value. How to address them is debatable, and not the fact that they exist. Error #2: Treating the vertical POLITICAL QUALITY as lateral Regarding low-bar political behavior (like name-calling, lying, and demeaning the opposition) as no different from more noble political behavior, such as empathy for an opponent's needs. I previously unpacked politics to explain how our political differences span a lateral spectrum of equally valid prioritized needs. No political stance is more important than another, as all of our needs sit equal before nature. All of us require public respect for our public-facing needs to function properly. Now I dive into the vertical spectrum of political quality. Optimal Politics Where quality optimizes the resolution of needs Standard Politics Where quality enables agreeable policies Toxic Politics Where quality gets severely degraded Politics defined Wisdom guides me to appreciate what politics actually is. This definition suggests three inherent ranges within politics, not of equal lateral value but of unequal vertical quality. Both conservatives and liberals (or progressives) suffer from decreased political quality, as public policies equally neglect their objectively existing prioritized needs. Consider how politics is... the art of generalizing (from generalizing to specifics) how to agreeably address needs (from avoiding to engaging others' needs) in differing social situations (from polarizing to unifying options). Quality matters Consider how this speaks to the quality of our politics. The more we cling to political generalizations, the less we address our specific needs. The more we avoid others' affected needs, the less they engage our affected needs. The more we polarize over our differences, the less unity to properly resolve needs. Let this illuminate what is obviously wrong with today's politics. And then let it guide us to something far better: Optimal Politics. Let's start with "standard politics" and how it continues to slide into dysfunctional "toxic politics". Then let that put a fire under us to shift to "Optimal Politics". Creeping normalcy may blind us to how politics was once mediocre instead of toxically bad. Let's compare the two. A. Standard Politics Intent to form agreeable public policies, negotiating what fits the most interests. Societies emerged to formulate policies to address needs that individuals cannot address on their own. Like securing a community's water supply and defending the society from external threats. Factions naturally emerged among those with different priorities of needs. Politics emerged as the social mechanism to sort out these differences. Standard politics evolved to shape a society's agreeable norms. The above definition points to five areas where politics can grow stale. Besides the three ranges identified, it suggests two more shaping our political landscape. 1. Self-interest: Western emphasis on the individual What you particularly need from public policies can differ sharply from what others require. In Western culture, we learn to define these different priorities as our self-interest. Standard politics expects you to vote according to what benefits you. And this arguably benefits others as well. 2. Rational debate: Rational-legal authority For shaping public policies, Western culture also favors rational arguments over emotionally charged demands. Standard politics owes much to what Max Weber called rational-legal authority. We prefer our public policies grounded in shared reasoning and not personal will. 3. Provisional generalizing: Laws kept vague Each law must apply widely. It must fit diverse situations. It cannot be too specific to fit one situation more than another. Standard politics generalizes in two senses of the word. First, it avoids disagreeable details that could compromise unity in a fragile coalition. Second, what applies to one is generalized to apply to all. Each generalization can then lead to relevant specifics on a more personalized level. 4. Temporary avoidance: Laws kept impartial Each law must avoid any favoritism. Or even the appearance of partiality. Legitimacy depends on what is required of one is equally required of all. Standard politics ensures we avoid slipping down the rabbit hole of partiality in our public conduct. We can temporarily avoid overemphasis at the start, but then engage where more emphasis is needed. 5. Mutual opposition: Laws kept punitive Each law typically includes some enforcement mechanism. Those of a different priority must not violate those for which a law exists to serve. Standard politics provides a process for ironing out these differing priorities. Sides then coalesce into competing blocs to attract majority support for their preferred public policy priorities. Mutual opposition is expected to keep each other in good faith to champion their own side. Consider how each of these elements can sour into what can be called "toxic politics". B. Toxic Politics Intent to get the most out of public policies, even if at others’ (and own) expense. Indigenous wisdom recognizes how a society can lose wellness much like an individual who gets sick. The less a society's politics helps to resolve needs, the sicker that society usually becomes. As the members of a community respond less to each other's personal needs, the role of law emerges as supreme. Too much law is not much better than no law at all. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it: Toxic politics mirrors the dire social problem of toxic legalism. This toxic legalism turns the five elements listed above into unhealthy norms. It tends to spring from a vicious cycle. Poor political quality begets more poor outcomes, which begets more poor political quality. Consider how each of these five degraded elements features in today's politics. 1. Selfish demands Emphasizing self-interests while enduring the emotional pain of unmet needs tends to sink into selfish demand. Emotional pain narrows your cognitive bandwidth to prioritize prompt relief. Toxic politics normalizes this downward shift into self-absorption. If everyone suffers at least some pain from unmet needs, then it must be okay for anyone to demand public policies provide them some personal relief. 2. Petty arguing Rational debate becomes a veneer for emotionally charged petty arguing to insist that public policies provide some relief. Instead of staying open to learn anything from the other, toxic politics lets you shut down and guard your emotional pain from accusations of irrationality. Toxic politics normalizes such motivated reasoning. Clinging tightly to an ideology is more than identity fusion. Missing from the social science literature is an account of how emotional pain prioritizes attention to unmet needs. Bias exists to prioritize attention to painfully underserved needs. And no amount of reasoning can tame the nature of your brain to bias you to put your painful needs ahead of others' needs. We can mask it with petty arguing, but we may end up only fooling ourselves. 3. Rigid generalizing Generalizing becomes less provisional while coping with the pain of unresolved needs. Your shrinking cognitive bandwidth cannot afford to look far beyond your trusted generalizations. Toxic politics normalizes this disregard for specifics outside your accepted generalizations. You dare not bring up any specifics that could risk your coalition of political support. 4. Discomfort avoidance The more you suffer pain from unresolved politicized needs, the more you naturally seek to avoid any further discomfort. Temporary avoidance slips into long-term and permanence. Toxic politics normalizes pain avoidance. Others go along with easing cognitive dissonance, despite leaving you vulnerable to more pain as your needs continue to be ignored or neglected. 5. Mutual defensiveness Mutual opposition easily devolves into mutual defensiveness. The opposition appears to prevent you from resolving your painful needs. They seem like the cause of your pain. Toxic politics normalizes mutual enmity and mutual defensiveness with ideological outsiders. These apparent culprits to your mounting pain must be your sworn enemies. It must be their fault that you can no longer function as well as before. From coerced political dependence to liberating political independence From coerced political dependence to liberating political independence Let go of the idea that your stuck because you made poor political choices. And wake up to the realization that political elites imposed poor options. By limiting your actual choices, they coerced you into settling for less than your needs require. Too much gets made in the media and elsewhere about reasoning your way to a better future. Anything that skips the objective reality of your inflexible politicized needs is guaranteed to fail. Optimal Politics starts with your objectively existing needs. By instilling an ethic of love—of honoring the needs of others as one’s own—Optimal Politics lays out a path of equitable liberation. By leveraging the power of LOVE to resolve more politicized needs. C. Optimal Politics Intent to optimize social norms so that all can reach more of their life’s potential. Optimal Politics emerges from a wisdom grounded in the indigenous appreciation for nature. Specifically, nature's role in your politicized needs. This speaks to a depth of reality that neutralizes the role of self-serving persuasion. You can never be persuaded to not honestly need what you objectively require to function. Optimal Politics also restores the role of love. The more you support your political opponents to properly resolve their needs, the more inclined they will reciprocate to respect your needs. Political quality correlates with a level of wellness Wisdom guides me to appreciate three salient levels of our personal and collective wellness, or functionality. Plus a fourth level less applicable here. Peakfunction: When you can prioritize fully resolving your needs, you can reach more of your full potential and function extremely well. Optimal Politics nurtures your potential to reach peakfunction. Symfunction: When you can only partially resolve your needs with others, you adequately get by in life and function at something of a mediocre level. Standard politics tends to pull you into the mediocrity of symfunction. Dysfunction: When you must increasingly relieve the pain of your unresolved needs, you can hardly function at all and tend to function at a level of constant coping. Toxic politics emerges out of standard politics that no longer effectively addresses our needs. Political quality correlates with a level of epistemology Wisdom further shows me three correlating degrees of what can be called “epistemic reliability”. Or how confident we are with what we think is true or untrue. These correspond with Kohlberg’s levels of moral development. And correlate with these quality levels of politics. Postconventional “trusters” keep an open mind when learning the “facts” and stay ready to engage new and disconfirming data. They do not cling to what they hold as true but instead engage more of reality by cultivating a high degree of ethical integrity. They position themselves to reach peakfunction. Optimal Politics moves past conventional beliefs and practices of status quo politics, to get to the purpose of why politics exist: to properly resolve politicized needs. Conventional “faithers” tend to agree uncritically with others in their group. They tend to hold tighter to such views if attacked by outgroup members. They find comfort in the symfunction of their shared experiences. Standard politics gravitates toward the low hanging fruit of easy agreement, and for the lowest common denominator members of a dumbed down coalition. Preconventional “beliefers” cling rigidly to whatever makes simple sense and eases cognitive dissonance. They often react to critique as their beliefs form a foundation of their sense of security. They sink into the dysfunction of relieving pain of unmet needs. Toxic politics caters to falsehoods popular among those desperate for relief from the grinding pain of countless unresolved needs, especially if necessary for the numbers to reach an uncritical majority. From 'standard' to 'toxic' to Optimal Politics conventional "faithers" preconventional "beliefers" postconventional "trusters" If standard politics of conventional "faithers" slips into the toxic politics of preconventional "beliefers", Optimal Politics can pull us up into the peakfunction of postconventional "trusters". Consider how this works for each of the five cited elements above. 