Search Results

Need-response backs up any consensus avowal with a thoroughly coordinated enforcement operation. A response team assembles to enforce need-responder commitments to properly resolve needs by any legitimate means necessary. This can work with or at odds with any law enforcement. It holds all accountable to the higher standard of producing improved wellness outcomes of all impacted. Once a path toward improving wellness has been established that will not cost the wellness of others, it shall be enforced with due force.

“Take responsibility. Be rational. Keep it simple. Relieve your pain. Take a stand.” What’s wrong with these? Everything!   These snippets all point to the problem of “toxic legalism”. Toxic legalism is when you put flexible laws ahead of the inflexible needs , which such laws exist to serve. This occurs in at least five dimensions, covered below. Which do you believe as more accurate? No one is literally above the law. OR No one's impactful actions are beyond the reach of agreed upon responses to our needs, but the needs themselves sit above laws as they occur before any law was ever codified. Anankelogy establishes a natural need as an objective fact . The less your needs resolve, the less you can objectively function. And the more predictably you will suffer pain . Objective needs are inflexible needs; they cannot be readily changed to fit the demands of laws . By contrast, anankelogy recognizes human laws as arbitrary legal fictions. The more we obey laws more than respond to needs out of love , the more our wellness suffers. Arbitrary laws are flexible laws; they can be readily changed to fit our inflexible needs. There are at least five ways the original purpose of laws can slip into toxic legalism. Slipping from personal accountability  to hyper-individualism Slipping from rational authority  to hyperrationality Slipping from vagueness to overgeneralizing Slipping from impartiality to alienating avoidance Slipping from punitive enforcement  to hostile adversarialism Toxic legalism can be defined as prioritizing subservience to laws or to social norms over serving the needs for which they exist. Anankelogy recognizes each of these elements as a level of functioning, or of your level of wellness. MORAL DEFUNCTIONS MORAL REFUNCTIONS hyper-individualism psychosocial holism hyperrationality vulnerable honesty overgeneralizing relevant nuance discomfort avoidance discomfort embrace hostile adversarialism supportive mutuality The law exists to impersonally convey each other’s needs. Taken to extremes, it devolves into something ignoring our needs, or worst. Too much law sinks into what anankelogy recognizes as toxic legalism .     Each toxic element starts out innocent enough, trying to address some need. Then slips into problems when misapplied. Instead of helping our needs, it dangerously undermines our needs.   Anankelogy considers such hindrances to our needs as defunctions . Which gets corrected by what anankelogy calls refunctions .   Need-response exists as a new profession to help us restore our functioning. Need-response gets us back to resolving needs to improve each other’s wellness. Laws do not resolve needs; properly motivated people do.   In short, toxic legalism presents these five dangers. Need-response counters each one in ways no one else even tries. 1. Slipping from personal accountability  to hyper-individualism This starts with something good. The law  emphasizes personal responsibility to act appropriately. Authority compels your responsibility toward the rights of others.   Too personalized , and we slip into overlooking the external limits constraining compliance. That easily morphs into toxic legalism . Taken to extremes, this actually undermines our personal and shared responsibilities.   Toxic legalism tends to overemphasize personal responsibility at the neglect of other’s responsibility toward you. This tends to leave your needs unaddressed. You might solely blame yourself for the resulting pain, which risks trapping you in more pain. This affects your psychosocial orientation (PO). Anankelogy recognizes how everyone has a relatively fixed approach to address their self-needs and their social needs. The more your self-needs resolve relative to your social needs, or the more your social needs resolve more than your self-needs, the more you experience a disturbing tension. You outwardly express this tension in your political views.   Nature compels you to integrate your inward self-needs with your outward social needs. You find wellness with psychosocial holism —resolving your self-needs (like personal autonomy and self-initiative) on par with your social needs (like acceptance from others and group supports). Unresolved needs can pull you into hyper-individualism . To understand how how so many of us can slip into hyper-individualism  can be explained by the phenomenon of symfunction capture . It pulls us from the benign purpose of law into its toxic legalistic elements. From peakfunction   to symfunction creep , then into symfunction strain , onto symfunction trap , and into painful dysfunction . Slipping from peakfunction into symfunction creep From a norm of effectively holding individuals personally accountable for their impactful behavior to normalizing the blaming of individuals for some things beyond their personal control.   Slipping from symfunction creep into symfunction strain From a norm of blaming individuals for some things beyond their personal control to normalizing the exaggeration that you can be held responsible for an increasing load of items beyond your personal control (i.e., locus of control  from internal  to external ).   Slipping from symfunction strain into symfunction trap From the norm of being held responsible for a growing list of items beyond your personal control (which others who can effectively maintain an internal locus of control and intrinsic motivation poorly assume others should be able to do likewise without knowing their specific situations) to normalizing the generaliza­tion that you are solely responsible for all of your actions regardless of the sociocultural limitations to effectively address your inflexible needs.   Slipping from symfunction trap into temporal dysfunction From a norm of generalizing of being solely responsible for everything that befalls you to normalizing the resulting as something you solely must cope with on your own.   TLDR From a norm of holding individuals personally accountable for their behavior to normalizing being solely responsible for all that happens to you. Need-response can restore your wellness with psychosocial holism . Need-response balances internal and external factors affecting our needs. Sometimes you can resolve your needs with individual merit. Other needs run into systemic structural barriers.   Anankelogy recognizes our problems occur on at least four levels . Personal problems . You can easily solve on your own. Interpersonal problems . You solve with cooperation with your peers. Power problems . You solve with cooperation with those in authority over you. Structural problems . Solving such problems calls for systemic changes.   Anankelogy recognizes how each problems level differently affects our self-needs (like autonomy and personal freedom) and our social needs (like acceptance and group support). Easing our self-needs more than your social needs, or easing your social needs more than your self-needs, leaves you with uncomfortable tension.   That tension is “psychosocial imbalance”. This informs our political views . How these sets of needs resolve relative to each other shapes your psychosocial orientation . You externally express this internal inflexible priority of needs with your flexible political views. The more you can resolve your self-needs and social needs on par with each other, the less politically passionate and more responsive to each other’s needs.   Need-response cultivates each other’s psychosocial orientation  from ignoble psychosocial imbalance  to noble psychosocial balance  by addressing and even resolving self-needs and social needs on par with each other. In short, we proactively transition from hyper-individualism to psychosocial holism . 2. Slipping from rational authority  to hyperrationality This starts with something good. The law  checks your irrational behaviors if reacting on your feelings. Rational-legal authority checks your impulses toward others.   Too rational , and we slip into guarding our vulnerabilities even from ourselves. That easily sinks into toxic legalism . Taken to extremes, this actually undermines rationality.   Toxic legalism bends toward rationalizing in ways that enable you to hide your vulnerable feelings. You expect your rational arguments to be socially safer than exposing your less defensible emotions. So you cover your emotions with slick sounding arguments. This points to your vulnerability orientation  (VO). Anankelogy recognizes how everyone has a relatively fixed approach to interacting with others. You typically keep yourself defensively guarded from those you do not know, and likely do not know you. You are more inclined to drop your guard and be more vulnerably honest to those you feel you can trust.   You mature better the more you can be vulnerably honest  to all of those around you. Hyperrationality  provokes defensiveness. Daring to drop your guard invites others to do likewise. Which opens the door to mutually understand each other on a deeper level. Unresolved needs can pull you into hyperrationality . To understand how so many of us can slip into hyperrationality  or even pseudo-rationality can be explained by the phenomenon of symfunction capture . It pulls us from the benign purpose of law into its toxic legalistic elements. From peakfunction   to symfunction creep , then into symfunction strain , onto symfunction trap , and into painful dysfunction . Slipping from peakfunction into symfunction creep From a norm of checking our emotional overreactions, that can lead to inappropriate behaviors, to normalizing the disparaging of intense emotions as automatically dangerously irrational.   Slipping from symfunction creep into symfunction strain From a norm of disparaging intense emotions as dangerously irrational to normalizing the attitude that all intense emotions are dangerously irrational and must be rationally suppressed, increasingly leading to guarding own emotions from other’s reasoning.   Slipping from symfunction strain into symfunction trap From normalizing the attitude that all intense emotions are dangerously irrational and must be rationally suppressed to defensively hiding one’s own emotions behind “reasoned arguments” that easily blind us from our vulnerable needs.   Slipping from symfunction trap into temporal dysfunction From a norm of remaining ignorant of our own emotionally fueled needs with “reasoned arguments” to a norm of repressing emotions to the point of overlooking the underlying needs, which increases the likelihood of more intense emotions as those needs scream with emotional pain for prompt relief.   TLDR From a norm of keeping our emotions in check to routinely denying our emotions to the point of neglecting the underlying needs, which ensures our “irrational emotions” shall persist.   Need-response can restore your wellness with vulnerable honesty . Need-response incentivizes us to let go of our rational arguments long enough to drop our guard to expose our indefensible and inflexible needs. We nurture trustworthiness to courageously reveal our vulnerabilities.   There is less reason to DEBATE when you can vulnerably RELATE . When we first address what both realize cannot be changed—our inflexible needs—we put ourselves in a better position to address areas that can be changed. We reward honestly admitting how our flexible response to our needs can unintentionally hinder others from resolving their own inflexible needs.   Emphasis on rational arguments easily discourages humble admissions. We make it safe to expose our imperfections when shifting from rationality to safer vulnerability. We honor the knowledge of our internal needs over knowledge of merely external things. That stuff is important, but never as important as the needs requiring to be resolve so you can function well enough to contemplate on those external things.   Hiding your vulnerabilities behind reasoned arguments often becomes counterproductive. The more you rely on rationalizations to avoid your vulnerabilities, the less likely you can fully resolve those affected needs. Especially if kept hidden from everyone. The less your needs resolve, the more intense the resulting emotions. Which you likely seek to cover with more motivated reasoning  as you keep your guard raised to avoid feeling hurt.   Need-response cultivates an environment to safely drop your guard to each other. To cultivate the vulnerability to be better known and appreciated by each other. Instead of constantly trying to prove something to others, you welcome knowing each other as you truly are.   You can then recognize we each are doing the best we can with the challenges facing us. You help each other to make it easier to honestly face our own needs, and our imperfect responses to them. You appreciate rational arguments as a tool, and never as a panacea to guard your vulnerabilities.   Need-response cultivates each other’s vulnerability orientation  from ignoble self-protective rationalizing to noble self-disclosed needs  that posits inflexible needs over flexible reasoning that often avoids the vulnerability of inexplicable and inflexible needs. In short, we proactively transition from hyperrationality to vulnerable honesty . “To understand people, I must try to hear what they are not saying, what they perhaps will never be able to say.” - John Powell, Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? 3. Slipping from vagueness to overgeneralizing This starts with something good. The law tends to be vague to apply to various situations. Laws remain flexible to apply to a wide array of situations.   Too vague , and we slip into overgeneralizing that overlooks relevant specifics of our affected needs. That easily slides into toxic legalism . Taken to extremes, this actually undermines the intended flexibility of the law’s vagueness.   Toxic legalism persuades you avoid any details that risk rejection. Coalitions stick around widely agreed upon generalizations. You also might prefer to avoid uncomfortable specifics. You perhaps generalize for relief from pain. This affects your relational orientation  (RO). Anankelogy recognizes how everyone has a relatively fixed approach to relating to the world around them. You either generalize about those things that matter little to you or your needs. And you tend to seek specifics to address the details of your life.   You enjoy more wellness the more you engage the relevant nuance affecting your life. And the more you engage such specifics in the lives of others, the trust you engender. Let every generalization serve as a temporary pit stop on your way to delving into it a little deeper. Unresolved needs can pull you into overgeneralizing . To understand how so many of us can slip into overgeneralizing  can be explained by the phenomenon of symfunction capture . It pulls us from the benign purpose of law into its toxic legalistic elements. From peakfunction   to symfunction creep , then into symfunction strain , onto symfunction trap , and into painful dysfunction . Slipping from peakfunction into symfunction creep From a norm of leaving written rules vague enough to apply to various situations to a norm of overlooking relevant specifics not addressed by laws.   Slipping from symfunction creep into symfunction strain From a norm of overlooking relevant specifics to an emerging norm of evading specifics that may risk disagreement from others whose support is counted on.   Slipping from symfunction strain into symfunction trap From the norm of avoiding potentially controversial specifics to a norm of neglecting the reality of relevant specifics, trusting generalizations to offer reliable answers for all.   Slipping from symfunction trap into temporal dysfunction From a norm of sidestepping specifics to latch onto comforting generalizations to blindly trusting one’s generalizations to somehow effectively lead to satisfying results.   TLDR From a norm of keeping rules vague for wide applicability to the norm of overgeneralizing to the point of neglecting relevant specifics, which keeps needs from being fully resolved. Need-response can restore your wellness with relevant nuance . Need-response encourages us to utilize our trusted generalizations as mere stepping stones. Behind everything we learn, we can always dig a little deeper. Anything we learn can serve as a bridge to explore the finer details affecting our many complicated needs.   We graciously invite better awareness of our needs. No more hiding behind sweet sounding generalizations that offers more comfort than sustainable solutions. Too much hyperbole and exaggerations easily pull us away from resolving needs, which easily traps us in pain.   First, we distinguish between needs we cannot change and our responses that can be changed. We cannot solve our problems by provoking other’s defenses when triggered to guard their inflexible needs with our rational sounding generalizations. We melt defensiveness when explore missed specifics behind their needs. Which models how they can be more specific about our exposed needs.   We let go of generalizations that no longer serve. We replace oversimplifying rationalities with relevant nuance. We get down the nitty gritty of what each other specifically needs. And explore the details of how to address those needs with minimal negative impacts on others (i.e., externalities).   Need-response cultivates each other’s relational orientation  from ignoble exaggerations  to nobly addressing specifics  to address what often gets overlooked. In short, we proactively transition from overgeneralizing to relevant nuance . 4. Slipping from impartiality to alienating avoidance This starts with something good. The law  tends to be impersonal to avoid favoritism. Laws are best kept impartial, to treat all equally.   Too impersonal , and we slip in avoidance of the natural discomfort of our bodies warning us of real threats. That easily devolves into toxic legalism . Taken to extremes, this actually undermines impartiality.   Toxic legalism has you avoiding discomfort and avoiding others, to the point of remaining painfully alienated. You slip into isolation to avoid having to deal with others. Until you find your seclusion painfully lonely. This impacts your easement orientation (EO). Anankelogy recognizes how everyone has a relatively fixed approach to discomfort. You either habitually avoid just about every level of pain. Or you routinely endure life’s natural discomforts.   You only experience pain when your body reports some threat to remove. The more you embrace this discomfort, the more aware of those threats and what to do about them. Let such discomfort embrace serve you well. Unresolved needs can pull you into alienating avoidance . To understand how so many of us can slip into alienating avoidance  can be explained by the phenomenon of symfunction capture . It pulls us from the benign purpose of law into its toxic legalistic elements. From peakfunction   to symfunction creep , then into symfunction strain , onto symfunction trap , and into painful dysfunction . Slipping from peakfunction into symfunction creep From a norm of striving for impartiality by keeping enforcement as impersonal as possible to a norm of keeping “professionally” yet coldly distant from those targeted for enforcement.   Slipping from symfunction creep into symfunction strain From a norm of keeping coldly distant from those targeted for enforcement to a norm of formalized estrangement toward those affected by enforced social norms.   Slipping from symfunction strain into symfunction trap From a norm of remaining alienated toward those affected by enforced norms to objectifying those targeted for enforcement while avoiding their actual experiences.   Slipping from symfunction trap into temporal dysfunction From a norm of objectifying those targeted for enforcement that avoids their actual experiences to normalizing the avoidance of uncomfortable awareness of negatively impacted painful needs.   TLDR From a norm of trying to stay impartial to norm enforcers standardizing avoidance of the underlying needs, and of any pain resulting when those needs are kept from being fully resolved. Need-response can restore your wellness with discomfort embrace . Need-response seeks to inspire our neglected capacity for greater resilience and audacious engagement of each other. Instead of dodging what’s unpleasant about ourselves or each other, we stretch our resilience.   Anankelogy recognizes how you only experience pain when your body warns you of a threat to be removed. Pain is not the problem as much as the threat your pain exists to report . Instead of settling for pain relief that never completely goes away (because the need persists to prompt more pain), need-response helps you remove pain by helping each other to remove threats.   The more you address the needs you affect in others, the easier for others to address your needs that they affect. You cultivate an affinity for each other’s welfare. You nurture trustworthiness, to express and engage each other’s vulnerable needs. You ultimately replace alienating avoidance with mutual resilient engagement of each other’s affected needs.   Need-response nurtures each other’s easement orientation  from ignoble pain relief  to noble pain removal  by resolving the needs prompting pain. In short, we proactively transition from alienating discomfort avoidance to engaging   discomfort embrace . 5. Slipping from punitive enforcement  to adversarialism This starts with something good. The law opposes lawbreakers to ensure respect for others. Facing social sanctions for disrespecting others proves a powerful motivator.   Too adversarial , and we slip in mutual hostilities and defensiveness that shuts down needful cooperation. That easily shrinks into toxic legalism and fuels problematic oppo culture . Taken to extremes, this actually undermines critical opposition to questionable actions or ideas.   Toxic legalism normalizes premature opposition to others. Slight disagreements expand into mutual hostilities. Common ground gets overlooked to indulge in side-taking . You oppose another’s needs who oppose yours, locking you into mutual adversarialism. This shapes your conflict orientation (CO). Anankelogy recognizes how everyone has a relatively fixed approach to conflicts. You either get defensive and close down or remain open to learn what each other needs. You either let yourself get pulled into the darkness of mutual defensiveness, or hold out for the light of mutual understanding.   You will reach more your life’s rich potential the more you favor mutuality over adversarialism. Fight to properly resolve needs, not fight each other. Challenge what others do, but never oppose the inflexible needs of others. Or they will oppose your needs which you can never change. Unresolved needs can pull you into hostile adversarialism . To understand how so many of us can slip into adversarialism  can be explained by the phenomenon of symfunction capture . It pulls us from the benign purpose of law into its toxic legalistic elements. From peakfunction   to symfunction creep , then into symfunction strain , onto symfunction trap , and into painful dysfunction . Slipping from peakfunction into symfunction creep From a norm of incentivizing compliance to social standards to a norm of assuming violations of norms call for some kind of punishing coercion, even if some benign social faux pas.   Slipping from symfunction creep into symfunction strain From a norm of assuming violations of norms should prompt some kind of punishing coercion to a norm of assuming each of us are selfish actors kept in check only by external authorities.   Slipping from symfunction strain into symfunction trap From the norm of assuming each of us are selfish actors kept in check only by external authorities to a norm of pitting “selfish actors” against each other in some adjudication process by “impartial” authorities largely biased against the accused.   Slipping from symfunction trap into temporal dysfunction From a norm of pitting violators of social norms against each other in an adjudication process to a norm of institutionalized adversarialism that systemically discounts our potential for mutual understanding or cooperation, which regularly impedes opportunity to mutually support and resolve each other’s affected needs.   