1. Selfless offer over selfish demands self-interest selfish demands selfless offer Instead of selfishly demanding what you think (and likely) is best for you, Optimal Politics incentivizes you to know how your preference affects others of a contrary preference. Instead of demanding your policy preference be served over others' policy preference, you ask, "How does my policy preference affect you and your inflexible needs?" We state this either from a conservative to a progressive view, or from a progressive to a conservative view. Let's use the issue of immigration to illustrate. *I use progressive instead of liberal as most Democrats have basically become centrists. "If you support open borders to let in unvetted immigrants, how does my stance on closing the border and carefully vetting every entrant personally affect you?" "If you support closing the border and carefully vetting every entrant, how does my stance on open borders to let in unvetted immigrants personally affect you?" The intent here is for you to know how you politically affect others. Stretching beyond your own self-interests and beyond selfish demands does more to shape policies toward a meaningful solution. Status quo politics Focus on self and remain dissatisfied. Responsive politics Respect others and find more satisfaction. 2. Emotional honesty over rationalized avoidance rational debate petty arguing emotional honesty Instead of masking your rich emotional content under the veneer of rationality, Optimal Politics cuts to the chase by welcoming and embracing your emotional honesty. Not to indulge in what you feel but to fully appreciate what your emotions honestly tell you about the current state of your needs. The risk of emotional bias is greatly overstated. Emotions do not directly cause cognitive biases; unmet needs do. Your unresolved needs use your emotions to prioritize your attention to address such needs. The less you can function because of that unmet need, the more intense that emotion. Click to see all 20 Suppressing such emotions to appear socially acceptable as "rational" or "reasonable" actually fuels your bias. Shooting the messenger does nothing to stop the message that you cannot fully function because your needs remain unresolved. Your emotions exist to convey your needs. While the contents of your emotions remain subjective, they occur as objective fact independent of subjective choice. Once you perceive a threat, for example, you predictably and quite objectively experience fear, to be aware of that threat to your wellbeing. Removing that threat, or removing yourself, removes the fear. Not rationality on its own. Cultivating emotional honesty subjects reasoning to serve objectively occurring needs. Instead of suppressing your emotions to fit reasonable sounding arguments, you humbly express how the other's stance emotionally affects you and your prioritized needs. Let's use the issue of abortion to illustrate. "I feel a strong need to honor the sanctity of all life, including the yet to be born, who will never get to reach their life potential if voicelessly aborted by her seemingly selfish mother." "I feel a strong need to freely access health care for my oft-controlled female body, including safe space to make the ultimate decision to end an unbearable pregnancy." The intent here is not to persuade with emotion, but to invite connection to how each other experiences the politicized need. Increasing awareness of how each side experiences their politicized need does more to facilitate a solution than petty arguing or a rational debate. Status quo politics Argue and keep pushing others away. Responsive politics Share feelings and incentivize respect. 3. Relevant nuance over generalizing provisional generalizing rigid generalizing relevant nuance Instead of generalizing that excuses exaggerations, Optimal Politics promptly shifts from stated generalizations to whatever nuance that is relevant to the needs of all involved. The quicker we detach from helpful generalizations to address the messy details of each other's affected needs, the sooner we can find a political solution satisfying to all. We cannot solve our specific problems from the level of generalizing that created them. The problem with most generalizations is that they skip over reality. Every generality best serves as a starting point to search and engage relevant nuance. Hyperbole may grab much needed attention to a matter. But can rarely scaffold a good argument. Your needs cannot cater to other's overgeneralizing. So you best not expect others to fit your generalities. Your safest generalization is to love. You can safely generalize how others are worth your respect as you are worth their respect. Optimal Politics lets you quickly get to the other details that matter most. Let's use the issue of healthcare access to illustrate. "I see my health as between me and my private providers. I believe state run healthcare will lose quality in the hands of administrators less accountable to market forces. But I can see how government helps to ensure the public good of our individual health needs." "I see healthcare as a birth right, not just a privilege for those who can afford it. I believe government exists to guarantee this right to all much like providing for the public’s safety. But I can see how too heavy a hand from bureaucrats can risk the quality of healthcare deliverables." The intent here is to make sure any generality serves as a stepping stone to vital details, and not become a stumbling block to needed awareness. Paving a path to turn useful generalities into drawing attention to relevant specifics can go a long way to mutually finding meaningful solutions. Status quo politics Generalizations risk obstructing awareness. Responsive politics The specifics of reality is what matters most. 4. Meaningful engagement over privileged avoidance temporary avoidance discomfort avoidance bold engagement Instead of habitually evading the avoidable and risking shock by sudden surprises, Optimal Politics incentives you to boldly engage what you otherwise would prefer to avoid. Instead of habitually fleeing pain that chases you, Optimal Politics prompts you to chase pain and force it to flee from you. The sooner you remove all threats to your wellbeing, the sooner you remove all pain. There is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs. Removing all threats, or distancing yourself from all threats, removes cause for pain. Status quo politics in either its standard or toxic form rarely addresses the source of your pain. Winning at the ballot tends to offer more pain relief than meaningful solutions. Most politics drag your function level down despite the best of intentions. Only when all sides can freely and fully resolve their needs can political solutions sustain themselves. We must not fall trap to zero-sum thinking. Needs would never evolve if vulnerable to only one side gaining at another's cost. That is a reality we must not avoid. Sure, there can be some tradeoffs. Such bargains typically involve preferences and not at the cost of fully resolving a need—unless a bigger problem stands in the way. Which can lead to a meaningful political solution with the proactive dimensions of Optimal Politics. Sure, you may have to endure some discomfort amidst the interim. Let that build your resilience and your equanimity. After all, pain is not the problem as much as the threats to wellbeing that pain exists to warn you to remove. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear but the result of doing what is right and realizing you can handle it after all. Optimal Politics can help build up your courage. And reward you with meaningful political change. So you won't have as much discomfort to avoid. Avoiding your pain tends to leave you in more pain. If you hate and avoid pain, you typically avoid resolving the needs prompting the pain. Which can leave you in a vicious cycle. Optimal Politics guides you to respect pain with bold engagement. You learn to endure pain as you discover you can handle more discomfort than you likely give yourself credit. This includes the discomfort of affirming the needs of your political foe while wondering if they will ever affirm your needs in return. You learn you can function just fine while stretching your comfort zone. Along the way, you remove more threats to the point you remove cause for your pain. Let's use the issue of gun safety to illustrate. "I endure the agonizing dread of the government interfering needlessly in my life. I can provide my own localized safety from both random acts of individual violence and encroaching threats of collectivist tyranny. But I can understand why many on the left mistrust the fact I own a gun." "I continue to cope with the trauma from mass shootings. I need to be kept safe in public from unpredictable acts of individual gun violence, often by xenophobes targeting the vulnerably different like me. But I appreciate why many on the right insist on carrying their own firearm." The intent here is honor the real emotional pain of others. The more you respect their pain around politicized issues, the more inclined they will respect your pain. Status quo politics Avoidance easily misses the boat. Responsive politics Boldly engage them before they engage you. 5. Mutual understanding over mutual defensiveness mutual opposition mutual defensiveness mutual understanding Instead of normalizing mutual differences that can sink into mutual hostilities and defensiveness, Optimal Politics rewards mutual understanding. How much does each side truly know about the affected needs of the other? The urbanite can learn about the challenges of the rural farmer. That farmer can learn about the challenges confronting the urbanite. The more each side understands each other's challenges and needs, the more they realize political generalizations about the other is mostly hot air. The left leaning urbanite experiences the opposite priority of needs than the rural resident. The city dweller relies more on environmental codes than the folks living in some local town, for example. One benefits from increased regulations while the other from decreased regulation. Both can be true. One can find improved inclusion for their LGBTQ+ experience while the other still enjoy their family's more traditional cohesion. One can favor public policies protecting consumer rights while the other favor policies honoring producers large and small. Optimal Politics holds open the communication channel to give no occasion for mutual defensiveness. For example: The left can champion trans rights while respecting the right's concern about the impact of trans athletes on the competitive opportunities for their daughters, and perhaps suggest gradient categories much like boxers use. The right can champion traditional gender norms to sustain family cohesion while recognizing that trans people do exist to upend those norms without necessarily compromising family cohesion. What appears to contradict on the surface, when clinging to avoidant generalizations, often lose their bite with improved mutual understanding. We tap deeper into our human potential when empathizing with those we wished would empathize more with us. Let's illustrate this with the issue of criminal justice. "I seek to provide police and prosecutors with better tools to serve and protect the public from those lacking personal responsibility. But I understand how you prefer to hold police and prosecutors personally accountable for their many abuses of discretion, or just revamp the whole system." "I seek to hold police and prosecutors personally accountable for their many abuses of discretion, or just revamp the whole system. But I understand how you prefer to provide police and prosecutors with better tools to serve and protect the public from those lacking personal responsibility." The intent here is to skip the risk of mutual defensiveness. Optimal Politics has you embrace every opportunity to properly resolve your politicized needs by understanding those with an apparent contradictory set of priorities. And increase the chance to turn assumed foes into potential allies. Status quo politics Stay stuck in mutual suspicion and hostilities. Responsive politics Know your foes and let yourself be known. 4 more advantages of Optimal Politics Besides these five exceptional improvements above to political thinking and behavior, add these four features to soar far above status quo politics. All of these stay anchored to the objective fact of your inflexible needs over the arbitrary nature of flexible laws. And heralds love (i.e., demonstrably honors the needs of others as one's own) as the ideal and reachable standard for us all. See the separate article on parsing politics to learn how these elements affect a politico's scored political legitimacy. 1) Mutually depolarizing: connection over divisiveness Instead of starting with disagreements, OP (or Harmony Politics) has you start with good faith efforts to understand each other, to know what each other needs. It is always counterproductive to disagree with someone's need. No one can change what they inflexibly require to function. Disputing what another needs instantly triggers their defensiveness. Utilizing ideological parties to oppose what each other's needs pits us against each other, needlessly. Who wants that? Who benefits from this polarizing partisan divisiveness? Which political elites are kept in "power" by all this manufactured outrage? Who gains from us constantly hating each other? OP incentivizes each side of a political issue to first affirm the other side's affected needs. Only after affirming their need can you properly and effectively address how they are addressing their need in a way that negatively affects you and your needs. We can have good faith debates around how to properly resolve our politicized needs, to minimize or remove any negative impact on others. But disputing the what of the needs themselves never leads to anything good, unless you're an exploitive political leader. When connecting first to the needs that they cannot alter, you give little to no cause to provoke their defensiveness. They have no grounds to provoke your defensiveness. Instead, you both can cultivate mutual rapport. You utilize the "praise sandwich" format. You see this same professional business communication format in a late payment notice. A = "We value as a loyal customer." A positive slice of news. B = "We notice you have not paid for last month's service." A negative slice buried between two positives. C = "If you have already sent your payment then disregard this notice. And have a good day." The message closes on a positive note. Issue by issue, OP changes the script, the talking points, from divisive politics to "harmony politics" by replacing bad political habits. Replace arguing with listening. Look for the need they cannot change. Replace rejecting with affirming. Respect their prioritized psychosocial needs. Replace demanding with offering. Model how they are to respect you. Apply this to each politicized issue. Click through these eight examples and envision how you can turn ideological differences into mutual understanding and meaningful connection. Anchor your attempts to connect with proven character principles. Melt any tendency toward divisiveness with principles like discipline, honesty, generosity, trustworthiness, and love. Depolarize politics with the power of love. Who doesn't need for more love? No one is perfect, of course. Not even our leaders. Let their humility warrant our grace and mercy. To give them another chance. Let them model the empathy and resilience we all need. Let their positivity improve their political quality. Let's all depolarize politics together. Status quo politics low quality Repeated disappointment with failed negativity. Optimal Politics higher quality Encouraging results with positivity. 1) Mutually depolarizing: connection over divisiveness Instead of starting with disagreements, OP (or Harmony Politics) has you start with good faith efforts to understand each other, to know what each other needs. It is always counterproductive to disagree with someone's need. No one can change what they inflexibly require to function. Disputing what another needs instantly triggers their defensiveness. Utilizing ideological parties to oppose what each other's needs pits us against each other, needlessly. Who wants that? Who benefits from this polarizing partisan divisiveness? Which political elites are kept in "power" by all this manufactured outrage? Who gains from us constantly hating each other? OP incentivizes each side of a political issue to first affirm the other side's affected needs. Only after affirming their need can you properly and effectively address how they are addressing their need in a way that negatively affects you and your needs. We can have good faith debates around how to properly resolve our politicized needs, to minimize or remove any negative impact on others. But disputing the what of the needs themselves never leads to anything good, unless you're an exploitive political leader. When connecting first to the needs that they cannot alter, you give little to no cause to provoke their defensiveness. They have no grounds to provoke your defensiveness. Instead, you both can cultivate mutual rapport. You utilize the "praise sandwich" format. You see this same professional business communication format in a late payment notice. A = "We value as a loyal customer." A positive slice of news. B = "We notice you have not paid for last month's service." A negative slice buried between two positives. C = "If you have already sent your payment then disregard this notice. And have a good day." The message closes on a positive note. Instead of sparking mutual divisiveness, OP utilizes this effective format to pave a path for mutual understanding of each other's needs. To turn animosity into social connection. Issue by issue, OP changes the script, the talking points, from divisive politics to "harmony politics" by replacing bad political habits. Replace arguing with listening. Look for the need they cannot change. Replace rejecting with affirming. Respect their prioritized psychosocial needs. Replace demanding with offering. Model how they are to respect you. Apply this to each politicized issue. Click through these eight examples and envision how you can turn ideological differences into mutual understanding and meaningful connection. Anchor your attempts to connect with proven character principles. Melt any tendency toward divisiveness with principles like discipline, honesty, generosity, trustworthiness, and love. Depolarize politics with the power of love. Who doesn't need for more love? No one is perfect, of course. Not even our leaders. Let their humility warrant our grace and mercy. To give them another chance. Let them model the empathy and resilience we all need. Let their positivity improve their political quality. Let's all depolarize politics together. Status quo politics low quality Keep letting alienation divide and polarize us. Optimal Politics higher quality Apply proven principles to connect with others. 2) Scientifically disciplined: descriptive over normative Instead of first declaring what should be done about some politicized situation, OP takes the effort to first thoroughly observe the situation. It first carefully describes what is observable and can be tested. Then be better informed about a proper course of action. This is basically the social science equivalence of having the discipline to delay gratification. This includes the discipline to frame any claim in a falsifiable way, as much as possible, so that the truth claim can be independently validated or invalidated. This can help end the habit of politicos overlooking our needs in favor of rational argument, or explanation. It's pointless to expect better ideas to improve lives when we need better ballot options. Their normative reactions could use a descriptive overhaul that better accounts for our unresolved politicized needs amidst poor options from which to choose. OP can first apply this social science feature to identify and describe what is called "mass institution mission creep". Mass institution mission creep Every public serving organization tends to shift from prioritizing its originating purpose to prioritizing its own self-continuance. The mass legal institutions of the judicial system and of politics are no different. Mounting distrust in such institutions betray the perception of the public who recognize how political (and judicial) leaders tend to hold onto power to serve their own interests while showing little if any progress toward fulfilling its originating purpose to serve the public's needs. OP observes and carefully describes this shift. Not to shame our leaders. But to show where they can improve their trustworthiness, their legitimacy. Status quo politics low quality Degrade trust with premature claims. Optimal Politics higher quality Build trust with testable claims. 