TLDR From a norm of motivating compliance with threats of punishing rule violators to a norm of widespread adversarialism that leaves little if any room for mutual understanding or support, which effectively normalizes unresolved needs. This positions enforcement regimes as the only means to address the resulting problems of unresolved needs, which benefits from keeping needs from being fully resolved. Need-response can restore your wellness with supportive mutuality . Need-response incentivizes all sides to a conflict to engage each other’s affected needs with a simple format: A ) A ffirm each other’s objectively existing needs ; B ) B ring up how the other ostensibly affects own inflexible needs; and C ) C ontinue to mutually understand and support each other’s good faith attempts to properly address those mutually conveyed needs.   Instead of indulging in taking a side  against each other’s outwardly stated stance on some issue, we invite them to express their inwardly inflexible needs. We distinguish between inflexible needs and our flexible responses to them. We mutually affirm each other’s indisputable needs before questioning impactful responses to them.   We cultivate mutual understanding by graciously expressing how one’s own views and behaviors affect those needs. We only oppose those who refuse to engage each other’s inflexible needs in good faith, not those who cannot change what they inflexibly need to suit what we ourselves flexibly prefer.   We shift from mutual defensiveness to mutual openness and understanding, and then from mutual hostilities to mutual support. We shift from indulgent side-taking , which favors relieving pain over resolving needs , to the discipline of knowing and respecting each other’s inflexible needs.   Need-response cultivates each other’s conflict orientation  from ignoble adversarialism  to noble mutuality . In short, we proactively transition from antagonism and hate to mutuality and love . Law-based institutions compound toxic legalism Sociology has long recognized how every institution and authority tends to drift from its founding purpose to serve a public need to serving itself  to ensure its own continuance. Beyond these five key elements, other factors emerge that pull authorities from serving the law's original purpose—to address our needs—to serving mostly themselves. Reification of "power". When we speak of those in power or having power, then believe they literally have actual power over us, we slip further into toxic legalism. They have significant social influence that we label as "power". Without the real power of nature compelling our needs, they have no social influence. Power isn't power unless it resolves needs . Otherwise, it is only coercive force that pulls into toxic legalism. Reification of "self-interest" . Modern philosophy and economics emphasize how we function largely from pursuing our self-interests in a system largely complementing each other's self-interests. When watered down into a palatable " popgen version ", many rationalize their selfishness and even their self-righteousness. These easily harden into hyper-individualism  that politically excuses our lapse into toxic legalism. "No one above the law" myth . Teddy Roosevelt rightly asserted that no one's impactful actions sit outside the reach of the law. That doesn't mean the law itself is literally above your existence, or above your inflexible needs. While no one sits above the law, no law sits above the needs it exists to serve . The inflexible needs evolved first; laws flexibly arrived later as social constructions. To forgo what you need to suit some demanding authority robs you of wellness, fueling another form of toxic legalism. More of these toxic elements exist that compromise our wellness in the name of the law. For now, consider how the five key elements emerge in the adversarial justice system. Hyper-individual : When confronted by law enforcement, externalities get patently ignored. Hyperrational : Authority patently ignores your vulnerably felt needs. Overgeneralizing : Adjudication easily neglects the many specifics involved in a situation. Avoidant : Adjudication offers relief for the winning side, not a path toward removing pain. Adversarialist : You are pitted against another, with little if any effort to identify or address the needs on all sides.   Now consider the makeup of polarizing politics. Hyper-individual : Politics reduces you to an atomized rational decisionmaker, blaming you for poor ballot options. Hyperrational : You’re supposed to rationally find answers, rationalizing unresponsiveness. Overgeneralizing : Coalitions rely on avoiding specifics that could evoke disagreement. Avoidant : Politics tend to keep you alienated from each other, to avoid relating with each other on a more personal level. Adversarialist : You are pitted against another, with little if any effort to identify or address the needs on all sides. The more judicial and political authorities benefit from these toxic elements, the less they are aware of its cost to our wellness. Ironically, the more you submit to toxic legalism, the less well enough you will be to faithfully comply with every legal requirement. Authorities then position themselves as the solution, despite fueling the problem. Love over law Need-response calls out this conflict of interest as a form of empirical evil . It is measurable, independent of personal biases or religious beliefs. Need-response then offers to replace it with empirical uprightness . Need-response helps you to measurably improve wellness by directly addressing the needs that laws exist to serve. After all, you don't exist for human authority; such authority exists for you . Need-response counters all of these elements, with the refunctions listed above. And by prioritizing inflexible needs over flexible laws, with what it calls citationization or " law-fit ". Which calls for citing the needs to be served by any cited social norm. Need-response raises the standard with universal principles, or “ character refunctions ” including love . Moreover, need-response raises the standard from the law’s harm reduction norm to loving one another —to properly honoring the needs of others as you would have them honor your own. Which can more easily result in more resolved needs, less pain to suffer, and greater overall wellness . Your responsiveness to toxic legalism Your turn. Does this speak to you? Share your thoughts about this in the forum. Check our Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact with others and to create your own forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this applied anankelogy category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top

Problems persist when expecting reality to fit into our convenient binary categories. Take the sick-well binary. Or the right-wrong binary. Or the politically left-right binary. Until we honestly acknowledge the continuum that naturally exists beyond these oversimplifying categories, we will continue to suffer pain, trouble and problems. Anankelogy provides you the nuance overlooked by our many failing institutions. Which do you think is more likely? You are either well or sick with little room in between. OR Wellness is a matter of degree between full wellness and full illness. Functionality array overview Peakfunctionality - prioritizing resolving needs Symfunctionality - prioritizing easing needs Dysfunctionality - prioritizing relieving pain Misfunctionality - prioritizing survival Functionality array nuance Peakfunction spectrum Symfunction spectrum Dysfunction spectrum Misfunction spectrum Moving from one functional level to another Functionality array overview Every need you experience only exists so you can function in life. Apart from functioning, there are no needs. The less your needs resolve, the less you can function and the more pain you will suffer. The more your needs resolve, the better you can function and reach more of your potential. Your nuanced needs could care less about those convenient categories and labels heavily trusted by medical professionals. Psychiatry traditionally relied on the medical model . It categorizes you as either sick or not sick. Its disease model threshold between sickness and wellness gets easily muddied. Letting these conventional categories reify , into something we take literally, can ironically contribute to our sickness. If what we need to effectively address dysfunctions like addiction remains overlooked by our conventional categories, then let's replace our black-and-white thinking with something that better appreciates the gradient nature of reality. Anankelogy recognizes a range between full wellness and a lack of wellness. It sees wellness as a level of your ability to function. The more you can function, the more well you are. The less you can function, then the less well you are. Or the sicker you become. Anankelogy identifies four key levels of your ability to function. This illuminates the overlap between full wellness and slipping into a lack of wellness. With this functionality array , anankelogy recognizes four dominant levels of your ability to function in life. Each presents a distinctly different priority. Peakfunctionality - prioritizing the full resolution of needs to fully function. Symfunctionality - prioritizing easing needs with help from others. Dysfunctionality - prioritizing relieving pain from unresolved needs. Misfunctionality - prioritizing survival while overwhelmed with pain. 1. Peakfunctionality You prioritize resolving needs. Your needs fully resolve so you can fully function. You embrace the sharp pain of each alerted need, then that pain fades promptly as such needs fully resolve. This touches on peak experiences and a flow state , and speaks to concepts like wu wei and samādhi . You function at your best, or even better as you stretch your expanding capacities. You reach more and more of your full potential. You thrive. You function in life by sustaining equilibrium. Any causes of pain or desire get promptly answered. Any threats are promptly removed. Depletions get promptly replenished. You can freely focus. All your present needs fully resolve. No pain or desire persists long to distract you. Your mind sits at-rest . You react where appropriate, to promptly resolve needs in routine incidents. You respond properly in novel situations unfamiliar to you, to reflect and learn how best to respect all needs. You quickly recognize what you need to resolve each need. You do not get stuck on oversimplified options. You intuitively resolve needs with the right resources and move on. You function at your peak capacity. For example: Your physical wellbeing . You maintain good eating and exercise habits. You eat to live instead of living to eat. You keep fit. You take good care of your body. You promptly address any ailments. You guard your health from intolerable risks. Your social wellbeing . You feel deeply connected to at least one other person, who knows almost all of your secrets and still loves you. You enjoy knowing that you provide deep meaning for them. You can trust them to support you through any crisis. Your vocational wellbeing . You love what you do and get paid well to do it. Your career provides rich meaning to your purposeful existence. Instead of exhausting you, your work energizes you. You look forward to serving others through your vocation. 2. Symfunctionality You prioritize easing needs. Your needs partially resolve so you can adequately function. You endure the dull pain of your partially resolved needs, which alert you of this ongoing threat to your ability to fully function. This touches on group conformity, herd behavior, and herd mentality. You function at the level your group enables you to function. Your life settles close to equilibrium. Your daily causes of pain or desire are eventually answered. Any threats get slowly removed. Depletions are gradually replenished. You can adequately focus. Some or all your needs do not completely resolve. A minimal level of pain or desire may distract you, but not much. Your mind remains aware . You react to situations the way you learned from others. You respond as others model a response. You usually take your cues from what is socially acceptable. You rely on others to help ease your needs. You risk getting drawn into over­simplified options. At times, you settle for less-than-ideal resources to address your needs. You make it work. You function at a practical level in accordance with others. For example: Your physical wellbeing . You eat what you find reliably accessible. You exercise when you can. You gain some weight and work it off. You easily find whatever weight you lose. You rely increasingly on meds. You’re generally doing okay. Your social wellbeing . You get along with others quite well. You trust your friends accept most things about you. Some secrets you hold as unsafe to share. You rely more on social norms than personal encounters to inform how to respect others. Your vocational wellbeing . You are generally successful on your job. You do what’s expected most of the time. You get along with your coworkers. Your boss can always count on you. You may not love your job but you do value the steady income. 3. Dysfunctionality You prioritize relieving pain. Your needs hardly resolve so you can barely function. You repeatedly suffer the pain of your unresolved needs, since your emotions persist in warning you of threats to your ability to fully or even adequately function. This fits closely to the sociological construct of dysfunction. You cannot fully function if too many of your essential needs remain unresolved. Your life falls into a rut of constant disequilibrium. Threats overwhelm you. Cravings consume you. Pain builds up to intolerable levels. You increasingly feel emotionally paralyzed. You cannot freely focus. Too many disruptions. Too many of your needs remain unresolved. Mounting pain distracts you. You obsess how to escape all this pain. Your mind remains vigilantly alert . You easily overreact. You find it practically impossible to reflectively respond where appropriate. Not while you remain buried in so much pain. You constantly seek what can relieve your pain. Concrete black-and-white thinking becomes your norm. You easily get stuck on oversimplified options. You likely accept any alternative resource, to ease your pain. You function at a significantly diminished level. For example: Your physical wellbeing . You tend to overeat and indulge in a lot of junk food. You likely drink a lot of alcohol. You’ve got more important concerns than whether you’re in shape or not. You look forward to getting high to cope with life’s pain. Your social wellbeing . You get easily angry at others. You seek out friends and family who tolerate your emotional ups and downs. You gravitate toward those also in much pain and like getting high all the time. You generally take more than you give. Your vocational wellbeing . You struggle to find and hold down a job. You hustle to get what you can. Maybe you sell drugs or something you know desired by the kind of company you seek. You’re classified as disabled, and rely on public assistance. 4. Misfunctionality You prioritize survival. Your needs rarely resolve enough for you to function at all. Your emotions warn you that your basic needs remain so unresolved as to severely threaten even your minimal capacity to function in life. This equates closely to pathology, but without the reductive medical model that presumes your problems are primarily internal. Basically, you enter a threshold where you, or part of you, cannot function at all. Your life falls out of balance, where you risk being stuck imbalanced. You may even grow numb to much of your pain. Short of resolving some needs, you cannot escape the overwhelming pain. You reduce it the best you can. You can barely focus. You obsess in survival mode. You feel at risk of permanent and severe damage, even death. Your mind goes into high alarm . You react instantly when triggered. You must. Survival leaves you little if any room for any reflective responses. You must wait for others to respect your intense needs before you can give any sustainable thought to theirs. You feel helpless, and you likely are. Urgency overwhelms you. Any saving option will do. Perhaps even violence. Anything to get you out of this hellhole. If you haven’t already given up hope. You barely can function at all. For example: Your physical wellbeing . You slip into poor eating and drinking habits. You eat and drink mostly to cope with your overwhelming pain. You have no room to even think about your physical health. Especially if you think about ending your life. Your social wellbeing . You likely don’t have any meaningful friends. The closest thing to a reliable friend is a professional counselor. If emotionally volatile, you probably lost connection with most or all of your family and friends. Your vocational wellbeing . You most likely have no job, no career, no vision for your immediate future. Your only job is how you will be able to manage day by day, or hour by hour, or minute by minute. Your number one job is to somehow survive. Functional array nuance We can take this gradient perspective a step further. Each level can be subdivided into its highest, middle and lowest version of itself. Peakfunction spectrum Prioritizing the resolution of needs can mean your own or out of love the prioritizing of other's needs to be resolved. Apex peakfunctionality The top functionality level possible, when promptly resolving needs to optimize life in ways that also maximize other’s ability to resolve their needs, enabling them to also live optimally. Enabling others to more fully function tends to bring returns to your ability to more fully function. Let’s call this love . Mid peakfunctionality A high functionality level when promptly resolving needs to optimize own life in ways that potentially has a positive impact upon the needs of others. Assisting others to function can cultivate some returns to your ability to function. Least peakfunctionality A high functionality level when promptly resolving needs to optimize own life in ways not negatively impacting the needs of others. If slipping into isolation, and rarely contributing to another's ability to function, you risk sliding into the impersonal dependency of symfunctionality . Symfunction spectrum Prioritizing to ease needs with others can have different results. The highest result could fall under "wellness" but not so much the lowest symfunctionality level. Threshold symfunctionality The top functionality level when actions done humanly together contribute to easing human needs without hindering other human needs. For example, driving on the right side of the road in the U.S. Mid symfunctionality A pragmatic functionality level when arbitrary actions done humanly together contribute to easing human needs with some hindrance to other human needs. For example, a terse manager ordering staff to serve a customer.​ Worst symfunctionality A minimal functionality level where arbitrary actions done humanly together contribute to easing human needs mostly by stalling resolution of such needs. For example, structural problems. This can become a gateway to dysfunctionality . Applied anankelogy breaks these down into three stages of "symfunction capture" . Symfunction creep : when you drift into only partially resolving your needs. Symfunction strain : when you feel a mounting strain of needs not fully resolved. Symfunction trap : when getting stuck in the mediocrity of partially eased needs. Dysfunction spectrum Prioritizing pain relief could have little to no impact on others nearby, or could have major impacts on others. Threshold dysfunctionality A moderately painfilled functionality level when you start prioritizing relief of unresolved needs in ways that actually limit resolution of such needs. For example, a steady junk food diet. Mid dysfunctionality A significantly painfilled functionality level when you prioritize relieving your pain from unresolved needs with minimal or no negative impact on the needs of others. For example, binge eating junk food. Worst dysfunctionality A severely painfilled functionality level when you prioritize pain relief over resolving anyone’s needs, resulting in significant negative impacts on the needs of others. For example, alcoholism. Misfunction spectrum Prioritizing survival may come with minimal impacts on others, or risk hurting others in some significantly damaging ways. Threshold misfunctionality When unresolved needs result in temporary damage of oneself, with likely negative impacts on others. For example, trauma. Mid misfunctionality When unresolved needs result in long-term or perma­nent damage, lowering ability to function. For example, CPTSD. Worst misfunctionality When unresolved needs result in imminent or imme­diate death, termination of all functioning. For example, suicide ideation. Moving from one functional level to another Sometimes you grow sicker. Other times you get better. Sometimes you cry in pain. Other times you grin with joy. Sometimes you can hardly get out of bed. Other times you find your second wind to perform some amazing feats. Anankelogy provides a window for you to better understand these functional changes you're experiencing. Just when you learned some new terminology, get ready for some more. Anankelogy offers a fresh new understanding largely by labeling what often gets overlooked. Defunctioning is what anankelogy labels when slipping down to a lower functioning level. Refunctioning is what anankelogy labels when rising up to a higher functioning level. Dynamism is the primary word for refunctioning upward, to restore yourself to wellness. Defunctioning depends on which level you slide down to: drift , deviate , or depart . This chart can help explain it best. Dynamism to sustain fuller functioning A cognitive lens for prioritizing the resolution of needs for optimal functioning. This utilizes testable hypotheses of relational knowing . Dynamism seeks better questions to test to replace outmoded assumptions. It embraces ambiguity, welcomes juxtapositions, sees life rich with meaningful paradoxes, remains suspicious of certainty, integrates relevant nuances, embraces life's natural discomforts while experiencing needs, and keeps open a path to fully resolve needs. Dynamism is a key ‘how’ for refunctioning . Peakfunctionality You function at your peak potential, as your fully resolved needs sit at-rest . When peakfunctional , you prioritize resolving needs. Drift from peakfunctionality into symfunctionality A cognitive bias of prioritizing the easing of unresolved needs. The more you compromise for the group, moving toward symfunctional cooperation, the more your unresolved needs compel you to see primarily or only what your unmet needs require you to see. Drift is the initial threshold of defunc­tioning . Symfunctionality You function suitably with others, as your partially resolved needs remain aware . When symfunctional , you prioritize easing needs. Deviation from symfunctionality into dysfunctionality A cognitive distortion for prioritizing relief from grinding pain. The longer your unresolved needs keep you locked in pain, the more you must see what can promise you relief from your mounting pain—even if not quite accurate. Deviation is a more significant form of defunctioning . Dysfunctionality You function painfully, as your chronically unresolved needs shout in alert . When dysfunctional , you prioritize relieving pain. ​ Departure from dysfunctionality into misfunctionality A cognitive delusion for prioritizing survival amidst severe damage. The further you sink into survival mode, the more your mind invents possibilities for you to escape painful damage, and to somehow avoid the likelihood of your imminent demise. Departure is the most severe form of defunctioning . Misfunctionality You barely function, as your persistently unmet needs scream continually at alarm . When misfunctional , you prioritize survival . This chart lays out functionality in largely academic anankelogy terms. Later posts aim to illustrate, in more accessible anankelogy language, how you could stray from optimal peakfunctionality into symfunction and onto dysfunction and ultimately misfunction . And the risk stems less from you making poor personal choices, and more from the creeping normality of our many societal imperfections. Your responsiveness to these levels of your functionality Your turn. Consider one or more of these options to respond to this need-responsive content. Check our Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact with others and to create your own forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this anankelogy category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating below to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment below to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top

Use the Professionally Responsive messaging tool to start speaking truth to power. Incentivize professionals to listen to those impacted. Cultivate the wellness of all. Replace failed legal options with these more responsive options. Let this guide help you optimize this unique new tool.

As a professional with countless responsibilities, you impact others vulnerable to you in subtle ways. You easily overlook negative impacts you have upon them.

Responsivism is the belief that responding to the needs of opponents or those in position of influential power can produce more favorable results than adversarial alternatives like political activism. Activists generally seek policy changes that are expected to compel legal compliance to their favored needs. Responsivism aims to respond to the needs of everyone. Replace adversarial activism with engaging responsivism. Which would likely produce the best results? Wait for activism to motivate the right changes to improve society. OR Respond better to each to each other's needs to improve society. 1. INTRODUCTION 2. RE SOLUTION 3. ADOPTION LIST OF RESPONSIVISM TOOLS PART 1: Introduction Need-response  answers the baked-in problems of toxic legalism  failing our institutions. Responsivism  allows you to practice this new profession in y our own terms.   We apply responsivism in a set of interactive tools you can use on an individual basis. These let you benefit from the new profession of need-response on a personalized level.   We currently provide each tool as an Excel spreadsheet, to market test this bold alternative. We can then convert these pilot versions into apps.   Responsivism can either complement or potentially replace legalistic activism. Let’s question how well activism delivers.   If activism is the answer, I have four questions for you. A.   Is activism really the answer? B.  How will any policy change honestly help? C.   Why do we have laws in the first place? D.  What if laws aren’t good enough? A. Is activism really the answer? You know the score. As pushback to their inflexible need for self-determination and more, Palestinian militants killed over a thousand Israelis last fall. No law currently exists to respect those needs.   Now tens of thousands of Gazans die at the hands of IDF soldiers, in the name of self-defense. Israelis’ inflexible need for self-determination compels them to push back. Is the activism on each side helping at all?   B. How will any policy change honestly help? Both sides insist they face an existential threat from the other side. Both sides exaggerate that threat for political gain. Neither side fully empathizes with the inflexible needs of the other. What about the law?   Activism aims to shape policy in one’s favor. That tends to provoke the defensiveness of the other side? Neither side reach their full potential. Both sides expend great energy trying to hold down the other side. Inn short, activism to shape laws is shortsighted.   Laws cannot compel each side in a conflict to see through the eyes of the other. We generally expect the international rules-based order  to mediate such conflicts. Increasingly, we find the “rule of law” taking a back seat to double standards and diplomatic hypocrisies.   Without the preeminence of law, we tend to slide deeper into a morally questionable abyss of might-makes-right. Without shared agreements for how to respect each other’s affected needs, we defer to wars to somehow sort it out.   C. Why do we have laws in the first place? Laws emerge to impersonally convey needs. They incentivize us to respect each other’s easily overlooked needs. “Do not steal” serves our need to freely access our own property. “Do not slander” serves our need to maintain an unspoiled public image.   We depend on law as a metaphor for our vulnerable needs. When I say, “It’s my free speech right to speak my mind,” I am really saying, “I need to express myself without government retaliation.” With the law on my side, I can skip the vulnerabilities of uncomfortably exposing my specific need.   Apart from the needs they exist to serve, we could care less about such laws. Without the need for accessing property, you could care less about laws prohibiting theft. Apart from the need to receive other’s respect, we scarcely care about prohibitions against slander.   When was the last time you said to someone, “Please don’t steal from me”? Or “I need you to not slander me”? Likely never. We defer to legal codes to convey those needs. But how is that working?   D. What if laws aren’t good enough? The further we creep from the law’s originating purpose to serve these needs, the further we collectively (and often individually) slip into poor wellness outcomes. Increasing rates of chronic anxiety and major depression suggest we need more than just our laws to address our negatively impacted needs.   The more we ossify the role of law over its original purpose to serve needs, the further we slip into what anankelogy identifies as “toxic legalism”. That refers to established norms and enforced standards that ostensibly serve us but actually harm us in measurable ways. We can find links between rising rates of chronic anxiety and severe depression with the failing reliability of laws to serve our vulnerable needs. There is no such thing as painful anxiety or debilitating depression apart from unresolved needs. The less responsive we are to each other’s needs, under color of law, the more of us slip into pain-coping addictions and entertain suicide. PART 2: Resolution Consider the alternative of responsivism for responding directly to the needs those laws fail to fully serve. Then consider how to complement or replace activism for restoring wellness. Consider these five reasons to prefer responsivism  over activism . Each starts with an originating purposes for law. Each looks at how we’ve drifted from this original need-responsive purpose. Each points to how responsivism can restore our crumbling wellness.   Activism sparks extremism; responsivism nurtures balance Activism hides behind rationality; responsivism engages deeper feelings   Activism evades reality; responsivism engages reality Activism perpetuates pain; responsivism removes pain Activism provokes mutual defensiveness; responsivism incentivizes mutual support 1. Activism sparks extremism; responsivism nurtures balance. Activism seeks to shape laws to compel personal responsibility for how we treat each other. How much responsibility should be individualized or collectivized defers to vacillating politics.   Responsivism recognizes how you resolve more needs the better you balance what you can do for yourself and letting others serve what you cannot provide for yourself.   Originating purpose . The law holds us personally accountable. We rely on written standards to check our selfish behaviors. Without laws, we risk ignoring how our behavior may negatively impact others.   Drift from wellness . Western society’s emphasis of individualism easily oversimplifies personal responsibility. Yes, we have personal moral agency to act in ways respectful to the needs of others. But personal moral agency depends heavily upon available options.   You drift from enjoy wellness when prioritizing the individual over the collective, or the collective over the individual. That always painfully restricts wellness. Wellness is psychosocial . You can only maintain wellness when balancing personal rights with social responsibilities. Drifting into hyper-individualism is a kind of ‘ symfunction capture ’. Anankelogy recognizes a zone between wellness and illness, called symfunction . It's where you function at a less-than-optimal level. And it serves as the gateway between full wellness of peakfunction and poor wellness of dysfunction , in three stages . Slowly shifting from the ideal of taking personal responsibility for one's own actions to objectifying individualism as a kind of panacea. Your reach your peakfunction  when you fully resolve those needs you can address on your own while also receiving support from others to fully resolve those needs requiring others input. You balance personal responsibility with the social responsiveness of others. Symfunction capture  emerges when you allow others to address needs you could address on your own, and when you must opt for alternatives when dependent on others who fail their social responsiveness to you in your moment of vulnerability. Symfunction creep  begins when you must settle for only partially resolving some of your needs, after settling for alternatives or when resigning to others paternalistic interference. Symfunction strain  mounts as more of your needs resign to partial resolution of such alternatives or paternalistic impedance. Symfunction trap  sets in as most of your needs remain not fully resolved after vacillating between what you can but do not do for yourself and putting up with other’s unresponsiveness to your vulnerable needs . Dysfunction  takes over as you must cope with the continual pain of mostly unresolved needs. More of your attention goes to coping with your mounting pain than trying to fully resolve your needs, which would remove the cause of your pain. This often includes vacillating wildly between self-care and insisting on others obeying the rules you depend upon to cope with your pain. To avoid losing any further control, you latch onto overgeneralizing that taking personal responsibility will get you through this. Which distorts the true meaning of logotherapy’s principle of taking responsibility for all of your own reactions. Restoring wellness . Need-response holds institutions and social entities as equally accountable as individuals. It incentivizes powerful groups to respond faithfully to the needs of vulnerable individuals they impact. It challenges the legitimacy of those who don’t. Anankelogy sees how we prioritize self-needs and social needs with our psychosocial orientation'. When sorting out if you or others should address a problem or need, you either habitually favor the imbalance of taking a side against the other option or you routinely favor balance of blending both internal and external means for resolving a need. You’re either oriented as imbalance-over-balance  or balance-over-imbalance .   The more you’re balance-over-imbalance oriented, the greater your wellness. And less dependent upon politicized laws.   The more you’re balance-over-imbalance oriented, the worse your wellness. And prone toward toxic legalism’s politicization and legalistic polarization. Need-response holds us all personally and socially accountable. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone. 2. Activism hides behind rationality; responsivism engages deeper feelings. Activism puts impersonal laws over personal needs. Laws impersonally convey your needs. Emotions personally convey your needs. Your intensely irrational emotions react to your painfully unresolved needs, which reasoning can never contain.   Responsivism appreciates how you resolve more needs the more you can drop your guard and let others in to vulnerably relate to the inflexible needs behind each charged emotion.   Originating purpose . The law rationally keeps our emotions in check. We rely on laws to curb our irrational tendencies. Without reasoned standards, we risk emotionally exploiting others or provoking severe psychological or physical harm.   Drift from wellness . Increasingly, we irrationally apply laws to others in ways we refuse to have applied to ourselves. We can convince ourselves we are being reasoned and rational while denying we have any distorting biases. Drifting into hyperrationality is a kind of ‘ symfunction capture ’. Anankelogy recognizes a zone between wellness and illness, called symfunction . It's where you function at  a less-than-optimal level. And it serves as the gateway between full wellness of peakfunction  and poor wellness of dysfunction , in three stages . Slowly shifting from full engagement and honest self-disclosure to resolve needs fully to staying guarded with self-protective rationalizations that rarely help you to resolve needs fully. You reach your peakfunction  when you can fully be honest with at least one person, preferably more, who can help you resolve all of your needs. You grant them the freedom to illuminate your blind spots and point out your weak spots for improvement. You never feel you must guard your actions with concocted reasons to avoid scorn. Symfunction capture  emerges when you do not find anyone to reveal your deepest secrets or who will help you process your intense emotions, leaving you stuck unable to fully resolve your needs. Symfunction creep  begins the moment you partially ease some needs from limited awareness of what’s going on, and there is no one to ask to effectively tell you. Symfunction strain  occurs as more and more of your needs cannot fully resolve from a lack of social connections that could help you. You find explanations that help you feel better about it, or keeps unwanted criticism at bay. Symfunction trap  sets in as you rely more and more on rationalizations to fill the void of self-understanding. You drift from acting rationally toward others the more you pack your “reasoning” with confirmation bias . Motivated reasoning  then blinds you from how “rational” beliefs fail to serve the need-serving purpose of law. Dysfunction  grips you the more you believe in your own rationalizations. They offer necessary comfort to the mounting pain of your unresolved needs. You remain guarded, not letting anyone get too close, lest they dig up some dirt and hurt you even more. You defend your private world as you isolate your true self from others, and even from yourself. Restoring wellness . Need-response recognizes how your objective needs exist independent of your subjective experiences of them. Instead of trying to repress your emotional tendencies, as the role of law may do, it nurtures your emotionally charged reactions to be more responsive to needs. Anankelogy realizes how we interact with others with our ‘vulnerability orientation'. When vulnerably exposed to criticism, you either habitually raise your guard or you routinely stay open, even if it could hurt, to learn as much as possible to resolve the affected needs. You’re either oriented as rationalizing-over-revealing or revealing-over-rationalizing .   The more you’re revealing-over-rationalizing oriented, the greater your wellness. And less dependent upon impersonal rationalizing laws.   The more you’re rationalizing-over-revealing oriented, the worse your wellness. And prone toward toxic legalism’s rationalized social distancing. This could result from emotional wounds and trauma, reinforcing the false security of alienation. Need-response guides subjective experiences to serve objective needs. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone. 3. Activism evades reality; responsivism engages reali ty. Activism builds on coalitions to appeal to as many as possible. This increases the risk of overgeneralizing, of skipping over relevant details, and overlooking your specific needs.   Responsivism understands how you resolve more needs the more thoroughly you process each relevant detail and process more of the nuance in situations impacting your life.   Originating purpose . Laws are kept vague to apply to various situations. We rely on laws to fit a vast array of social situations. We keep our laws intentionally short on specifics, lest too many details prevent their applicability wherever needed.   Drift from wellness . When legalism drifts off into excessive generalizing, it tends to overlook your specific needs. The less your specific needs can resolve, the more pain you will be in—as your body warns of this continuing threat to your ability to fully function The law’s focus on harm reduction often prioritizes comforting generalizations over necessary specifics. Legalism can suck you into a vicious cycle of endlessly pursuing pain-relief without ever getting to the cause of your pain: unresolved needs. Drifting into overgeneralizing is a kind of ‘ symfunction capture ’. Anankelogy recognizes a zone between wellness and illness, called symfunction . It's where you function at  a less-than-optimal level. And it serves as the gateway between full wellness of peakfunction  and poor wellness of dysfunction , in three stages . Slowly shifting from taking a broad scope for attracting widespread support to solidifying generalizations into accepted exaggerations taken as indisputable fact. You reach your peakfunction  when your generalizing is kept provisional, ready to update. When given fresh information, you quickly adjust your views to include it to keep yourself closer to this changing reality. The more details you engage, the more your needs resolve. Symfunction capture  emerges when not updating your generalizations. You then believe or act upon incomplete information. The more nuance you miss, the less you can fully resolve your needs. Symfunction creep  begins with “popular generalizing” accepting oversimplification. Or “ popgen ” for short, it speaks to the lay version of more critically developed ideas. It tends to be devoid of cumbersome details, to keep it palatable and easier to understand. You cannot fully resolve needs while overlooking relevant minutia. Symfunction strain  occurs when “ popgen versions ” displace original critical versions. The more you act upon these watered-down popgen versions, the less you can resolve your needs fully. You then feel a mounting strain of your needs warning you how they are not fully resolved. Symfunction trap  sets when “ relief-generalizing ”, trusting exaggerations to ease needs. You go from recognizing popgen versions as incomplete to trusting generalizations to provide some relief from the emotional pain, as fewer and fewer of your needs can completely resolve. Dysfunction then traps you with a familiarity bias of generalizing for relief, in ways that ensure your needs never fully resolve. The less your needs resolve while clinging to exaggerations, the more emotional pain persists to warn you of this threat to your limited functioning. You then rely on comforting generalizations, such as “You can’t trust anybody!” and “All pain is bad and must be avoided!” These easily trap you in more grinding pain of unresolved needs. Restoring wellness . Need-response identifies your specific needs and theirs. Only by bringing all affected needs to the table can there be enduring peace among you. It raises the higher standard of properly resolving needs by cutting through legalistic generalities with relevant specifics. Anankelogy appreciates how we each negotiate matters with our ‘relating orientation'. When navigating something complicated, you either habitually rely on reassuring generalizations or you routinely delve into the nuance of details to resolve the need as best as you can. You’re either oriented as general-over-specifics or specifics-over-general .   