3) Measurably accountable: earned over ascribed legitimacy Instead of passively relying on the social contract standard of the "consent of the governed", OP raises the stakes to "measurably improved outcomes". OP introduces a new social contract standard (MIWO) to outperform the old (MCOG). MCOG = Manipulated Consent of Governed - ascribed legitimacy: legalistic MIWO = Measurably Improved Wellness Outcomes - earned legitimacy: responsive Our consent gets too easily manipulated. While an improvement on the old social contract of kings keeping feudal lords in check, limited ballot options coerce us to accept less ideal outcomes. Democracy can then get coopted by those of greater influence. Earned over ascribed legitimacy OP challenges the "ascribed" legitimacy of our political leaders who manipulate voter perceptions, often with propaganda techniques like fearmongering, without grounding their trustworthiness in empirical terms. Exploiting voter fears points to a lower degree of political quality. Or to a lesser degree of political legitimacy. OP helps candidates running for office to "earn" legitimacy in measurable terms. Independent voters and many partisan voters will accept no less. By establishing their empirical bona fides, candidates can gain an advantage over old school candidates still relying on ascribed legitimacy that counts on sounding persuasive. Obsolete persuasion Optimal Politics reduces or even removes the role of persuasion. By contrast, candidates trying to get votes by using propaganda techniques like fearmongering can appear quaint and outdated. Besides, ascribed legitimacy is easier to lose than earned legitimacy. Continuous improvement Once in office, the ballot winner gets held to the high standard of results. If constituent lives improve, legitimacy increases. But if their lives stagnate or quality of life declines, legitimacy decreases. Sure, each constituent has personal agency to improve their own life the best they can. But OP affords no excuse for leaders who cannot show improvements in a majority of their constituents' lives. The leadership owns any lack of improvement. OP keeps such leaders accountable to results by incentivizing them to remain evidence-based. Instead of persuasion and hoping for the best, office holders learn to use the social science marker "as indicated by" when backing up a claim. The more our political leaders earn their legitimacy, the more society and its individual members can resolve their needs and improve their wellness. And the less we all suffer. Status quo politics low quality Persuading voters to trust them. Optimal Politics higher quality Empirically earning voters' trust. 4) Independently resolved: liberty over legalism Instead of always depending on legal processes to address every public-facing need, OP advantages individuals to directly resolve needs themselves. Legal institutions of the judiciary and politics work largely as backup plans. Both the judicial system and the political system are tainted with legalism. Application of the law is not explicitly designed to properly resolve needs. Trusting the law alone can pull you into dysfunction. Both rely on convenient categories to objectify us (defendant, liberal). Exceptions to those categories tend to get overlooked. Both offer pain relief to the winner of a legal battle (court or ballot). The losing side faces more pain. Neither side receives help to restore full wellness. Both assume and then pull us into an adversarial relation with each other. Alienation from each other is assumed. Divisiveness tends to follow. See how these three correspond to the ranges identified above: generalizing, avoiding pain, and opposing each other. We intuitively know this is bad for our lives, and terrible for our communities. So we typically prefer a different route. OP offers such an attractive alternative. OP checks their assumptions You can confidently say to your leaders: "You don't know what you don't know." Their legalistic application of top-down politics usually presumes we are rational actors who are extrinsically motivated. Many of us are actually bounded rationality individuals who are intrinsically motivated. What is the difference? rational actor: makes choices calculating maximum benefits at minimal costs extrinsically motivated: behavior incentivized by fear of punishment bounded rationality: makes choices based on perception of limited available options intrinsically motivated: behavior incentivized by internal satisfaction Political leaders lose efficacy (and legitimacy by extension) if assuming one thing while we exist as quite another. You perhaps care more about helping Palestinians than the risk of losing your job; you are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated. But you don't how you would pay your bills if fired and consider the safest form of protest: you are more a bounded rationality person than a rational actor. Both can be true at the same time. Political leaders tend to operate on the simplest behavior models. To be frank, such low political quality can then bite them in the ass. But we suffer as well, if not more. Coordinated accountability OP assesses political leaders assumptions. The less measurably responsive to our factual needs, the less legitimate. And if intransigent, we assert the liberty to resolve needs outside of their adversarial legal process. Yes, we exhaust opportunities to address our affected needs independent of lawyer-filtered processes. We place the burden of proof on lawyers and the government if assuming a need for their extrinsic motivation options. We have them exhaust all intrinsic motivation before imposing their legalistic extrinsic motivating options. OP grounds this bold challenge in the inspiring words of the Declaration of Independence, where it asserts that ...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute ...a new form of politics. One more accountably responsive to the people's needs, and not for serving raw power that readily neglects our needs. Status quo politics has turned "consent of the governed" into acclimating to poor quality ballot options. I for one do not consent to be manipulated into accepting their poor quality options. Political elites degrade democracy with "coerced poor options dependence" (or CoPOD for short). OP counters by raising the social contract standard from "consent of the governed" to "measurable outcomes among the governed". We do not consent to be manipulated to trust their unaccountable promises. Trust (i.e., legitimacy) cannot be manipulated; it must be earned with evidence. Political leaders can earn that trust the more our politicized needs resolve. Whether helping us with the tools of law or granting us the liberty to resolve the needs ourselves. The objective fact of our needs does not bend to law or to politics. Our needs respond better to the power of love. Status quo politics low quality Focus haphazardly on legalistic policymaking. Optimal Politics higher quality Focus directly on properly resolving needs. Greater legitimate authority of love There is no greater human authority than resolving needs with love. The more I support you to properly resolve your politicized needs and you reciprocate and support me to properly resolve my politicized needs, the less we need politics or government or lawyers. Love your enemies, as Jesus urged. Love your political foes, whose needs persist as inflexible as yourself. Address kindly how the way they address their politicized needs affect you. Listen to how they complain about your impact on their inflexible needs. Be the quality and integrity we seek in our lesser quality leaders. Offer your political leaders the opportunity to earn your trust. OP incentivize these political leaders to cultivate trustworthiness by having independent voters like you continually rate their political quality based on evidence. Let others decide how to vote based on these published scores. The bottom line is each resolved politicized need, as indicated by improving wellness outcomes. Not only measured by self-reported decreases in anxiety or depression, but also by independent measures like decreasing allostatic load levels. As top-down politics continues to shrink in relevance, let OP provide a meaningful grassroots alternative based on evidence of resolved need. And fueled by cultivated mutual love for one another. Substantive democracy Let the power of our love clean house. Worry less about how democracy has turned shallow. And gives room to some ugly alternatives also unhinged from properly resolving needs. partisan extremism techno-feudalism centrist mediocrity populist authoritarianism neofascism Watch all of these melt under the power of love. It's about the quality of our politics. Not our ideological differences. I believe Dr. King was on a path to instill more love in our fractured politics, when he was brutally taken from us in 1968. Let's take up that mantel, with OP. Yes, it's time for a revolution. Sorry, Malcom X, some revolutions are bloodless, including this one. His point is well taken, that we must not turn the other cheek when we run out of cheeks to turn. In other words, we cannot keep putting our faith in the next election when the ballot repeatedly fails to provide a meaningful path to effectively resolve needs. But let's get back to love. There is no greater revolution than to revolve back to love. OP will have you love your faulty political leaders until they see the wisdom to act, or simply leave. Quality matters. Results matter. Love...or else! Takeaway Political Quality Summary Chart TLDR: The less responsive to actual needs, the more a political response will fail. Political quality matters. The greater the political quality, such as with Optimal Politics, the better we all will be. Compare the options and then choose wisely. Standard politics Toxic politics Optimal Politics 1. self-interest selfish demands selfless offer 2. rational debate petty arguing emotional honesty 3. provisional generalizing rigid generalizing relevant nuance 4. temporary avoidance discomfort avoidance bold engagement 5. mutual opposition mutual defensiveness mutual understanding 1) alienation divisiveness connection 2) normative imposing descriptive 3) ascribed legitimacy illegitimacy earned legitimacy 4) standard legalism toxic legalism liberty to resolve needs NOTE: Earlier versions of Optimal Politics called it Harmony Politics. They are basically the same. Responsive Depolarization Respond better to political differences with understanding and love. Politically Homeless Follow more at the Politically Homeless show on YouTube. Learn how to improve the quality of politics in your life and community. Model a life of love!