The more you’re specifics-over-general oriented, the greater your wellness. And less dependent upon vague laws.   The more you’re specifics-over-general oriented, the worse your wellness. And prone toward toxic legalism’s oversimplifications. Need-response replaces neglectful overgeneralizing with relevant nuance. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone. 4. Activism perpetuates pain; responsivism removes pain. Activism typically settles for relieving the pain of unresolved needs. Your body then insists with some form or emotional or physical pain to warn you of the persisting threat to your wellbeing.   Responsivism sees how you resolve more needs the longer you endure the associated discomfort of processing a need, long enough to fully remove the threats causing you pain.   Originating purpose . Laws are impersonal to avoid favoritism. We rely on laws to treat everyone impartially. “No one is above the law.”  We cannot trust law enforcement if enforcing standards on us but not upon those they personally know.   Drift from wellness . When legalism drifts into a kind of depersonalizing avoidance, you rightly feel objectified. Lawyers, prosecutors and police tend to talk past you. They routinely avoid the most uncomfortable aspects of your situation. It’s not their problem, they could claim.   This cold distance can fuel suspicion on neither side. From this chasm of mutual alienation, both sides can easily suspect the other side will not respect their own vulnerable needs. So legalism tends to engender mutual defensiveness. Drifting into alienating avoidance is a kind of ‘ symfunction capture ’. Anankelogy recognizes a zone between wellness and illness, called symfunction . It's where you function at  a less-than-optimal level. And it serves as the gateway between full wellness of peakfunction  and poor wellness of dysfunction , in three stages . Slowly shifting from the ideal of remaining impartial to remaining alienated to avoid the uncomfortable side of addressing needs. You reach your peakfunction  when fully process every painful feeling so you can fully resolve every need. You embrace upfront the sharp pain of your warned needs so you can then remove its cause for pain and enjoy peace. Symfunction capture  emerges when having to bear the anguish of pain longer or more intensely than you feel you capably can. You slide from enduring all discomfort to resolve all needs to avoiding almost every discomfort that leaves your needs unresolved. Symfunction creep  typically begins when you cannot fully resolve those needs that depend on the cooperation of others. These unmet “ vulnerable need s ” persist to warn you with emotional pain that you cannot fully function. Symfunction strain  mounts as your emotional pain builds to warn you how fewer and fewer of your needs are fully resolving. Your pain warns how your capacity to function steadily declines, until something is done to resolve those needs. Symfunction trap  sets in as you shift from resolving any needs fully to accepting few if any of your needs can resolve fully enough, if at all, to remove its cause for pain. Dysfunction then traps you as emotional pain builds so intensely that you increasingly prioritize how to ease your pain over addressing the needs causing such pain. You sink deeper into a painful sense of powerlessness, and hopelessness. Restoring wellness . Need-response incentivizes all sides in a legal situation to engage each other more personally. Each side gets to know how they impact each other’s needs. In the process, each side can more meaningfully resolve their overlooked need for deeper social connections. Anankelogy recognizes how we each respond to pain with our ‘easement orientation'. When faced with something uncomfortable, you either habitually avoid that pain or you routinely embrace that pain and work through it to resolve the pain-provoking need to remove its cause for pain. You’re either oriented as relieve-over-resolve  or resolve-over-relieve .   The more you’re resolve-over-relieve oriented, the greater your wellness. And less dependent upon laws.   The more you’re relieve-over-resolve oriented, the worse your wellness. And prone toward toxic legalism for relief. Need-response replaces harmful avoidance with beneficial engagement. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone. 5. Activism provokes mutual defensiveness; responsivism incentivizes mutual support. Activism takes sides against others, to the point of opposing their needs which they cannot change. Both sides incite each other’s defenses. Neither side empathizes much with the unbendable needs of the other.   Responsivism affirms how you resolve more needs the less you provoke other's defensiveness and instead incentivize their cooperation with mutual understanding and respect.   Originating purpose . Laws are punitive to incentivize compliance. We rely on laws to punish wrongdoers. Law enforcement serves as an arm of government with exclusive privilege of force. To compel our compliance to the rules of society.   Drift from wellness . When legalism drifts into self-serving hostilities toward each other, it strays from helping us resolve our affected needs. Such “adversarialism” goads us further into mutual defensiveness. Energies we could spend to resolve needs gets wasted on divisively opposing each other. The judicial system presumes they must mediate the threat we ostensibly present to each other. Little to no effort goes to identifying and solving each other’s affected needs. Law enforcement tends to serve as a hammer of force that treats us as a nail to pound into the pavement of the expected social order. Drifting into avoidant adversarialism is a kind of ‘ symfunction capture ’. Anankelogy recognizes a zone between wellness and illness, called symfunction . It's where you function at  a less-than-optimal level. And it serves as the gateway between full wellness of peakfunction  and poor wellness of dysfunction , in three stages . You reach your peakfunction  when fully sorting out your differences with others, so you can effectively respond to your own needs while not violating the needs of others. When you can no longer fully resolve all of your needs, you slip into the symfunction of partially resolving your needs, which begins to compromise your wellness. Symfunction capture  emerges when you overreact to others who must dig in their heals to guard what they cannot change. Those championing the rights of the unborn, for example, provoke the defenses of those requiring reproductive healthcare for a painful situation beyond their personal control. Those disregarding the unsung rights of the unborn provoke the defenses of those whose lives center around such sacred principles. Symfunction creep  begins as pressure to comply with laws or any other standard slips into coercion that denies intrinsic motivations for responsiveness. Symfunction strain  occurs as mounting frustration takes hold while you increasingly comply with any social norm that overlooks its impact on your vulnerable needs. Symfunction trap  sets in as mindless compliance to laws neglecting one’s needs gets normalized and enforced, forcing a decision between the two evils: getting into trouble for asserting one’s rights or sinking into despair when your needs can no longer fully resolve. Dysfunction  takes hold when you give up resolving your needs under the tyranny of authorities, who benefit more from their sanctioned coerciveness than from accountably enabling you to resolve your needs so you can fully restore your wellness. You then shift into prioritizing relief from the disturbing increase in your emotional and physical pain. Restoring wellness . Need-response incentivizes mutual understanding of each other’s inflexible needs. Instead of normalizing hostilities, it holds each other accountable to how we affect each other’s inflexible needs. It’s a win-win approach to mutually resolve needs on all sides. Anankelogy shows how we each deal with incited differences with our ‘conflict orientation'. When challenged to take a side, you either habitually stay guarded while you oppose the other side or you routinely stay open to learn what all sides require to resolve their affected needs, even if that’s uncomfortable for a while. You’re either oriented as guarded-over-open  or open-over-guarded .   The more you’re open-over-guarded oriented, the greater your wellness. And less inclined to indulge in comforting side-taking.   The more you’re guarded-over-open oriented, the worse your wellness. And prone toward toxic legalism’s punitive emphasis. Need-response replaces destructive adversarialism with mutual support. Which can improve our wellness more than laws alone. PART 3: Adoption Who is ready to try the untried? Who is willing to test the waters because they immediately need to solve a problem overlooked by legal systems? Who is able to reprioritize love? Better than law Let's admit we're stuck in a monkey trap Need-response holds us all to a higher standard of love Better than law While no one sits above the law, no law sits above the needs it exists to serve . We can change our laws to fit our needs. We cannot change our needs to fit our laws. Laws are flexible. Needs are not.   With these responsive tools, we can replace toxic legalism  in these five ways. We can replace its hyper-individualism with psychosocial balance to improve our wellness. We can replace its hyperrationality with safer vulnerability to improve our wellness. We can replace its overgeneralizing with relevant specifics to improve our wellness. We can replace its alienating avoidance with engagement to improve our wellness. We can replace its adversarialism with love-inspiring mutuality to improve our wellness .   We can do all these to resolve more of our overlooked needs with the new professional service of need-response , which is applied anankelogy. Need-response presents an alternative to escape the monkey trap of such toxic legalism .   No longer must we vainly hope that simply following better policies will somehow produce better results. No longer shall we remain blind to the oft-overlook fact that they don’t. No longer must we suffer threats simply because they’re permitted by law.   The bottom line is the wellness outcomes of all involved. Not money. Not prestige. Not power. Only the freedom of all to resolve all needs to remove pain and restore wellness. Period.   Let’s admit we’re stuck in a monkey trap Just as the monkey refuses to let go of the tasty nut inside the coconut trap, we refuse to let go of the tasty morsel of legalism. We cling tightly to our laws to protect us from threats of violence, instead of dealing with known causes of violence. To maintain social order. To coexist with our many ingrained differences. With the rise of hyper-individualism during the decline of religion and other socially engaging institutions, we easily fall back on the rule of law. If you view our system of secular laws as the only game in town, you typically cannot see past it. You can easily overlook the five shortcomings covered above. Do you literally believe that "no one is above the law"? Properly applied, that means no one's impactful behavior is beyond the scope of law. But you as a person is above the law. Human existence predates any human laws. Everyone's inflexible needs sit above flexible laws. You cannot change your life's requirement for food to eat and clean air to breathe to fit some legal requirement. Legalism coerces us to fit our needs to serve some law or appease some authority. Wellness then declines. You don't need anyone's permission to breathe . "The Sabbath was made for humanity," Jesus clarified, "Not the Sabbath for humanity." Needs come first, then laws to serve them. Need-response, with its responsivism tools, helps us to not be so backwards. You don't exist for human authority; human authority exists for you . Or it lacks legitimacy . If you experience laws as your last hope for a civilized life, you understandably resist any suggested alternative. The tighter your grip, the less likely you would try something boldly different. Let alone adopt something that could remove your familiar pain and restore you to unfamiliar full wellness. Familiarity bias—clinging to the unhealthy stuff you know out of fear of the healthier unknown—may have you tightly in its grip. Need-response can inspire you to break free, to live more of the life you've likely been missing under legalism's suffocating grip. Responsivism puts love over law. You can be among the first to adopt this pioneering approach. Need-response holds us all to a higher standard of love You’re invited to observe this new service of need-experience unfold in practice. I shall be its first guinea pig. I will be working with a few others I personally know and who personally know me. Together, we will incentivize our employers to be more responsive to our overlooked needs.   Your needs exist as objective fact . Their needs exist as objective fact. Need-response dares to hold us all accountable to this refreshing reality. No longer can we stay vulnerable to fickle laws. Or to employers who we avoid challenging directly, lest we risk reprisals.   Moreover, need-response gives good cause for all sides to harmoniously come together to address each other’s affected needs. In ways the law can never do . My early attempts to attract my employer to this fresh approach has been positive.   I provide them a preferably alternative to a nasty legal battle, or online smear campaign, or presenteeism of only giving my minimal effort on the job. As they gain my trust as a loyal worker, my improved wellness lets them benefit from my improved productivity.   This pioneering alternative features love. We honor the needs of others as we would have them honor our own. But we make the first generous move, to demonstrate our good faith intent. To apply inspiring words ascribed to Gandhi, we become the change we wish to see in the world , by planting powerful seeds of responsive love. According to anankelogy, all natural needs sit equal before nature   and everyone's needs must fully resolve to realize their full potential. With its mutuality approach, these responsivism tools can nurture far more wellness than adversarial activism. Responsivism tools to personally apply need-response in your life : Wellness Initiative tools These tools can prepare you for a wellness campaign. Or you can opt to simply use it once. Personally Responsive  – for those close to you, to melt alienation with kindness Properly Responsive – for colleagues in your life, to respect your overlooked needs Professionally Responsive  – for professionals in your life, to support your wellness Powerfully Responsive – for authorities over your life, to speak truth to power   Wellness Development tools These tools establish your credentials as need-responsive enough to resolve needs. Holistically Responsive – to counter reactive vacillation Vulnerably Responsive – to counter reactive defensiveness Specifically Responsive – to counter reactive generalizing Resiliently Responsive – to counter reactive avoidance Mutually Responsive – to counter reactive hostilities   Specialized tools These tools focus on a particular set of needs not effectively addressed elsewhere. Relationally Responsive  – understand why you fall in and out of love Responsive Innocence  [Exoneration] – picking up where innocence lawyers drop the ball Responsive Interviewing – preparing for a job or similar interview Responsive Depolarization – understanding the needs behind all sides of a political issue   Your responsiveness to contrasting responsiveness with activism Your turn. Consider one or more of these options to respond to this need-responsive content. Check our Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact others and create your forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this responsivism category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top

Use the Personally Responsive messaging tool to melt alienation. Cultivate the power of social influence by demonstrating your reputation as a need-responder . Or simply improve your life by more effectively responding to the needs around you. Let this guide help you optimize this unique new tool.

Sometimes responding to overlooked needs requires some brave souls to stand up and speak truth to power. They must engage reluctant authorities. Resolving overlooked needs can require some brave leaders to transform the status quo. They must engage systems much larger than themselves. Sometimes we live in a time of overwhelming challenges that inspirational leaders recognize as untapped opportunities. That time is now! The most engaging leader can inspire transformational change that brings out the best in us all. Let's find them and support them. We must ENGAGE them! Which would you expect to create better results? Challenging powerholders with their biased adversarial process. OR Engaging powerholders with our mutually beneficial process. Engage . Mutually respect each other's needs. Engage! Resolve more needs than them. ENGAGE! Transform social structural norms. . CONTENTS Assess powerholders with a wellness campaign . Incentivize greater responsiveness . Speak truth to power, listen to those impacted . Assess and be assessed . Turn powerholder' response reputation into earned legitimacy . Provide powerholders with constructive feedback . Transform unresponsive social norms . E NGAGE! Let's outperform each other. Instead of reaching for the minimal standard to mutually respecting each other's unchosen needs, we dare you to go further and try to address more of those needs. We dare you to improve your responsive reputation or earned legitimacy by helping to resolve more needs on all sides. We dare you to empirically contribute to measurable wellness outcomes of improved lifestyles, reduced addictions, and greater life satisfaction. Engage! 1. Assess powerholders with a wellness campaign. Those in positions of power need impact data . Instead of responding to their biased surveys, the wellness campaign takes the lead to pose its own questions. In the process, the needs on all sides can resolve more readily. The campaign could announce to those in power, "You don't have to tell us, powerholder, we'll tell you!"   A wellness campaign naturally assesses  how responsive powerholders are to their vulnerable needs . Then continually evaluates  powerholder trustworthiness. The wellness campaign carefully calculates  how powerholders impact those under their influence, if for the good of all.   The better the produced outcomes, the more legitimacy the powerholder earns. The worse the outcomes, the less legitimacy earned. It's all about leveling the distorting effects or power relations.   The whole point of a wellness campaign is to even the playing field in power differentials. Despite ethical standards intended to prevent those in power from negatively impacting the relatively powerless, research points to the need for much improvement. Without something like this leveling process, powerful AI tend to coerce vulnerable RI in ways often hindering resolution of needs. The wellness of us all then suffers. Need-response recognizes the powerholder as the AI and the powerless as the RI : AI : Ascribed Impactor prior to participation; Acknowledged Impactor after participating. The Impactor impacts the relationship more than impacted by it. RI : Reporting Impactee prior to participation; Recognized Impactee after participating. The Impactee is impacted by the relationship more than impacting it. Anankelogy recognizes all natural needs sit equal before nature , so neither side's needs are prioritized at the expense of the other. Each side can assess the other's responsiveness. 2. Incentivize greater responsiveness. We live under a dark cloud of avoidant adversarialism that disincentivizes responsiveness to needs. Avoidant adversarialism : Opposing anyone and anything in the hopes that reasoning will somehow lead to fixing problems, so that we don't have to deal with the uncomfortable messy details. Powerholders don't know what they don't know . And will never know what they need to know to be effective leaders, while trapped in the norms of avoidant adversarialism . Most reporting avenues available to the affected powerless rarely if ever result in resolving the needs of all involved. Politics and the judiciary are inherently adversarial. We expect laws to fix our problems. But our laws do not resolve needs; people do . Need-response presents a wellness campaign as the answer to this need for greater responsiveness to the needs overlooked by adversarial systems . Then complements or dares to compete with such unresponsive systems. A wellness campaign could be the closest thing we have to watch the watchers . Along the way, it unearths structural barriers to resolving our needs. These are ambitious goals for an untested vision. We must start humbly, trying something that could deliver. For now, need-response is developing three areas of service for those in need better responsiveness from those in positions of authority. The relatively powerless can initiate a wellness campaign to address: Unresponsive managers to their workplace needs. Unresponsive judicial system to exonerating the innocent. Unresponsive political leaders to public needs amidst polarization. Each wellness campaign can be labelled according to the responsiveness they seek. Responsive supervision . Improving productivity by identifying how each worker is best motivated. Responsive exoneration : Identifying and clearing the countless wrongly convicted innocent. Responsive depolarization : Converting the challenge of political polarization to opportunities to relate better to each other's different natural priority of needs. Other areas of service may emerge over time. Such as incentivizing the powers that be to alleviate medical debt, alleviate student debt, serve justice needs of violence survivors, address mental health crises outside of the judicial system, safeguard whistleblowers, preserve journalistic integrity from coercive corporate control, and the like. A wellness campaign exists to give the option to needy individuals to safely speak their truth to power. And to provide vital impact data to leaders who need to make better decisions. A wellness campaign incentivizes the powerless and powerholder to serve each other's needs. 3. Speak truth to power, listen to those impacted. The relatively powerless share the need to SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER to report powerholder's negative impact on their unchosen needs . Such powerholders share the need to LISTEN TO THOSE IMPACTED for impact data to make better executive decisions. Adversarialism —the rush to take sides in a dispute instead of addressing the unchosen needs  driving the differences—stands in the way. Need-response bridges this socially constructed chasm to connect powerholder and the powerless to more effectively communicate their needs to each other. 4. Assess and be assessed. After alerting the AI powerholder with a notification or an invitation to participate, the need-response process starts assessing each other's responsiveness to each other's needs. Mutual assessment : After a contacted AI powerholder replies, they are invited to assess the campaign leader's responsiveness. Who then assesses the AI's responsiveness to any identified needs they impact. Unilateral assessment : If the contact AI powerholder fails to reply in a timely manner, the campaign leader initiates a one-sided assessment of that AI 's responsiveness. Not only to any identified needs they impact, but also their unresponsiveness to the initial alert of this process. These assessments occur as one element in a supportive need-response cycle . The full process cycles through these four steps, then back around again until completed. ALERT : Alerting powerholders of their impact on some identified need of the powerless not satisfied by available means. ASSESS : Here is where the assessments occur. With or without the AI's participation. AUDIT : An initial assessment offers a baseline that can be improved upon and then checked again to show improvement from the wellness campaign's support. AVOW : The campaign renews their commitment to resolve the unchosen needs of all who participated. Those who refused or neglected to participate receive no more than what the law minimally requires. ASSESS . The first pass from the RI invites the AI to assess if the RI 's observable behavior aptly distinguish between chosen actions and unchosen needs. BE ASSESSED . Then the RI assesses if the AI 's known actions aptly distinguishes between chosen actions and unchosen needs. The next time, each assesses the other to check if each demonstrates a distinction between: avoidant generalizing and engaging specifics ( relational orientation ), relieving pain and resolving needs to remove cause for pain ( easement orientation ), and mutual defensiveness and mutual engagement ( conflict orientation ). If necessary for a follow-up, each can assess each other's identifiable distinction between: psychosocial vacillation and psychosocial balance , belief reductionism and dynamic relating , and extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation . Each of these can be assessed using what we call a " measurably accountable impacted needs " testable hypothesis. The more of this, then the more of that . A wellness campaign walks each participating AI through this developmental process. 5. Turn AI's responsive reputation into earned legitimacy . When contacted by a wellness campaign, these assessments of responsiveness get turned into evidence-based legitimacy . This replaces fickle "ascribed legitimacy" with empirically measurable " earned legitimacy ". Ascribed legitimacy : Arbitrary acceptance of authority prone to manipulation and low responsiveness to the needs of those under that authority. Earned legitimacy : Cultivated acceptance of authority that demonstrates evidence it enables the full resolution of needs of those under that authority. A wellness campaign provides a microcosm of an authority's scope of influence. The participants in the wellness campaign have already practiced among themselves how to improve responsiveness to needs. They support AI to also improve their measurable responsiveness to needs, to boost their legitimacy. As powerholders, their responsive ratings get instantly converted to their demonstrated level of earned legitimacy . As long as the AI works with the wellness campaign to address needs, their emerging evidence-based legitimacy is not publicized until after the completion of the campaign. Then the campaign can announce not only their higher level of legitimacy, but how much it improved by engaging closing with this sample of their constituents. Each level of a responsive reputation mirrors an earned legitimacy level. From causing harm to enabling resolution of identified needs. Offensive illegitimacy . Powerful influence causing harm upon the relatively less powerful; provoking more needs than helping to resolve needs. Substandard legitimacy . Powerholders acknowledging there could be needs they impact but only offering to pacify the pain of those underserved needs. Standard legitimacy . Powerholders demonstrating mutual regard  that openly relates to the impacted needs of others as worthy of the same respect as their own needs. Competitive legitimacy . Powerholders addressing needs more effectively than others to boost own brand as professionally more responsive to their constituents. Transformative legitimacy . Powerholders addressing needs by transforming current social structures, with inspiring ways to transcend such limits to fully resolve all needs. Dig a little deeper, and you may find an empirical basis for these graduated levels. The AI may start at the low end. But a wellness campaign provides opportunity to vastly improve their responsiveness to needs so they can earn unparallel heights of trustworthiness. 6.  Provide powerholders with constructive feedback. Need-response starts with the assumption that a powerholder AI  intends no harm against any vulnerable RI  they impact. Adversarialism too easily presumes selfish motives, bad faith, or ill intent. Some of that is projection . A wellness campaign stays positive by integrating noble traits like patience, kindness, humility, discipline, mercy, and love. Instead of provoking defensiveness as adversarial systems often do, rapport is maintained by applying these character traits to everybody. We trust this incentivizes greater participation. Instead of accusing AI powerholders for the disappointing results of their leadership, we relate more closely to the challenges they face. We provide the impact data they seek to inform them how to make better decisions. The kind that can improve their impact on our lives, by enabling us to resolve more of our needs. We incentivize their honest feedback to our inquiries. We anticipate this sometimes points to their honest admission that they are doing all they can to help us, but facts beyond their control prevent them from doing more. This points to structural problems . Here is where the wellness campaign supports AI leaders to address structural barriers, such as unresponsive social norms. 7. Transform unresponsive social norms. Often enough, the powerholder is bound by constraints beyond their personal control. Some of their authority gets divested elsewhere or in others. Need-response identifies at least three types: Upchain : They are bound by some higher authority. Sidechain : They share authority with others. Downchain : They delegate authority to independent subordinates. These each present as a structural problem . And no longer a power problem . But we still hold the powerholder accountable. Until they identify and address any barrier holding them back, they are labelled as personally and professionally culpable to hindering resolution of needs Once the AI powerholder works to address the structural limits, they're no longer held personally culpable but only professionally culpable for hindering resolution of exposed needs . The wellness campaign then kicks into high gear to help transform offending social barriers complicit to impeding resolution of needs. Those AI leaders who rise to the challenge to effectively alter social structures to be more responsive to our unchosen needs earn the highest level of earned legitimacy : Transformative legitimacy . Think of how MLK transformed society from tolerating racism to how almost everyone agrees with his call to not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character . Think of how JFK transformed the Cold War from nuclear brinkmanship to humanizing the other side toward agreeing to the first nuclear test ban treaty . Now think about who could rise to the challenges facing us today. Who could turn the challenges of avoidant adversarialism rotting our society into opportunities for deeper interpersonal connections? Who can extend MLK's vision to end hate with the power of love? ENGAGE! Now it's your turn. For your own benefit, and for all of those you love, internalize this vision to resolve more needs to solve more problems. Take your disappointment with lawyers or politicians or psychotherapists to one of these wellness campaigns. Turn your disillusionment with politics and other failing institutions into opportunities for meaningful growth. Consider what a wellness campaign can do for you. Follow one and learn for yourself. Help grow this vision. Contact us if you can help us make this a reality. We're just getting started. Spread some love . ENGAGE! THIS IS ONE IN A SERIES TO ENGAGE OTHERS AMIDST CONFLICTS WITH A BETTER WAY Engage. Engage! ENGAGE! reaching standard responsiveness cultivating competitive responsiveness creating transformative responsiveness Your responsiveness to engaging others Your turn. Consider one or more of these options to respond to this need-responsive content. Check our Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact others and create your forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this engage category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top

GLOSSARY of anankelogical and need-response terms This new social science of anankelogy and its application in the new profession of need-response brings you a new vocabulary. As a new social science, anankelogy introduces you to a new vocabulary of terms. The more we can name something affecting our needs, the better we can understand it and test assumptions around it. A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z Click on the letter above to quickly go to that letter section below. A Acknowledged Impactor  [ AI ] ( n. )  [wellness campaign terminology] A person or entity recognizing they impact another of relatively less social influence more than they are impacted by the other in a social power difference. Prior to acknowledging such potent influence, the AI is regarded as an Ascribed Impactor . adversarialism  ( n. ) Opposing others largely for the sake of opposition. [Gordon Fellman] anankelogy ( n. ) The disciplined study and understanding of experiencing needs. Ascribed Impactor  [ AI ] ( n. )  [wellness campaign terminology] A person or entity identified as likely impacting another person or entity of relatively less social influence more than they are impacted by the other in a social power difference. Once publicly recognizing such potent influence, the AI is regarded as an Acknowledged Impactor . back-to-top B biostructural pain ( n. ) back-to-top C case wellness campaign ( n. ) A basic type of wellness campaign focused on resolving only the identified wellness need(s) of the RI client . The other types are project and movement campaigns. chosen response (n.) After an unchosen need evokes a response, the selected action to ease that need. Exists in contrast to unchosen need , which often get conflated in conflicts. citationization ( n. ) - REFUNCTION The association of any stated norms with the needs they are expected to serve. A less formal (i.e., accessible anankelogical ) term for this is law-fit . citationize ( v. ) The action of associating stated norms with the needs they are expected to serve. civic legalism ( n. ) -   DEFUNCTION The less formal name for the defunction of nomoscentricity , which prioritizes obedience to laws or to social norms over serving the needs for which they exist. Answered by the refunction of law-fit (among other refunctions ). coerced poor options dependences ( n. ) [Or CoPOD ] - DEFUNCTION Acclimating to less-than-optimal resources (i.e., alternate or substitute resource ) to address needs to the point of rarely if ever considering the accessibility of optimal resources ( primary resources ). This plays a significant role in symfunction capture as a common gateway into dysfunction , to pain and persisting problems. conflict orientation ( n. ) The formed habit during a conflict of either staying open and learning or staying closed and defensive . The more you remain open and learn about each side's affected needs, the more likely you can resolve that conflict. The more you stay closed and defensive to avoid discomfort, the less aware you tend to be about each side's affected needs, which tends to keep the conflict going. conflict porn  ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION A defunction of contending with others less with the aim to solve problems or resolve needs and more with the intent to indulge in the pleasure of winning over others and being viewed as right or to push others away in reasoned sounding ways. Features in oppo culture . See indulgent side-taking . critical version  ( n. ) - REFUNCTION Original theory or philosophy of something widely accepted, developed with academic discipline that is generally more descriptive than normative , and remains open to academic peer review and constructive correction. Opposite of popgen version . cyclic correlation ( n. ) Empirical association between identifiable variables that indicates one set of changes affecting other sets of changes, which in turn affects the originally identified set of associated variables. When A changes along with B, we observe B changing with C, which we can observe changing with other pairs of associated variables, coming back around to observe a change in A. This points to what anankelogy appreciates as a reflexive correlation , in contrast to the simpler linear associations widely identified in the social sciences outside of nature-based paradigm . For example, consider this 4-part cycle of discomfort avoidance . The more you hate pain, the more you try to avoid pain. The more you avoid pain, the less your pain-reported needs can resolve. The more your needs remain unresolved, the more pain you suffer. The more pain you passively suffer, the more you hate this pain. Now consider this 4-part cycle of discomfort embrace . The more you endure the natural discomfort of your unresolved needs, the more attentive you can be to more fully resolve your needs. The more you fully resolve your needs, the more you remove cause for your pain. The more you fully resolve your needs, the more you remove cause for your pain . The more you remove pain by resolving needs, the more you can respect and embrace pain to report your unresolved needs. The nature-based paradigm  of academic anankelogy anticipates these cyclic associations. back-to-top D defunction ( n. ) Anything that diminishes one's ability to function fully, compromising their wellness. Opposite to a refunction . disciplined discourse ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] - REFUNCTION A refunction of accountably communicating all the relevant needs in a conflict or situation, by thoroughly challenging any distractions like loaded language , cognitive biases and distortions , formal and informal fallacies , disclosure avoidance, and mischaracterizations, and any applicable defunctions and refunctions . Participants are tasked to "flag" suspected distractions and invite agreement to pause the discussion to remove any identified distractions. drift ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The gradual and often imperceptible change from fully resolving natural needs to only easing such needs. Consequently, optimal functioning shifts to suboptimal functioning, from peakfunction to symfunction . This tends to occur when the means to fully resolve needs persistently declines. See symfunction capture . The shift from symfunction  into dysfunction is identified more specifically as deviation . The shift from dysfunction into misfunction  is identified as departure . But the simpler language of accessible anankelogy  may use “drift” to cover all these shifts into lowered levels of functioning. dynamic relating  ( n. ) - REFUNCTION Actively relating to the needs and experiences of others instead of relying on assumptions, expectations or impersonal rules. Counters normative alienation . dysfunction ( n. ) Level of a person's or entity's ability to function focused on relieving pain from many unresolved needs. Sits above misfunction and