My pioneering efforts to end depression continue to be resisted by authorities HIGHLIGHTS Injustice sparks further injustice What could alleviate depression is being hindered You can engage me at the Need-Response podcast Almost a counselor Long shadow of transphobia An injustice repeating injustice Again, I must pay for the mistakes of others Overdue justice Visionary alternative to troubling legalism Recasting this challenge into opportunity Inviting you to personally engage me Almost a counselor I’m not a counselor, but I almost became one. A decade ago, I was trained to be one. I earned my master's in counseling in 2015, at Oakland University in Michigan. Getting through the program as the only openly trans person proved a challenge. While most of my classmates and teachers proved supportive, I still met some detractors. After completing all classwork, I interned at the local LGBTQ+ community center. Getting placed there was no easy matter. I first had to get permission from the school’s lawyer. Long shadow of transphobia Unlike my counseling classmates, I entered the program as a wrongly convicted innocent person. When I first came out as trans in 1993, I was falsely accused and wrongly convicted by a jury who believed the popular trope of LGBTQ+ people as child recruiting predators. No evidence supports the conviction. The accuser’s testimony seemed obviously coached. And I had no other felony or misdemeanor convictions, all which weigh in my favor of asserted innocence. There are far more viable claims of innocence than the courts, or even the innocence projects, can effectively process. So I make the best of what I can with this monkey on my back. An injustice repeating injustice The school’s attorney held up placement for my internship. I was able to secure the standard malpractice insurance without much of a hitch. But the lawyer delayed approval. Thankfully, the school’s provost supported me. She understood how easy it can be for a trans person to be wrongly convicted. And end up falsely on the national sex offender registry, despite the fact that I am asexual. As I waited, I continued enrolling in extra classes. As a wrongly convicted trans person, getting a job and housing proved elusive. I enrolled in college and lived on campus year-round just to survive. A fast-food job is all that I could find. Again, I must pay for the mistakes of others By the time the school’s attorney released me to intern at the local LGBTQ+ center, I had overextended by enrollment. Instantly, I was ineligible for tuition coverage. While legally discriminated against by employers because of the wrongful conviction, I had no way to pay the added tuition. The fast-food job I found barely covered my rent. The wrongful conviction also cost me getting the degree I earned. I couldn’t even find a place to live. I had to stay with my adult daughter for a while. She needed me to vacate to make room for her kids. So I ended up homeless for a year. I finally found somewhere to stay on the rough side of town, a rundown shack crawling with bugs. Overdue justice Last month, a decade later, the state of Michigan sends a collection letter to my daughter’s address. They want that money now. All $3,659.16 of it. And they’re threatening to garnish my meager wages if I don’t cough up this full amount somehow. I definitely do not have that much money on hand. The injustice I suffered in 1993 finds way to replicate itself. I now must pay for that lawyer’s delay back in 2015. No recourse to this action was offered. At least none that I’m aware of. Besides, the adversarial legal process tends to favor those with more clout. It casts itself as the sole or even best means for justice. Even as it quietly squashes the vulnerable to being able to fully resolve their needs. Visionary alternative to troubling legalism The timing disturbs me. I’m about to launch a podcast introducing an alternative to such adversarial legalistic pressures. Called the Need-Response podcast, it links wellness to being able to fully function without imposing pressures from powerful others. Then this occurs. I am on the verge to end the plight of depression and other maladies by resolving stubborn needs, then this pops up in my way. I should be working on preparing the podcast, I tell myself. So much more to do, and now I must set aside precious time to deal with this?! Or perhaps it’s an opportunity disguised as a challenge, that allows me to demonstrate the amazing potential of need-response. Perhaps the Service Collection Bureau in Lansing will receive the honor of being the first to benefit from this alternative to failing adversarialism. Recasting this challenge into opportunity Thank you, SCB in Lansing, for this opportunity to demonstrate this preferable alternative. Thank you, ahead of time, for this opportunity to incentivize you to be open to this more effective option to resolve such needs. Thank you for this opportunity to replace failed hyper-individualism that excessively blames politically powerless individuals, like me, with greater appreciation for how wellness is psychosocial. I have little to no influence over how others mistreat me, like that school lawyer perpetuating the injustice of a wrongful conviction. Thank you for this opportunity to illuminate the psychosocial complexities of common problems dragging us all down. Thank you for this opportunity to replace the hyperrationality evident in their blind faith in the adversarial process, both here and in the wrongful conviction, with greater awareness of our emotionally affected needs. Thank you for this opportunity to affirm your messy needs that defy rational explanations Thank you for this opportunity to replace habits of overgeneralizing about what we think we know, since no one in this process appreciates the specifics of how that school lawyer delayed my internship placement, with relevant specifics too easily overlooked in the adversarial process. Thank you ahead of time to recognize these details that occurred beyond my control. Thank you for this opportunity to replace the norms of impersonal alienation that permits lawyers to avoid the discomfort of getting to know my tragic situation, such as avoiding the painful facts of how the adversarial system mistakenly put an asexual trans person, with no history of violence, on the national sex offender registry. Thank you ahead of time for finally engaging who I really am. Thank you for this opportunity to replace hostile adversarialism that needlessly provokes each other’s defensiveness, which vainly expects me to internalize the defendant role that I continually defy, with the mutuality to relate to each other’s affected needs. Thank you ahead of time for recognizing and respecting my affected needs as I strive to recognize and respect your affected needs. Inviting you to personally engage me You can follow the develops of how this unfolds in our upcoming podcast: the Need-Response podcast. Each Wednesday starting in April 2025, we share this vision for a much-needed service that breaks out of the debilitating mold of adversarialism. If I’m unable to prevail and the state pushes me further into the abyss of poverty, I do not know now if this could prevent me from continuing the podcast. I am open to anyone’s financial help to help ensure the podcast and the need-response service has a chance to succeed. To be blunt, I see little hope for us if we do not let go of our collective addiction to adversarial legalism. I brace for slipping further into collective despair without a service like this equipping us to speak truth to power in ways that incentivize the powerful to listen. Help keep this vision alive. Donate whatever you can to support this visionary alternative. Go to AnankelogyFoundation.org and invest in your own future by helping to improve the chances for this service to become a living reality. Thank you. Thank yourself for keeping hope alive to spread more love.

Privileging anything less than properly resolving needs React culture consists of any social or cultural norm privileging anything less than properly resolving needs. React culture provides “rational” and “legal” cover for not fully or promptly resolving needs. Which excuses not restoring wellbeing. And rationalizes any resulting pain. It consists of many “privileged reactions”, including the ones listed below. React culture stands in stark contrast to a response path (or responsive path), which is any legitimate means to resolve needs. Each entry below concludes with a corrective response path to redress that privileged reaction. Of course, there are far more ways to not properly resolve a need than to properly resolve that need. But we trust you will find the discipline well worth it. Privileged reactions Anankelogy identifies a list of barriers to properly resolving needs. Called a defunction, these hinder resolution of needs, results in compromised wellness and prompts pain. Anankelogy recognizes the objective fact of 1. recurring needs, 2. fluctuating wellness, and 3. occurring emotions alerting you to your evoked needs. One type of defunction is a privileged reaction that occurs at a sociocultural level. Any flexible social or cultural norm that sanctions reacting instead of resolving an inflexible need exists as a privileged reaction. Many of these work in concert with another type of defunction: the power problem. These get baked into our society to the point we no longer see the danger. Fortunately, each defunction be countered with a “refunction”. And each reaction can be corrected by a proper response. Responsive path Any legitimate means to resolving needs restores wellness and removes or reduces cause for pain. Need-response paves a disciplined path to 1. resolve needs, 2. restore wellness, and 3. remove pain. Which involves identifying the many barriers of react culture, and countering each barrier with a specific responsive path to resolve needs to restore wellbeing and remove pain. Refunctions correcting defunctions Anankelogy, the study of need, identifies anything that limits resolving a need and reduces your capacity to function as a “defunction”. Anything that enables resolving a need and raising wellness (i.e., capacity to function) is called a “refunction”. Almost every defunction can be corrected by a refunction, but not always within one’s individual control. First, let’s revisit the character refunctions, or universal principles recognized by every world religion and frequently applied in almost every spiritual tradition. This can lead to less defensiveness and more humble honesty of our imperfections. We’re all imperfect, so let’s embrace honesty, humility, empathy, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, and understanding…among other applicable universal principles. Need-response addresses defunctions beyond the individual’s control with various services still under development. Central to such wellness compromisers is something called toxic legalism with its privileged reactions dragging us all into a sick society. Toxic legalism reactions Imagine you get pulled over by a police officer while driving home from the store. She issues you a traffic ticket for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign a few minutes ago. You ask how she knows for sure you didn’t come to full stop, since she was nowhere around at the time. She tells you she has an image from a surveillance camera to prove it. You wonder aloud if this violates your constitutional right to confront your accuser. She invites you to ask the traffic court magistrate, if you choose to schedule a hearing and take time off from work to contest it. She suggests it would be easier to admit fault and simply pay the fine online. Thar’s the law. She points out that you agreed to abide by the rules when getting your driver’s license. If it’s the law, then that must be a good response. Right? Well, not so fast. Not every situation calls for mindless obedience to the rules or to authority. If a police officer lies about you being a witness to a homicide and threatens to arrest you if you refuse to sign a witness account he himself wrote, do you comply? No one is literally above the law? False! That TR quote more specifically declares that no one’s impactful actions sit outside the scope of legal standards proven to lead to more resolved needs and sustainable personal and societal wellness. Not passive compliance. Passive compliance to a harmful law or authority is no excuse. Not for the Nazi’s accused of war crimes in the late 1940s. And not for us now. If ignorance of the law is no excuse, which are flexible social constructs relative to inflexible needs, then ignorance of affected needs is far less of an excuse. Everyone’s person is above the law, since human life existed before human laws. While no one sits above the law, no law sits above the needs it exists to serve. Laws are flexible. Natural needs are not. Excessive reliance on laws, to the point of causing damage, gets labelled as toxic legalism. Many privileged reactions stem from this prioritization of norms over needs. Anankelogy identifies five key elements of this coerced compliance to norms over resolving needs. Click the button to dive deeper into each one. List of privileged reactions Some of these also qualify as a power problem, which are privileged by a power differential and gray areas of law. All of these are "defunctions", which refers to anything decreasing one's capacity to fully function. These first five set the foundation for all privileged reactions. "Privileged" suggests the law or social custom permits it, or at least how laws are created, interprted, applied and enforced. These first five show how the "good" of law can spoil into toxic legalism. 1. Psychosocial imbalance Do you ever react by asserting your individuality over the crowd? We all do at times. Western culture privileges individualism over the collectivism of a cohesive society. When left to slide into extremes, this favoring of the individual over the group tends to slip into hyper-individualism. Social norms then objectify individuals as law abiding citizens, devoid of complicating social contexts. We enforce norms to make sure individuals make good personal choices. Less attention on the social realm assumes each individual has an array of good options from which to choose. Dive deeper into atomization culture below. You can react atomistically or respond holistically. React: You either react by emphasizing personal responsibility to the neglect of real-world contexts that limit personal options from which to choose. Which correlates with resolving fewer needs, compromising wellness and suffering more pain. Respond: Or you respond by balancing both internal biopsychological factors and external socioenvironmental factors. Which correlates with resolving more needs, restoring more wellness and removing more pain. Psychosocial orientation (PO): individualism or collectivism Your life has a steady approach to resolving self-needs and social needs. You either resolve your self-needs more than your social needs or resolve your social needs more than your self-needs. And this predisposes your political views. Refunction: psychosocial balance path Shift from a self-over-social focus or social-over-self focus to self and social equal focus. Moreover, to cultivate a holistic approach that removes incentive to enforce social norms that errantly reinforce hyper-individualism. 2. Hyperrationality Do you ever react by self-censoring your emotional responses? Do you posit a socially viable reason for your actions? We all do at times. Sociology calls this impression management. To avoid rejection, we present a socially acceptable front. One that sounds more reasonable, less emotionally biased. Ironically, this itself is a bias. Our biases prioritize what we need. By properly resolving our needs with emotional honestly, we get passed the disturbing distortions of our cognitive biases. Dive deeper into hyperrationality culture below. You can react hyper-rationally or respond integrally. React: You either react by sounding more reasonable that others, which has the appearance of being more disciplined but actually evades rich emotional content for better understanding each other’s affected needs. Which correlates with fewer needs resolved, wellness compromised and more pain suffered. Respond: Or you respond by integrating your intuition, with its quick insights gleaned from your enriched emotions, and your reasoning process disciplined by your critical thinking skills. Which correlates with resolving more needs, restoring more wellness and removing more pain. Authenticity orientation (AO): emotional suppression or honesty Your life has a predictable approach toward dealing with intense emotions conveying needs. You either try to control emotions with rational arguments or you process emotions to deflate their compulsive nature. Refunction: authenticity path Shift from an emotional suppression or repression to emotional humble honesty. To let go of social norms relying on disingenuous rationalizations and replace with norms incentivizing authenticity that integrates impassionate and passionate cognitive content. 