below symfunction . back-to-top E earned legitimacy  ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] - REFUNCTION The refunction of establishing trusted responsiveness to vulnerable needs of those relatively less socially powerful, based empirically on measurable impacts on the needs of those under a powerholder's influence. E.g., positive or negative changes in health outcomes like chronic anxiety, major depression, and addictions. Posited as a higher form of legitimacy than widely accepted " ascribed legitimacy ", which is prone to manipulation and privileged unresponsiveness . Applies a response reputation or "response rating" to those in positions of of power. easement orientation ( n. ) - EO ( abbr. ) One's relatively fixed or routine way to experience discomfort, which all stem from unresolved needs; either prioritizing relief-over-resolve or prioritizing resolve-over-relief . The Anankelogy Foundatdion addresses the challenge of improving one's EO with the NR101 Personal Need-Responder program. Other relevant terms: discomfort avoidance , discomfort embrace ; feel-reactive , need-responsive , passive-aggressive pain relief , reactive pain relief . engage ( v. ) - REFUNCTION To openly explore each other's affected needs to resolve a conflict, as opposed to debating or disputing or arguing; to show intent for mutual regard making room for social love over norms privileging avoidance and opposition that tend to perpetuate pain and problems. Contrasts with the defunction of mutual defensiveness . engaging mutuality  ( n. )   - REFUNCTION Responding personally to what others may need in ways that encourage reciprocal respect for one’s own needs. Counters avoidant adversarialism . See responsivism . engaging query ( n. ) A formatted invitation to consider thinking beyond an accepted assumption about something to reflect on a more specific and relevant perspective that could empirically result in resolving more needs. Invites a transition from being feel-reactive to being more need-responsive . Format: Opens with a question to compare two or more perspectives. E.g., "Which do you think is more likely?" or "Which would you prefer?" Then offers a widely accepted assumption, typically a more feel-reactive belief. "Or" to set up the illuminating comparison. Finally, a more specific and relevant perspective is offered to challenge the earlier assumption(s), as a more need-responsive belief. See examples in the openers to most blog entries here. evil ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Benefiting from diminishing the functioning of others or of oneself, often correlating with a lack of sufficient awareness of the painful results. In other words, causing pathology + benefiting from it. evoked need ( n. ) A requirement previously dormant now necessary to function. exposed need ( n. ) Any core need or resource need or access need or psychosocial need easily impacted by any privileged social norm or structural problem . Compare with vulnerable need that is easily impacted by anyone in a privileged position of social influential "power" or by a power problem . Accessible anankelogy may use these terms interchangeably. back-to-top F feel-reactive ( adj. ) - opposite of need-responsive Putting more of an emphasis on trying to ease the discomfort of needs evoked by a situation than identifying or addressing such needs. Applies an undisciplined approach: more normative than descriptive . Insists on responding immediately to ease feelings instead of carefully describing all that is honestly there that could impact the needs prompting those feelings. Exists as the oppositive of need-responsive . friction ( n. ) Anything going against the full resolution of any need. Also referred to as resolution resistance . E.g., limited to drinking impure water; finding no one to offer encouragement while facing a personal struggle; dismissiveness of felons complaining of contributing external factors to their poor choices; politicians offering policy options that ignore the needs of many in their constituency; and war that invokes violence to serve the preferences of the winning side against the losing side. back-to-top G back-to-top H back-to-top I indulgent side-taking ( n. & v. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of choosing to support a side in some conflict against the opposing side as a way to pacify discomfort, instead of taking the disciplined approach of empathy and mutual regard to address each other’s affected needs . This shameless rush to a take side typically overemphasizes each other's differences while disregarding common ground, relies on impersonal arguments to avoid engaging relevant specifics, resists addressing or resolving needs when easing discomfort of those needs, opposes the other side’s inflexible needs that they cannot change, called moral conflation (i.e., conflates unchosen needs with chosen responses to them), misapplies critique of moral relativism and moral neutrality , provokes the opposed side’s defensiveness to produce more of what is opposed , and self-righteously and arrogantly  serves own conflict porn  to win at the expense of others. Although aiming to ease pain, it usually results in more pain since it overlooks the affected needs prompting that pain (i.e., discomfort avoidance ). See premature opposition and oppo culture . This contrasts with a more disciplined approach to take a side on a contested issue, which could include a negotiated agreement on a resolution path to mutually solve the issue. The key distinction is between an intent to relieve discomfort and to resolve needs . See easement orientation and conflict orientation . See adversarialism and avoidant adversarialism . inflexible need ( n. ) Another identifier of core needs, organic needs, or natural needs . Refers to unchosen needs that automatically occur in response to a diminished ability to function. Distinguishes from flexible responses to needs, which colloquially can be called a need, but anankelogy refers to as a preference or access need . E.g., I inflexibly need water when thirsty but if I say I need a bottle of water, I am more accurately saying that I prefer the water that my body requires to be provided in a bottle. Since water is the only or primary way to restore by body's fluid equilibrium, it is an inflexible need since I cannot choose anything else that would restore my fluid equilibrium as effectively. The bottle is a flexible " access need " since I could flexibly get the water I inflexibly need directly from a faucet or a glass. Distinguishing between inflexible natural needs and flexible access needs can save us from many unfortunate problems. We often falsely expect others to change their inflexible needs. We would do better to focus on flexible access needs, on how we each flexibly respond to our core inflexible needs. Otherwise, you may find that what you reactively resist you tend to reflexively reinforce . back-to-top J judicialism ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Reliance upon the impersonal, avoidant adversarial  process to address justice needs with emphasis on assuring a fair adjudication process, but with little to no accountability to actual outcomes upon the justice needs of the vulnerable. Exists as a structural problem  level of defunction . See civic legalism . back-to-top K back-to-top L law-fit ( n. & v. )  - REFUNCTION The less formal name for the refunction of citationization . legalism ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The shorter name for the defunction of civic legalism (i.e., nomoscentricity ). Corrected by the refunction of law-fit (AKA citationization ). back-to-top M metapain ( n. ) misfunction ( n. ) Lowest level of a person's or entity's ability to function focused on surviving while their most basic needs continue unresolved. Sits below dysfunction in function array. moral conflation  ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of failing to distinguish between unchosen needs and chosen responses . E.g., The rhetorical demand "I need a bottle of water" conflates the unchosen need for water with the chosen response to get that water in a bottle, which could be accessed in other ways. While expecting another to choose to get that water in some way fair to others, expecting another to not require water naturally provokes conflicts unnecessarily. Likewise, conflating another's unchosen need for security with their defensive chosen responses to feel more secure easily invites an avoidable conflict. See adversarialism , conflict porn and indulgent side-taking . Countered by the refunction of moral distinction that affirms unchosen needs before questioning chosen responses to such needs. moral distinction  ( n. )  - REFUNCTION The refunction  of distinguishing between unchosen needs  and chosen responses by first affirming inflexible unchosen needs before addressing flexible chosen responses to them . Answers the defunction of moral conflation . movement wellness campaign ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] The third type of wellness campaign builds on the momentum of a successful project type of campaign, where at least one impactor demonstrates transformative leadership to inspire transforming social norms to solve structural problems . The other two types are case and project campaigns. mutual defensiveness  ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of prioritizing discomfort avoidance and normative alienation over vulnerably engaging the affected needs during a conflict with others. mutual regard ( n. ) - REFUNCTION The need-responsive refunction of attending to the needs on all sides of a conflict. In contrast to feel-reactive defunction s like indulgent side-taking , mutual defensiveness and conflict porn . back-to-top N natural need ( n. ) An inflexible requirement a person must have to objectively function. For example, water and interpersonal connections with others. Correlates with core needs  and with some resource needs , and not with access  or psychosocial needs  which are relatively arbitrary. need-response cycle ( n. ) - REFUNCTION Four quadrant cycle from alert to a specific need, to assess its need experience, to audit responsiveness to it, to avow to resolve it, and back around again until all needs fully resolve. See image below. need-response conflation  ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Failing to distinguish between unchosen needs and chosen responses to them. Easily provokes defenses when unable to change what another demands. See adversarialis m , avoidance culture , avoidant adversarialism , conflict porn , indulgent side-taking , mutual defensiveness and oppo culture . need-responsive ( adj. ) - opposite of feel-reactive Putting more of an emphasis on identifying and addressing the needs evoked by a situation than trying to ease the discomfort of such needs. Applies a disciplined approach: more descriptive than normative . Delays gratification of responding immediately to thoroughly describe what is honestly affecting all the relevant needs. Exists as the opposite of feel-reactive . nomoscentricity ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of prioritizing human law or social norms over addressing or resolving the needs for which they exist to serve. Correlates with the defunction of normative alienation . Manifest in authoritarian attitudes presenting attempts to officially control behavior to avoid uncomfortably engaging (i.e., discomfort avoidance ) the specific unresolved needs behind that behavior. Exists in the context of the power delusion . Informally referred to as civic legalism or simply legalism . Corrected in need-response primarily by the refunction of citationization , or less formally referred to as law-fit . normative alienation ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of socially privileged expectations and established social norms to not personally engage with one another, and rely instead on impersonal rules to guide behavior toward each other. Such estrangement correlates with the hyper-individualism of psychosocial imbalance . not- that ( n. ) The self-righteous generalization that refuses an uncomfortable characterization, which effectively shuts down communication and awareness of how the association could aptly fit the description, even if not to the degree ascribed. I.e., denial of awareness of how it could possibly be that , even if only on some minimal level, implies that it actually is that . See relief-generalizing . Exists as a type of discomfort avoidance .   Examples across the ideological divide: not-anticonservative not-antisemitic not-censorship not-genocidal not-hate speech not-Islamophobic not-overregulated not-racist not-transphobic back-to-top O objective evil  ( n. ) Anankelogy recognizes pathologizing plus benefiting from it as equivalent to evil. harming others + benefiting from it = evil Anyone who can be empirically measured as gaining something of value from empirically hindering the objective needs of others (and potentially of oneself) can be counted as “objective” evil. This points to three observable elements that can be captured using the tools of social science. 1. The objective needs  of others. 2. Any hindrance of resolving such needs. 3. Benefiting from such hindrance.   The more one gains from their imposition on others, however ostensibly benign or obviously pernicious, the more they tend to deny its harm. Or they resort to motivated reasoning to rationalize that any negative impact was necessary for some claimed greater good. This tends to occur only in power relations, where a more socially influential person or entity imposes their self-serving will onto the vulnerably less influential. As the less powerful can adequately function as a consequence, the blind-sighted powerful may see this as proof of their superiority. Evil then becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is generally easier to be self-righteous when no one is in place to hold one accountable. The most evil figures in history tend not to recognize themselves as evil. Nor would those currently acting as such, until now with these three measurable variables tested with the social science of anankelogy.   See evil . objective sin  ( n. ) Measurably falling short of fully resolving need, which limits optimal functioning in an objective way, independent of emotion, belief or perception. Imperfection objectively limiting full wellness, whether from one's own limited actions or from other's imposing limitations, or both. objective wickedness  ( n. ) Measurably obstructing resolution of need, which objectively limits full functioning, independent of emotion, belief or perception. Often with good intent, such as offering relief from the pain of unresolved needs that risks perpetuating pain by ignoring the objective needs. The more you become attached to pain relief to the point of neglecting the underserved needs (which dutifully prompts pain to call attention to your diminished wellness), the more your resulting diminished capacity to function becomes normalized. You then risk protecting this more familiar pain to avoid the lesser known pain of processing the uncomfortable alarm of your unresolved need. The more you avoid this call to remove a threat to your capacity to function, the more this persisting threat prompts more pain for you to try to ignore. This occurs as objectively wicked in that your objective capacity to function measurably declines, independent of any emotion, belief or perception. oppo culture  ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Short for "opposition culture", this refers to the set of written and unwritten norms that privileges or compels taking an antagonistic stance against others with whom one disagrees. It tends to displace the more noble potential for mutual regard . It functions in proximity with avoidance culture as key components to the power delusion . See adversarialism . organic pain ( n. ) back-to-top P pain ( n. ) Your body warning you—with an unpleasant experience to compel your awareness—of a likely threat to your ability to function. Prompts you to remove the threat or remove yourself from the threat, so you can continue functioning unabated. The greater the threat to your ability to function, typically the more intense the pain. If managing the presenting threat without fully removing it, the result is typically experienced as a dull yet tolerable level of pain or bearable discomfort. You either respond to the needs your pain reports or you react to your pain by prioritizing relief. Effectively responding to the underlying needs of your pain removes cause for that pain. Reacting to your pain tends to leave you in more pain , as your body persists to warn you of the persisting threat. You typically prefer the pain you feel over any pain you fear . You know how to handle the familiar discomfort of repeated disappointments from a friend who rarely arrives on time, for example, than the unfamiliar pain of confronting their lack of punctuality at the risk of losing their friendship. When the means to fully remove the threat or remove yourself from the threat remains elusive, you tend to gravitate toward pain-relieving alternatives. When such alternatives become your routine, you tend to become emotionally attached to their familiar provisions for comfort. These can increase your risk for addiction to pain-coping behaviors. (See symfunction capture .) Once your body senses all threats are satisfactorily removed enough for your life to fully function, it has no more cause to provoke painful awareness. Your pain only exists to warn you of threats to your ability to fully function. Absent of any threat, you do not experience any pain . Any persisting pain stems from your body continually trying to warn you of some apparent threat or threats to remove, so you can return to full functioning. Each painful emotion brings you awareness of a particular threat. Outside of that threat, you cannot feel that particular emotional pain. alienation - Outside of a felt need to connect more deeply with others, you feel no alienation . anger - Outside of a felt need to reject some apparent threat, you feel no anger . confusion - Outside of a felt need to make sense of something, you feel no confusion . depression - Outside of a felt need to redirect your energies, you feel no depression . disappointment - Outside of a felt need for others to be trustworthy, you feel no disappointment . disgust - Outside of a felt need to remove something offensive, you feel no disgust . embarrassment - Outside of a felt need to cover something exposed, you feel no embarrassment . fear - Outside of a felt need to handle something menacing, you feel no fear . frustration - Outside of a felt need to have things go as planned, you feel no frustration . grief - Outside of a felt need to adjust to a deep loss, you feel no grief . guilt - Outside of a felt need to restore your respect for others, you feel no guilt . insecure - Outside of a felt need to avoid any risk of harm, you feel no insecurity . jealousy - Outside of a felt need to enjoy what another enjoys, you feel no jealousy . loneliness - Outside of a felt need to connect with someone, you feel no loneliness . powerlessness - Outside of a felt need to control your situation, you feel no powerlessness . regret - Outside of a felt need to reconsider your actions, you feel no regret . restlessness - Outside of a felt need to promptly get something done, you feel no restlessness . sadness - Outside of a felt need to deal with some loss, you feel no sadness . shame - Outside of a felt need to guard your social image, you feel no shame . stress - Outside of a felt need to meet some high expectation, you feel no stress . You cannot fully function when such threats persist. Your pain serves your need for awareness to do something about such threats. Pain is not the problem as much as the threats your pain tries to report . You either let your emotional pain serve you, or you may find yourself serving your pain . passive-aggressive pain relief ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION A defunction of reacting to the discomfort of unresolved needs by immediately trying to ease its discomfort in both unassertive and hostile ways. Similar to the defunction of reactive pain relief and in contrast to the strategic pain relief and discomfort embrace . pathological pragmatism ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of emphasizing what seems more practical or easier to achieve in the moment, permissively lowering standards in ways that risk perpetuating painful problems. Distinct from the grace of affirming progressive steps towards reaching a standard for resolving needs. Correlates with symfunctionality . pathology ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Condition of diminished wellness that prevents continued functioning at a level necessary to effectively respond to needs, both to your own needs and to the needs of others. Typically results in sustained pain as the body continually warns of the perceived diminishment of functioning. Too often, one feels compelled to relieve the pain instead of removing cause for this pain, which tends to create a vicious cycle that can reinforce the pathology. Such compulsion to prioritize relief may correlate with a sense of powerless to do much if anything to resolve the affected needs, such as those needs constrained by power problems and more acutely with structural problems . The more powerholders or others benefit in any way from such pathology, the less inclined they are to support resolving the affected needs, which anankelogy defines as evil . peakfunction ( n. ) Highest level of a person's or entity's ability to function focused on promptly resolving all needs. Sits just above symfunction in the function array. politics ( n. ) The art of generalizing how to agreeably address needs in different social situations. This anankelogically-inspired definition presents three components that are easily compounded in conventional politics: Generalizing over specifics . Generalizing to as many as possible to build coalitions typically includes generalizing in the sense of avoiding specifics that risk undercutting such widely cultivated agreements. The less your specific needs resolve, the more pulled into political overgeneralizing offering you some relief that keeps your needs less resolved. Here is where conventional politics manifests avoidance culture . Relieving pain over resolving needs . Appealing to the majority who experience normalized pain risks adopting policies perpetuating that pain. The more emotionally attached to familiar politically shaped relief, the less open to engaging more disciplined solutions that could remove cause for pain. Here is where conventional politics also manifests avoidance culture with such defunctions as normative alienation and mutual defensiveness . One's own versus another's situation . Selfishly prioritizing own interests at the expense of respecting the needs of others fuels conflicts and reinforces polarization. The more you push against other's inflexible needs , the more their inflexible needs push back . Here is where conventional politics manifests oppo culture with such defunctions as psychosocial imbalance , indulgent side-taking and conflict porn . popgen ( n. & adj. ) - DEFUNCTION Short for "popular generalization" or "popular generalizing" that privileges (with social norms) overlooking many specifics necessary to resolve the relevant needs. Akin to the notion of a "lay" version of something. See relief-gen . Also a type of defunction , such as a popgen version . popgen version ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION A popularly generalized watered down form of an accepted theory or philosophy, presenting with generalizations that are typically more politically normative than academically descriptive , and often discounted by opponents as too ideological. Opposite of critical version . EXAMPLES : popgen liberalism popgen existentialism & popgen rational choice theory popgen postmodernism popgen microaggression popgen race theory popgen identity politics & popgen intersectionality popgen transgenderism popgen libertarianism popgen gun rights popgen free market dynamics Each of these grew out of a critical version with some merit, but then watered down to relieve some felt need with little to attention to the affected needs of others. Opponents to these watered down normative versions who seldom or never acknowledge the merit of its original critical version readily indulge in oppo culture and avoidance culture as part of the power delusion . See relief-gen . power delusion ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Rigid belief in holding socially privileged influence over others and calling it power, or rigid belief in others holding socially privileged influence over you, contrary to all evidence that such coercive-leaning influence typically detracts from resolving needs, which mostly perpetuates pain and problems. Can also refer to conflating the lesser "power" of privileged social influence with the greater power of nature that shapes the needs that in turn prompt widespread desire for this lesser power. premature opposition ( n. ) prematurely oppose ( v. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of asserting one’s difference of flexible beliefs or flexible actions in contrast with another’s flexible beliefs or flexible actions without first relating to the inflexible needs behind such beliefs and actions. In other words, reacting to a difference in opinion in such a way that predictably provokes defensiveness. While trapped in mutual defensiveness, the affected needs remain painfully unresolved. That opinion typically serves as an outwardly less vulnerable and safer expression for an inwardly vulnerable need that cannot be easily changed. This could include instances of being needlessly confrontational, which may feed one's conflict porn . This defunction exists as part of the power delusion , and manifested in avoidance culture and oppo culture at odds with resolving needs and at odds with sustainable wellness. See indulgent side-taking . project wellness campaign ( n. ) The second type of wellness campaign focused on resolving not only the identified wellness need(s) of the RI client but also those of the similarly situated. The other types are case and movement campaigns. proxy ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] Someone serving on behalf of a campaigner, who subscribes as the campaigner but is not the person with the targeted wellness need. psychosocial balancing  ( n. & v. ) - REFUNCTION The refunction of cultivating an equilibrium between your pressing social-needs and pressing self-needs . Nature automatically pulls you to balance both through a process of psychosocial oscillation —compelling you to focus on seasons of self-needs and seasons on social-needs . Your spring : when your less resolved social needs emerge and demand your attention. Your summer : when your social needs dominate more than your self-needs . Your autumn : when your less resolved self-needs  emerge and demand your attention. Your winter: when your self-needs  dominate more than your social needs . The more your self-needs resolve and social needs resolve on par with each other, the more your natural needs can resolve, the more pain you can remove, and the more potential you can reach. The more you can match what you can do for yourself with what you can rely on others to provide what you cannot reliably do for yourself, the more psychosocial flow you experience. The less your self-needs resolve and social needs resolve on par with each other, the less your natural needs  can resolve, the less pain you can remove, and the less potential you can reach. You experience this as the defunction of psychosocial imbalance . psychosocial flow  ( n. ) - REFUNCTION The refunction of unleashing your natural energy to resolve needs, to remove pain and to raise functioning, by syncing your internal potential with external supports. See psychosocial balancing . psychosocial imbalance ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of self-needs and social needs not resolving on par with each other. You either ease your self-needs more than your social needs , or you ease your social needs more than your self-needs . As this limits your ability to function fully, your body warns you with some form of emotional pain. If reacting to this pain instead of addressing your psychosocial needs evenly, you tend to reinforce such imbalance. And continue to suffer in pain . The degree of balance to imbalance correlates to the functionality array . Psychosocial oscillation : natural transitioning between addressing self-needs and addressing to social-needs , for sustaining psychosocial balancing . Correlates with peakfunctionality . Psychosocial vacillation : intense shifts between self-needs and social-needs , leading toward psychosocial imbalance . Can explain some political extremism; see psychosocial orientation . Correlates with symfunctionality . Psychosocial crystallization : settling into the familiar painful pattern of more severe psychosocial imbalance . Correlates with dysfunctionality . Psychosocial disintegration : neither self-needs nor social-needs adequately resolve, resulting in swings into violent psychosocial extremes. Correlates with misfunctionality . psychosocial orientation  ( n. ) The routine or regularly situated experience of psychosocial imbalance , manifested in one of two directions (i.e., two dominate orientations): WIDE-focused : less resolved social needs than self-needs ; tends to generalize how to ease unmet social needs while guarding one's relatively more resolved self-needs . DEEP-focused : less resolved self-needs than social needs ; tends to generalize how to ease unmet self-needs while guarding one's relatively more resolved social needs . When your self-needs continually resolve more than your social needs , you become predisposed toward liberal or progressive values. Politically left ideas provide outward expression for your inward psychosocial priority to ease (with public support) your less resolved social needs while guarding your more resolved self-needs from public pressures. For example, if your self-need for unique self-expression  as a sexual or religious or ethnic minority is more resolved than your social need for inclusion as one of these historically marginalized minorities, you tend to find more support from left leaning supporters who rely on public policies to protect both their negative right  (what the government must not do) to freely be their unique selves, and their positive right  (what the government must do) for greater social inclusion against patterns of historical discrimination. When your social needs continually resolve more than your self-needs , you become predisposed toward conservative values. Politically right ideas provide outward expression for your inward psychosocial priority to ease (with public support) your less resolved self-needs while guarding your more resolved social needs from public pressures. For example, if your social need for family cohesion in a local community is more resolved than your self-need for personal freedom  to explore your life’s potential, you tend to find more support from right leaning supporters who rely on public policies to protect both their negative right  (what the government must not do) to never infringe on their gun rights to protect their own families, and their positive right  (what the government must do) provide security with a professional police force so they can be in public to explore their personal potential without fear. You gravitate towards others who experience the same or similar unchosen priority of similar psychosocial needs as you, in contrast to others experiencing a different priority of needs . This provides the seeds for partisanship affiliation. The rational choice myth of debating which side presents the better idea for shaping public policy overlooks this dynamic of unchosen needs . The more you can resolve one set of needs closer on par with the other set, the more open to gravitate toward the other political side. The less you can resolve one set of needs relative to the other set, the further you tend to shift to a political extreme. This illuminates why there can be tension within each political side. Need-response offers to replace the mutual defensiveness of conventional politics with mutual regard and social love . Instead of emphasizing each other's different yet unchosen priorities , which prioritizes easing the pain of psychosocial imbalance , need-response provides a disciplined path toward mutually resolving each other's affected psychosocial needs . The process aims to remove the pain of psychosocial imbalance by cultivating more psychosocial balancing . psychosocial blind spot  ( n. )  - DEFUNCTION back-to-top Q queued need ( n. ) A prefocal need  waiting in line with other prefocal  needs, prior to compelling your full attention to act upon as a focal need . back-to-top R reactive pain relief  ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION A defunction of reacting to the discomfort of unresolved needs by immediately trying to ease its discomfort with little to no thought of how ignoring the unresolved needs evoking such pain tends to persist and potentially intensify the pain ineffectually avoided. Defunction similar to passive-aggressive pain relief . Contrasts with the refunctions of strategic pain relief and discomfort embrace . Recognized Impactee [ RI ] ( n. )  [wellness campaign terminology] A person or entity recognized as impacted more from those in positions of power than they impact the social power relation. Prior to such powerholders acknowledging such potent influence, the RI is regarded as a Reporting Impactee . reflexive correlation ( n. ) An empirically observable association between two or more variables that seem to change each other, which can suggest a cyclic relationship between the identified variables. While correlation is not necessarily causation , social science research typically anticipates one variable (the dependent variable ) to change as an apparent consequence of another preceding variable (the independent variable ). See cyclic correlation . The nature-based paradigm of academic anankelogy anticipates a string of dependent variables looping together to suggest that anything definable as an independent variable requires it to be isolated as a predecessor to a particular dependent variable in that part of the ongoing cycle. Each independent variable to a particular dependent variable can then be viewed as a dependent variable to a preceding variable in that cycle. refunction ( n. ) Anything that raises one's ability to function more fully, improving their wellness. Opposite to a defunction . relational knowing ( n. & v. ) - RK ( abbr. ) - REFUNCTION To directly understand something by identifying how one thing appears to go along with another, allowing you to create your own testable hypotheses. You identify for yourself the associations between two or more things affecting your needs. You observe four types of associations: more-more : more of this, then more of that (“positive relation” as both move in same direction) more-less : more of this, then less of that (“negative relation” as both move in opposite directions) less-more : less of this, then more of that (“negative relation” as both move in opposite directions) less-less : less of this, then less of that (“positive relation” as both move in same direction) relief-gen ( n. ) relief-generalizing ( v. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of oversimplifying a reaction to some need to gain broad support for relieving its pain, typically resulting in more pain since the overgeneralization overlooks the specifics necessary to fully resolve the needs. This typically results in more pain from these unresolved needs, which in turn feeds this vicious cycle of continually generalizing for relief. See popgen . Reporting Impactee [ RI ] ( n. )  [wellness campaign terminology] A person or entity asserting they are impacted more from those in positions of power than they impact the social power relation. Once acknowledged by the powerholder of such potent influence, the RI  is regarded as a Recognized Impactee . residual pain ( n. ) resolution path  ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] - REFUNCTION Identified steps to resolve a need or needs. Once identified and announced to others for their feedback, the identified steps get appropriately adjusted to include respect for the affected needs of others. Once concluding such inputs, the process commits all involved to enable resolution of the identified natural needs on all sides, and to also confront any selfish impediment resisting resolution. Applies to the "avowal" phase of the need-response cycle in a wellness campaign . resolution-friction ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Any resistance to fully resolving needs. Does not have to be intentional, but frequently results from an intent to avoid the pain of reported threats to functioning. This includes well-established social norms like the adversarial approach of legal systems in the judicial process and in politics. The historical way these legal structures favors a relieve-over-resolve approach tends to resist a resolve-over-relieve effort to fully resolve needs. The resulting pain typically reinforces the norms to prioritize relief over fully resolving needs that could remove cause for such pain. There is no such thing as pain apart from the body reporting a perceived theat to functioning . response conflation  ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION Another name for the defunction of moral conflation . response distinction  ( n. )  - REFUNCTION Another name for the refunction  of moral distinction . response reputation ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] - REFUNCTION One's informally or officially recognized trustworthiness to respect the needs of others. responsivism ( n. ) The belief and practice that responding to the unchosen needs of others, before addressing any chosen responses to such needs, can produce more favorable results than adversarial alternatives. Counters the moral conflation inherent in avoidant adversarialism with moral distinction , as a way to more effectively address and solve social problems. Need-response is the profession while responsivism is the activity. Examples: Personally Responsive to apply moral distinction Responsive Supervision Responsive Depolarization for depolarizing politics Responsive Innocence for the wrongly convicted innocent responsivist ( n. ) One dedicated to applying responsivism to address social problems, as an alternative to adversarial activism that easily slips into the problem of moral conflation , which tends to perpetuate pain and problems. rhetorical need ( n. ) The widely accepted reference to a flexible or optional way to restore functioning, in contrast to anankelogical reference to an actual 'need' as inflexible (in contrast to flexible options) , innate (in contrast to arbitrary experience) , natural or organic (in contrast to humanly constructed) , unchosen (in contrast to chosen responses ). A rhetorical need is not recognizable as objective fact , as it can be characterized as subjectively flexible, arbitrary, constructed, or chosen. Timing provides the basic distinction. The actual need occurs first, prior to awareness. The rhetorical need then follows, in response to it. Anankelogy recognizes how your core needs exist as objective facts independent from subjective experience . Your life's requirement to function occurs prior to your emotional responses to such needs. We colloquially refer to many of these responses as a need . "I need a pencil" for example, but a writing utensil itself can never restore me to optimal functioning. I say I need a pencil as it rhetorically symbolizes how I prefer to respond to my objective need to not forget my thoughts. Anankelogy characterizes any rhetorical need as more of a " preference " than an actual need. If there is any flexibility for how to restore wellness, or functionality, then it is more likely an arbitrary rhetorical need and not a specific objective need in the anankelogical sense. Examples: "I need a 'bottle' of water." You can get water from out of a cup or another way. Water is the actual, objective need, not the container for it. "I need a 'map'." You can find a route in alternative ways. Travel direction is the objective need. "I need your 'email address'." You can contact others in different ways. Social connection is the actual need. "I need 'to go home'." You likely could go to other locations to satisfy this purpose. Shelter is the objective need. "I need to replace the oil in my car." You can function without replacing your car's oil. Transportation security is the actual need. "She needs my phone number." She could contact you in other ways. Interpersonal communication is the objective need. "My boss needs me to come in early." Arriving the usual time only affects you indirectly. Economic security or resource security is the actual need. We generally prefer to convey to others how we prefer they respond to our actual needs by citing such rhetorical needs . There is some safe room for change if they refuse. We generally prefer to avoid the uncomfortable vulnerability of directly expressing an actual need that we cannot change. We easily slip into conflicts when failing to distinguish between these actual needs and our rhetorical references to them. Anankelogy identifies this problem as moral conflation . And corrects this problems with moral distinction that affirms your inflexible actual needs before questioning any flexible rhetorical responses to them. This may include character refunctions that could make it easier to recognize and acknowledge the difference. See the four anankelogical levels of experiencing your needs . RI client ( n. )  [wellness campaign terminology] Another identifier of a campaigner . Or the person with the targeted wellness goal in a wellness campaign led by a proxy . More broadly, can apply to wellness campaign members who hold no official power over others in the campaign, typically in the TEAM phase. back-to-top S self-need ( n. ) A necessity for functioning on one’s own without any intrusion from others, specifically for things one can provide solely for oneself. Covers the internal side of one’s psychosocial wellbeing. Contrasts with and complements social needs . autonomy authenticity independence initiative internalized incentive personal freedom personal security privacy resilience self-acceptance self-determination self-efficacy self-expression self-purpose self-responsibility self-secure self-sufficiency self-worth uniqueness social love ( n. ) - REFUNCTION The act of prioritizing a desirable response to another's need as being as important or more important than one's own need(s), at least in the moment, to set the inspiring standard for others to prioritize a desirable response to one's own needs. Need-response posits this as a vital adjunct to a conflict orientation of staying open and learning amidst conflict, to dissolve the constricting tension of staying closed and defensive amidst conflict. social need  ( n. ) A necessity for functioning with coordination or with the help from others, specifically for things one cannot provide solely for oneself. Covers the external side of one’s psychosocial wellbeing. Contrasts with and complements self-needs . affection affirmation appreciation being understood belonging cohesion companionship cooperation dependability equal treatment friendship inclusion intimacy predictability support synergy trust strategic pain relief ( n. ) - REFUNCTION A refunction of momentarily easing the intense discomfort of unresolved need with the intent to get back to facing the pain in order to resolve the need, with the long-term anticipation to remove the cause of that pain. Exists in contrast to the widespread norms of passive-aggressive pain relief and reactive pain relief . See easement orientation .  See discomfort avoidance and discomfort embrace . supportive bias ( n. ) - REFUNCTION The refunction of prioritizing resolution of unchosen needs , to remove cause for cognitive distortions and improve the level of functioning. This can lower the risk of confirmation bias and other problematic biases. Anankelogy defines bias  as prioritizing to ease need. The more resolved the needs of the observer of phenomena, the less of a pull to cherry-pick what their unresolved needs would urge them to prioritize. The more your bias prioritizes the full resolution of needs, the more you will prioritize seeking the full breadth and depth of reality. symfunction ( n. ) A less-than-optimal level of functioning that prioritizes easing needs to adequate levels, or resolving needs only partially, largely with impersonal support from others. Sits lower than peakfunction but higher than dysfunction . symfunction capture ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION A 3-step process of slipping from optimal functioning ( peakfunction ) towards diminished functioning ( dysfunction ). 