3. Overgeneralizing Do you ever rely on hyperbole to make your point? Do you then sometimes react by exaggerating just to keep things simple? We all do at times. You keep things simple to compete for attention. You’re tempted to oversimplify some stuff to hold your mark in our fleeting attention economy. Others may accuse you of deliberating ignoring vital details. Perhaps you acknowledge those details, which prompts others to bring up counterfactuals. Now it gets complicated. Dive deeper into hyperbole culture below. You can react vaguely or respond specifically. React: You either react by relying on generalizations that avoid uncomfortable detail. Which correlates with resolving fewer needs, compromising wellness and suffering more pain. Respond: Or you respond by exploring relevant nuance of vital details. Which correlates with resolving more needs, restoring more wellness and removing more pain. Relational orientation (RO): generalize or specific Your life has a stable approach for relating to matters outside of yourself. You either relate to things in more general terms or you relate to them in more specific terms. You either take hyperbole literally or explore any relevant nuance. Refunction: relevant nuance path Shift from social norms permitting dangerous exaggerations to social norms incentivizing exploration of relevant nuance. To accountably deal with vital details necessary to properly resolve needs. 4. Discomfort avoidance Do you ever evade something simply because you can. Do you react to avoiding something uncomfortable? We all do at times. If chasing the junk value of extrinsic happiness, you’re likely tempted to avoid all kinds of pain at any cost. But ignored pain eventually catches up to ruin your day. If always chasing after pleasure, and not resolving needs, you likely find yourself on a desperate treadmill. All privileged by social norms others chase just as religiously. Dive deeper into avoidance culture below. You can react evasively or respond engagingly. React: You either react by staying alienated from uncomfortable content. Which correlates with fewer needs resolved, compromised and suffering more pain. Respond: Or you respond by enduring or even embracing discomfort, to identify the threats your painful feelings prompt you to remove. Which correlates with resolving more needs, restoring more wellness and removing more pain. Easement orientation (EO): relieve pain or remove pain Your life has a stable approach toward life’s many discomforts. You either habitually pursue relief to avoid pain or you embrace discomfort to identify and remove the threat causing such pain. Including the options to remove yourself from the situation. Refunction: engagement path Shift from a discomfort avoidance to discomfort embrace. Instead of instantly reacting to pain, move toward it. Find out what that pain is trying to warn you about. Recognize how pain is not the problem as much as the threats that pain exists to warn you about.. 5. Dehumanizing adversarialism Do you ever react by taking a defensive stance against others? We all do at times. Ever wonder if there was a better way to resolve such conflicts? Opposing another’s need does not extinguish moral conflict but enflames it. Social norms around struggling with others risk keeping you locked down in perpetual conflicts. No one can change what they inflexibly need to get along with you. Nor can you change for them. You can either break free from such debilitating norms or remain stuck in pain. Dive deeper into oppo culture below. You can react defensively or respond approachably. React: You either react by taking an oppositional stance, which triggers mutual defensiveness shutting down needed awareness. Which correlates with resolving fewer needs, compromising wellness and suffering more pain. Respond: Or you respond by staying open amidst the conflict, to learn what you can from the others to develop a mutually satisfying solution. Which correlates with resolving more needs, restoring more wellness and removing more pain. Conflict orientation (CO): guarded or open Your life has a stable approach toward dealing with conflict. You either routinely get defensive and stay closed or you remain open to learn what’s going on. You either become instantly adversarial or you seek mutual respect to resolve conflict.. Refunction: mutuality process Shift from a closed-and-guarded to open-to-learning. From passively triggering mutual defensiveness to cultivating mutual understanding. From hostile apathy to generous empathy, even as they persist in opposing you. Set the standard for them to follow. Model the responsive path toward properly resolving the needs underlying the conflict. Drift into react culture Anankelogy has a word to describe this culturally normalized gradual slide into lowered levels of functioning. It refers to this normalized diminishing wellness as “drift”. These remaining privileged reactions reveal how we drift into trouble in socially approved ways. 6) Accountability diffusion Privileged deviation from being held responsible. 7) Ascribed illegitimacy Authority based primarily upon manipulating the public’s trust. 8) Bothsidesism misuse Smearing empathy for each side’s needs as false equivalency. 9) Coerced compliance Manipulated to submit to questionable expectations of authority. 10) Coerced poor options dependence Manipulated to rely upon limited options to address needs. 11) Degraded social contract Manipulating “consent of the governed” to accept poor outcomes. 12) Dysfunction pathway Settling for less-than-optimal outcomes that slowly damage lives. 13) Excessive resourcing Constraining access to the vital means to resolve needs. 14) Gaslighting Privileged coercion of others’ perception of reality. 15) Humanity loathing Animosity toward all fellow humans, enabling actual sources. 16) Indulgent side-taking Privileged adversarial stance negating cooperation. 17) Manipulative deception Coerce the vulnerable with falsehood. 18) Mass institution mission creep Privileged shift from founding purpose to self-interests. 19) Moral conflation Regarding inflexible needs as the same as flexible responses. 20) Normative alienation Standardizing estrangement from each other. 21) Pathological pragmatism Prioritizing easier to reach yet problematic results. 22) Permitted evil Privileged illicit actions not explicitly illegal or enforced. 23) Petty arguing debate Contend not to learn but to win regardless of the facts. 24) Premature defensiveness Raising guard without external cause. 25) Privileged avoidance Evading what’s uncomfortable simply because one can. 26) Projected antagonism Hostility toward those presumed to be as hostile as oneself. 27) Pseudo-rationality Emotionally charged subjectivity under veneer of being rational. 28) Relativizing universal wisdom Denying the absoluteness of widely grounded statements. 29) Self-incriminating denials: “not-that” Hyper-defensive resistance to critique betrays something to hide. 30) Shame shifting Privileged projection of own embarrassing propensities. 31) Structural exaction Coerced to sacrifice value by social structures. 32) Zero-sum thinking Privileging a winner-take-all falsehood. There are plenty more possible privileged reactions dragging us all down. Let these serve as a guide. And ... CHECK IN LATER TO SEE NEW ONES ADDED X) Item Succinct definition of this privileged reaction with a hint of its impact upon one’s functionality level or capacity.

First, we mutually see if we are a good fit for each other. Next, we conduct mutual due diligence. Finally, we will wrap up expressing our intent to continue or not.

First session is free. If you find value in it, please show your appreciation with a donation. Offer what you can afford to help us sustain this for you and for others. We take Law-Fit to a deeper level, called "citationization". We go through a series of steps to mold the flexible apparatus of law to address inflexible needs. 1. GETTING STARTED To gage any improvement, we first get a baseline of your initial wellness level. We will review your personal information. You have the option to pay for this service out of pocket or to invite others to invest in your supported effort to speak truth to power. As they participate in your wellness, their wellness can improve. We can discuss how this crowdfunding approach can make a profound difference. 2. CONTEXT We will unpack the power relations you find yourself in. And then explore how they affect your wellbeing. We will incentivize these powerholders to shift from legal adversarialism to supportive mutuality. We will prioritize resolving each other’s needs over mindless compliance to laws. 3. CHALLENGES We will likely face some challenges on the way. Some powerholders may resist. We will address those things you should be able to solve on your own. If you take the crowdfunding route, we will invite your supporters to help you tackle some of these challenges. They will gain something along the way. 4. OPPORTUNITIES We dive deeper into law-fit with the ‘citationization’ process. What is the intended purpose of the cited law? How can we know if it’s working as intended? What about any unintended side effects? We shift from alienation to mutual engagement. We may discuss the option of scaling this up into a full ‘wellness program’. We can explore if going this route with a ‘wellness warmup’ is right for you and your situation. 5. ROADMAP We equip you to speak truth to power. We roll out need-response to powerholders in four key steps: 1) NRI: This introduces them to this pioneering alternative. 2) NOI: We let them know we are now applying this process specifically to them. 3) MOU: We negotiate how to better serve each other’s needs. 4) NRA: We avow to resolve your needs with or without their cooperation. 6. OPTIONS We can wind down when those in positions of power finally fit your inflexible needs to flexible laws. We can explore what you could do next. Or decide to end it here. Keep in mind this service is completely new. It will likely evolve as we use it in real time.

Perhaps you could use some guidance as you navigate this pioneering new service. We meet in person online, using Zoom. Each session is relatively brief, only 25 minutes. You can always stack two in a row if you need more time.

Anankelogy Principles A-Foundational - B-Basic - C-General - D-Pain - E-Conflict - F-Power - G-Structural - H-Love You will find these principles organized into eight distinct types. Foundational Principles lay the basis for anankelogy as a unique science. These create the foundation for the discipline study of need . As objective phenomena, many aspects of our needs can be examined by the scientific method . Basic Principles ground aspects of your experience with needs in the science of anankelogy. These establish anankelogy as a unique social science . General Principles add wisdom to experiencing needs anchored in the science of anankelogy. These provide insight into what this new profession of need-response can do that other professional fields cannot . Pain Principles start applying anankelogy to be more "need-responsive" in our lives. These apply primarily at the personal human problem level. Conflict Principles offer some insight for negotiating disputes you have with others. These apply primarily at the interpersonal human problem level. Authority Principles apply anankelogy to the legitimacy of those in positions of influential power. These apply primarily at the power human problem level. Law Principles apply anankelogy to the point of having laws and unwritten norms. These apply primarily at the structural human problem level. Love Principles cap these need-focused concepts with mutual respect for each other's needs. These give context to all the other types as we function best when we support others to function their best. One word for such positive regard is love. Get these inspiring principles in your inbox once a week! First name* Email* Join I want to subscribe to your mailing list. * A01 Foundational Principle A natural need is an objective fact. The more you drill down to the beginning of an experienced need, the more you find what exists prior to any human intervention. You don’t merely believe you must have water or that you need a friend, you experience these needs as essential to your capacity to function. Your ability to function after quenching a thirst or leaning on a friend exist independent of subjective feelings, as objective facts. The less your natural needs resolve, the less you can objectively function. Read More A02 Foundational Principle A naturally prioritized need is an objective fact. The more something you require to fully function persists unsatisfied, the more your attention will be drawn toward its satisfaction. It matters less whether you believe you must prioritize it. The objective basis of your functioning subconsciously demands you focus on it over less pressing matters. Any subjective beliefs or feelings arrive after the objective fact of your life prioritizing it. The less you attend to your inflexibly prioritized needs, the less you can objectively function. Read More A03 Foundational Principle Your wellness level exists as an objective fact. Each natural need that exists as a natural fact serves your capacity to function, also as an objective fact. You do not choose to require the capacity to adequately function, or be well. You may choose how to stay well, to sustain or improve your level of functioning. But what exists as essential to your capacity to function exists independent of your subjective awareness. Read More A04 Foundational Principle Each emotion occurs as an objective fact. Almost everything we learn about emotions points to how we subjectively experience them. Prior to being evoked, each emotion points to a predictable situation or need that emotion conveys. Anger, for example, predictably follows something genuinely unacceptable, and never produces joy instead. The objective "what" of each emotion remains distinct from its subjective "how". Read More B01 Basic Principle Resolving needs improves wellness. Wellness is another word for function. All needs exist to serve function. The more you resolve your needs, the better you can function. The more you eat well, the better you can function. You eat, breathe, connect with friends and enjoy moments of solitude all for the sake of being able to function through life. The less your needs resolve, or the less you attend to your prioritized needs, the less you can function. Or the less well you will be. Where there is no function to serve, there is no need. Read More B02 Basic Principle Emotions personally convey needs. The less you can function because of some lack or some threat, the more your body will emote you do something to replenish that lack or remove that threat. Such responses are automatic. Your body conveys your needs to maintain function. You don’t even have to feel it, though you often do on some level. Where there is no need to convey, there is no emotion. Read More B03 Basic Principle Your emotions prioritize your existence. The more you sense some threat, even a mild risk to your safety, your emotions will automatically prioritize your continued existence. Without your assured continuance, little else matters to your life. Or you may no longer be around, or at least at your current capacity, for anything else to matter. Once triggered, it’s next to impossible to prioritize anything else. Read More B04 Basic Principle Your feelings alert you to the status of your needs. The more your functioning becomes limited from some unresolved need, the more your feelings call attention to it. Initially, such feelings remain vague. Then often out of the blue, they turn alarmingly urgent. Usually with something you could do right away to ease the pressure. You could react on this feeling. Or you could dig deeper into what your feelings can only suggest is really happening. Properly responding dissolves its intensity. Read More B05 Basic Principle Beliefs exist to serve needs. The more your interpreted perceptions help you to function in life, the more they crystallize into useful beliefs. The less relevant a fact is to your functioning, the less you cling to it. It matters little if you agree or disagree whether the sun will someday go nova. You can hardly be persuaded against holding as true what helps you survive today, or helps you get by, or helps you get ahead in life. Read More B06 Basic Principle You believe what you need to believe. The more a belief proves vital to your existence, the more it rises in your hierarchy of accepted truths. The more your life seems or actually depends on something being so, the more you must naturally defend it. The less relevant to your required means to function, the less you defend it. The less your needs resolve, the more tightly you cling to any belief you perceive helping you get by. Read More B07 Basic Principle Your biases prioritize your needs. The less resolve a need, the more your attention naturally turns to seek its relief. You find you must prioritize whatever you find available to ease the emotional pressure. Sometimes, you hit on exactly what your life requires. Your prioritized thinking leads you in a positive direction. Other times, you prioritize generalizations that offer hope for relief. Such biases easily lead you astray, and in pain. Read More B08 Basic Principle All beliefs include error. The more you generalize, the less likely the accuracy of those beliefs. If irrelevant to your life, then the result errors can pass unnoticed. As a factory worker, it matters little if I believe Abraham Lincoln was born in Illinois or Kentucky. If my livelihood depends on it, I better know he was born in Kentucky. There will always be facts beyond the reach of your conclusions. Humility helps you stay informed. Read More View this list organized into these topics 1 2 3 4 5 1 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 6 A-Foundational B-Basic C-General D-Pain E-Conflict F-Authority G-Law H-Love

Defunctions List 1 discomfort avoidance Read More Discomfort avoidance is the habitual evasion of pain, often from failing to differentiate between positive organic pain and less positive types of pain. 2 mass avoidance Read More Mass avoidance is the widespread norm of not personally engaging with others or in something that seems uncomfortable or threatening. 3 symfunctional strain Read More Symfunctional strain is the ongoing emotional stress from needs not fully resolved, limiting your ability to focus elsewhere and often mistaken as lack of intelligence. 4 vulnerability avoidance Read More Vulnerability avoidance is the persistent evasion of dropping your guard with others close to you, typically out of fear or rejection and often a consequence of normative alienation , nomoscentricity , pistiscentricity and other defunctions .

The Need-Response podc ast Spotify Amazon Castbox iHeart PlayerFM YouTube NR Clips RSS feed The Need-Response podcast introduces you to the budding professional service of ‘need-response ’. Steph and Gustavo address your underserved needs with this new service, beyond the limits of our current institutions of law and psychotherapy . Follow along to speak truth to power, incentivizing them with the power of love to listen to those they impact. Episodes drop each Wednesday morning, starting 30 April 2025. August 6, 2025 2x09 Prove your innocence without lawyers Instead of filling out and sending paper forms that take forever, consider this better alternative. 2x09 Prove your innocence without lawyers 00:00 / 26:10 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) July 9, 2025 1x08 Responding to the unexonerated innocent How can we trust the adversarial legal system to fix what it keeps breaking? 1x08 Responding to the unexonerated innocent 00:00 / 36:27 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) June 25, 2025 1x07 Does innocence even matter? Steph opens up about the wrongful conviction still hampering their full potential. 1x07 Does innocence even matter? 00:00 / 37:30 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) June 4, 2025 1x06 What is wrong with us? If you can start for free, why not try it? Especially if you can shift the costs to the powerful. 1x06 What is wrong with us? 00:00 / 40:43 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) May 28, 2025 1x05 How well is your wellbeing? We define wellness as your ability to fully function. Not by relieving pain but removing cause for pain. 1x05 How well is your wellbeing? 00:00 / 42:38 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) May 21, 2025 1x04 What seems to be your problem? What kinds of problems does need-response address? How is different from other options? 1x04 What seems to be your problem? 00:00 / 38:19 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) May 14, 2025 1x03 Where does it hurt? Do you settle for options that merely ease your pain? Why not let us help remove its cause? 1x03 Where does it hurt? 00:00 / 42:03 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) May 7, 2025 1x02 What do you need? Do we really need another type of professional service? 1x02 What do you need? 00:00 / 39:53 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) April 30, 2025 1x01 What is 'need-response'? What can this new service do we can’t get anywhere else? 1x01 What is 'need-response'? 00:00 / 42:43 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) April 16, 2025 1x00 Introducing need-response Steph and Gustavo opens the door to invite you into this amazing world of need-response. 1x00 Introducing need-response 00:00 / 05:14 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) January 30, 2025 Trailer Need-Response trailer Quick introduction to the new podcast by the Anankelogy Foundation Trailer Need-Response trailer 00:00 / 00:58 Episode features (exclusive to podcast subscribers) Subscribe now to get all podcast features (free) 1 1 ... 1 ... 1

Earn your first qualification to be a credentialed need-responder. Discover how you can replace your habitual reaction to pain with your potential to respond to the needs behind that pain. See this improve your life as it also helps you improve the lives of others. Most of us react to our situations instead of responding to the needs in the moment. You can now develop the skills to shift from habitually reacting upon your feelings to routinely responding to each other's needs. PROGRAM OUTLINE 1. Let's get started 2. Let’s stretch your discomfort zone 3. Let’s expand your emotional tolerance 4. Let’s understand your “easement orientation” 5. Let's share your improving easement orientation 6. Let's show others you can face your pain boldly 7. Let’s wrap up The more you face your pain upfront and address the underlying needs, the less pain you will suffer in the long run. Qualified need-responders do not avoid discomfort, but take such displeasures face on. Embracing your natural occurrences of pain serves as your first huge step toward becoming a credentialed need-responder. You can take your time to complete this self-paced course. To resume where you left off last, simply click the 'Go to Current Step' button. You've got this! Soon enough, you will be credentialed as a personal need-responder.