1) symfunction creep ; 2) symfunction strain ; 3) symfunction trap . Fills gap between fully well and fully sick. symfunction creep ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The first in a 3-step process of symfunction capture . The 2nd is symfunction strain . The 3rd is symfunction trap . symfunction strain ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The second in a 3-step process of symfunction capture . The 1st is symfunction creep . The 3rd is symfunction trap . symfunction trap ( n. ) - DEFUNCTION The last in a 3-step process of symfunction capture . The 1st is symfunction creep . The 2nd is symfunction strain . back-to-top T back-to-top U unchosen need ( n. ) Any requirement to function that automatically exists, independent of any volition. E.g., solitude, water, social acceptance, sleep, self-determination, food, comradery. This points to the principle that a natural need is an objective fact . This works as another term for an inflexible need or natural need . Contrasts with a chosen response to such a need. unchosen priority  ( n. ) Any required necessity to address something essential to function that automatically exists ahead in importance of another essential matter for functioning, independent of any volition. E.g., requiring solitude now instead of social interactions or requiring sleep now instead of physical activity. This points to the principle that an organically prioritized need is an objective fact . back-to-top V vulnerable need ( n. ) Any core need  or resource need  or access need  or psychosocial need  easily impacted by anyone in a privileged position of social influential "power" or by a power problem. Compare with exposed need that is   easily impacted by a privileged social norm or by a structural problem . Accessible anankelogy  may use these terms interchangeably. back-to-top W wellness campaign ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] A specialized service offered by need-response that focuses on resolving the client's identified wellness need(s) while respecting the identified needs of others. Instead of trying to relieve pain, a wellness campaign aims to resolve needs to remove cause for pain, and reach more potential. Unlike private healthcare of psychotherapy, the client makes public their wellness goal and invites others to support it. Instead of seeking to change the individual to adjust to life as it is, a wellness campaign seeks to change relationship dynamics to be more responsive to each other's needs. This includes incentivizing the socially powerful to demonstrably be more responsive to the vulnerable needs of those they impact. Unlike legal approaches by attorneys and political activists, the intent is not to win at another's expense but to raise everyone's functioning level. Instead of conformity to interpreted laws, a wellness campaign incentivizes all involved to go beyond minimal legal requirements to resolve the needs laws exist to serve. This includes incentivizing authority figures to rely less on impersonal laws and more on earning legitimacy by enabling us all to resolve our needs. A wellness campaign goes through four to five phases, each meant to address one of the four levels of human problems . The campaign typically concludes at the end of the final phase with the client reaching their wellness goal. Some campaigns can transition into other campaign types. Three types of wellness campaigns currently exist; 1) case campaign to address the client's wellness need; 2) project campaign to address wellness needs of those similarly situated; and 3) movement campaign as a coalition of project campaigns. wellness offender  ( n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] Anyone interfering or resisting the resolution of identified needs after provided ample opportunity to report any impact on their own needs. See resolution path . See anti-wellness . back-to-top X back-to-top Y back-to-top Z back-to-top Glossary updates Glossary last updated: 2024-05-02 back-to-top

Anankelogy offers the public three levels: academic anankelogy , applied anankelogy , and accessible anankelogy . Each with its specific focus. This post focuses on accessible anankelogy . The Anankelogy Foundation seeks to make all three an everyday reality. Anankelogy may feel inaccessible to those untrained in the social sciences. Its mind-bending insights may either get ignored, or watered down into silly oblivion. Consider how psychology often gets reduced to its more digestible yet oversimplified forms. Pop psychology emerges when trying to keep rigorous psychological concepts accessible to laypersons. That can serve as a good entry point. But watering down those concepts too far risks slipping into pseudoscience. Anankelogy anticipates the need to keep it accessible to all. So it comes packaged to you in these 9 available ways. Accessible anankelogy invites armchair social scientists . Accessible anankelogy improves your awareness with “relational knowing” . Accessible anankelogy democratizes science . Accessible anankelogy lowers your risk of personal bias . Accessible anankelogy uses simpler-to-understand language . Accessible anankelogy debunks divisive experts . Accessible anankelogy holds us all accountable to mutual respect . Accessible anankelogy makes it easier to respect everyone’s needs . Accessible anankelogy equips you to cultivate more love . 1. Accessible anankelogy invites armchair social scientists. Scientists are trained to watch out for distorting conclusions, such as from confirmation bias and similar mental traps. We know correlation is not necessarily causation . Our observations may miss something , which undermines certainty that one thing created the change in the other. But we risk slipping into the opposite extreme of overlooking meaningful relationships when dismissing an observation as mere correlation . Accessible anankelogy puts you one step ahead of these reasonable concerns. Instead of constantly doubting your intuition, accessible anankelogy encourages you to frame your own testable hypotheses. You can do this with the anankelogical tool of relational knowing , or RK for short. 2. Accessible anankelogy expands your awareness with “relational knowing”. Most of the time, we think in simple black-and-white terms. We miss so much of the gray area in between. So we rely on impersonal rules to fill in the gaps. Trouble often results. Accessible anankelogy offers you the tool of relational knowing , or RK for short, to overcome our tendency to overlook nuance affecting your needs. With RK , you frame your own testable hypotheses. You identify for yourself the associations between two or more things affecting your needs. You observe four types of associations: more-more : more of this, then more of that (“positive relation” as both move in same direction) more-less : more of this, then less of that (“negative relation” as both move in opposite directions) less-more : less of this, then more of that (“negative relation” as both move in opposite directions) less-less : less of this, then less of that (“positive relation” as both move in same direction) As something goes up, you observe another thing going down. The more of this thing over here, then the more of that over there. That’s relational knowing , to know matters relationally yourself. You think relationally and more directly, instead of getting tossed around by clever arguments of others. You observe that the more your boss gets angry, for example, the more defensive you get. You know that the more your boss appreciates your contributions with an occasional praise, the more incentivized to do your best for the team. You see how the more openly vulnerable you are with her, the more she trusts you with her own secrets. You note how the less you obsess over stuff that could go wrong, the more prepared you are to improve your chances for success. The more you can identify what’s specifically needed, and you know you can appropriately do it, the less pressured from hostile expectations. The more internally motivated to personally engage each other, the less externally pressured by onerous impersonal rules. 3. Accessible anankelogy democratizes science. The more you can identify for yourself these need-affecting associations, the less vulnerable you will be to the apparent priesthood of academic experts. That statement serves as another example of RK . The more of this, then the more (or less) of that. Any layperson can frame what they observe with a testable statement. If you connect the dots in these need-affecting relations and still find yourself depending on experts to direct your personal affairs, then you invalidate the above association predicting your expected independence. At least for now. The more you utilize this basic scientific tool in your life, the greater the chance your needs will more fully resolve, and enable you to become more independent minded. Each of these “relational knowing” statements could be tested. But the most meaningful result has less to do with scientific accuracy and more to do with how fully you resolve such needs. The more resolved your needs, the more other matters can take care of themselves. See, more RK statements. Such statements are best framed as tenuous associations. You remain open to further possible inputs. You tolerate ambiguity, and let go of having to be certain. The more you remain uncertain about the little things, the more you can be certain about the big things. The more you can benefit from anankelogy, the more your needs can resolve more fully, and the better your life—and all of our lives—will be. 4. Accessible anankelogy lowers your risk of personal bias. Anankelogy recognizes bias as prioritizing what you need. The more your needs fully resolve, the less vulnerable you are to distorting biases. The more your needs fully resolve, the better you can function and relate honestly with the world around you and within you. The more your needs fully resolve, the more open you are to appreciating reality as it actually occurs, instead of feeling you must interpret it to serve your pressing needs. The more resolved your needs, the more trustworthy your intuitions. The less resolved your needs, the faultier your intuitions, as your feelings compel you to sidestep the full truth to ease your urgent needs. We still utilize the null hypothesis to minimize the risk of confirmation bias . We still rely on the discipline of the scientific method , but we’re not biased to assume that’s the only way to appreciate the truth affecting our experience of needs. Accessible anankelogy recognizes and affirms your capacity to realize more of reality the more your needs resolve. Distortions seep in when generalizing for relief from the anguish of urgent needs. Once I cling to a generalization, I am at risk of being dragged into accepting what is only partially true or not true at all—to relieve the pain of my unmet needs. The more your needs resolve while seeking to know what is real, the more you experience epiphanies opening new perspectives to see more clearly. To curb distractions from bias, we actually rely more on staying atop of our needs, to lower the risk of distorting biases. And you don’t need to be a trained scientist to do that. 5. Accessible anankelogy uses simpler-to-understand language. Academics routinely use mystifying terms embedded in thick language to dive deeper into observable phenomena. Academic anankelogy is no different. But that risks keeping anankelogy inaccessible to those who do not have the time to dig so deep. Or to look up new words. Accessible anankelogy converts some of the more mystifying terminology in academic anankelogy into easier to use vocabulary. Such as introducing you to a new concept, but bypassing the classical Greek work for it with a more familiar label. For example, academic anankelogy refers to something it calls “ nomoscentricity ”. That breaks down to “law” (‘nomos’ is a Greek word for law ) and “centricity”. In other words, centered on law in contrast to centered on needs for which laws ostensibly exist to serve. Accessible anankelogy turns this heavy term into “civil legalism”. Or simply “legalism”. But qualifying it as “civil” helps to differentiate this from religious legalism or moral legalism. Civil legalism simply means putting the role of law ahead of the needs for which laws ostensibly serve. Wherever possible, the Anankelogy Foundation uses the accessible anankelogy term over the less accessible academic version. Instead of speaking about a “referent need” we will talk about a “resource need”. Referent covers more ground, but not enough of a difference for the layperson. The Anankelogy Foundation invites you to become a member of this website and join the discussion forum to let us know if we should simply other overbearing anankelogical terms. We hope to keep our discussion in easily understood language. Unless you’re comfortable with the more collegiate terminology of academic anankelogy. We respect your needs because, you know, we understand and appreciate our different needs. 6. Accessible anankelogy debunks divisive experts. You don’t need any college educated or credentialed professional to tell you when you are in pain. Now you can also know for yourself that your pain points directly to unresolved needs—not from your lack of expert knowledge or from some chemical imbalance in your brain or whatever some acclaimed expert declares it to be. Accessible anankelogy lets you know that so-called experts are wrong when failing to account for any inflexible needs. Talking heads who try to get you to take sides against anyone’s inflexible needs—or inflexible priority of needs—is wrong, wrong, wrong! Whenever such experts cajole you to oppose others for needing differently, oppose them first. Biased experts expect you to go along with them, to ease the pain of your unmet needs. Too many of us fall for this trap. We easily cave in to their lies that settling for pain relief is the best we can get. Wrong! Such a self-serving approach locks us into mutual defensiveness, locking us into pain, and needlessly alienating ourselves from each other. When powerful experts depend upon keeping you and I in managed perpetual pain, by limiting our chances to fully resolve needs to remove all pain, their influential power is in vain. The more trapped from elites preventing you from fully resolving your needs, the more accessible anankelogy challenges you to cut ties. Let accessible anankelogy vanquish these vicious cycles trapping you in endless pain. 7. Accessible anankelogy holds us all accountable to mutual respect. Apply this bias-nullifying approach to divisive political discussions. Whenever political debates fail to affirm the inflexible needs on each side (as most so-called debates do these days), they needlessly pit us against each other. Such political and media elites are gaslighting you. They’re trying to trick you into wasting your precious energy opposing the needs of others that cannot change, instead of challenging their pain-perpetuating influence. You can apply this simple “ mutual respect test ”: If the political debate does not limit disagreement to what we do about our different priority of needs (respectful) and strays into the no-man land of any inflexible needs (disrespectful), you can easily know they are wrong. Repeatedly provoking mutual defensiveness over needs no one can change helps keep political elites in power over you. Opposing what others need does not extinguish moral conflict, but enflames it . They could well be partially right, but opposing any inflexible need taints their whole argument. Demand better. Denounce their attempts to pull you into their audience-capture outrage porn . Put your love over their hate. You can dissolve political bias with accessible anankelogy by simply acknowledging the different priority of inflexible needs before questioning what they do about them. This “ mutual respect invitation ” allows far more space to affirm each other’s intrinsic worth. Use the positive-negative-positive approach. You may be familiar with this way to package unpleasant news if you ever received a late payment notice. “We value you as our customer. Please note you are behind payment. If you already sent in your payment, then we appreciate continuing to serve you as our valued customer.” It follows a proven three-step process for couching some bad news in between some good news. Positive news: AFFIRM . Affirm their inflexible needs and their innate value. Negative news: QUESTION . Then question what they insist we must do about them, and how their approach impacts your needs. Positive news: CONTINUANCE . Close on an encouraging assurance that you seek to continue this working relationship. Here are two examples of applying this proven messaging format to accessible anankelogy’s “ mutual respect invitation ”, one from each political side of the fence. “I respect your need to defend your family and property with your collection of guns. I invite you to recognize my need to stay safe from traumatizing gun violence. The more I respect your need for gun ownership, the more I hope you will respect my need for some kind of gun control.” “I respect your need to stay safe from traumatizing gun violence. I invite you to recognize my need to defend my family and my property with my collection of guns. The more I respect your need for some kind of gun control, the more I hope you will respect my need for gun ownership.” Let this inviting approach to our political differences shift us away from the mutual defensiveness keeping political elite’s hold over us. Debunk the divisiveness. Debunk selfish debating. Debunk mutual provocations. Use this approach to debunk any “expert” trying to divide us into camps against each other. Let’s prioritize instead our respect for each other’s fixed priority of needs. We cannot change the needs themselves. But we can adjust what we’re doing about them, and undermine powerful elites in the process. In other words, love works better than hate. 8. Accessible anankelogy makes it easier to respect everyone’s needs. The Anankelogy Foundation works with Value Relating LLC to create free tools to apply accessible anankelogy to various challenges in our lives. Value Relating has been working on a set of tools to bridge the gulf between the powerful and relatively powerless. One version of their tool is for the powerless layperson to “speak truth to power” (sttp). A parallel version is for the influential powerful to “listen to those impacted” (ltti). Value Relating fits these into their “ impact parity model ” for equalizing attention to each other’s needs. Here are some tools Value Relating has in various stages of development. 8.1 ) Harmony Politics [ sttp-HP ]. This addresses the problem of political polarization by respecting each other’s inflexible priority of politicized needs. See this apply the mutual respect test to eight key political issues . This tool is currently available at Value Relating , while open to continual improvement. 8.2 ) Estimated Innocence Form [ sttp-EIF ; ltti-EIF ]. This addresses the failure of law-centered institutions, including innocence project s , to clear the unexonerated wrongly convicted innocent. This tool is currently available at Value Relating , while open to continual improvement. 8.3 ) Pain Remover [sttp-EO; ltti-EO]. This addresses the tendency to put up with the mild pain of many partially resolved needs by fully resolving needs our current institutions overlook. This tool is not yet publicly available, but could be soon. 8.4 ) Legitimacy Quotient [sttp-LQ; ltti-LQ]. This addresses the failure of authority to effectively serve the needs for which their institutions exist by supporting and rating each powerholder’s competency. This tool is not yet publicly available. 8.5 ) Social Love [sttp-SL; ltti-SL]. This addresses the creeping alienation in society by cultivating stronger ties through more deliberate communication of each other’s overlooked needs. This tool is not yet publicly available. The Anankelogy Foundation seeks to build a platform to freely provide such tools to you and to anyone in need. Value Relating would serve as one of many individual service providers to support resolving each other’s power-impacted needs. The tools are free, but added support would cost extra. Both the powerless and powerful in these power relations would benefit. With their advantage in resources and potentially more to gain from this mutualizing process, participating powerholders bear most if not all of the cost of added supports. 9. Accessible anankelogy equips you to cultivate more love. Accessible anankelogy emphasize love as paramount . Not the feel-good love of friends or the romantic love of lovers, but what anankelogy refers to as “social love”. You don’t need to feel anything toward a stranger to respect their private space, or to give them a kind complement, or avoid becoming too noisy around them. Such respect could be considered a kind of love, of respecting the needs of others as you would have them respect your needs. We easily assume that’s what rules are for. But do you really require a rule to warn you against taking something that isn’t yours? Aren’t you motivated not to steal from others more from the incentive that would not want others to steal anything from you? Accessible anankelogy makes more room for your intrinsic motivation that demonstrates your respect for the unspoken and obvious needs of others. Then give you tools to demonstrate your respect for those less obvious needs and their unspoken needs. We cut through the thick layers of alienation to ask what they need or expect of us. The more you attempt to connect with what others seem to need, and take kind steps to find out, the more inspired they would do the same in kind. We all could rely less on rational-legal authority . Accessible anankelogy can help us replace a primacy of rules with the supremacy of love. Your response to this need-responsiveness What do you think about accessible anankelogy? Can you see yourself crafting your own relational knowing statements? Do you envision relating more closely with your needs without vulnerably relying on experts who don’t know you? Do you wish to connect more deeply with others? To remove the cause of pain over mere pain-relief? Do you have any questions or suggestions? Or simply want to learn more? Follow the discussion in the forum . Become a site member to add to the discussion. Consider becoming a member of the Anankelogy Foundation to help integrate this need-responsive understanding into our intersecting lives. Ready to spread some love ? ​ Your responsiveness to accessible anankelogy Your turn. Consider one or more of these options to respond to this need-responsive content. Check our Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact with others and to create your own forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this anankelogy category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating below to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment below to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top

Anankelogy offers the public three levels: academic anankelogy , applied anankelogy , and accessible anankelogy . Each with its specific focus. This post focuses on applied anankelogy . The Anankelogy Foundation seeks to make all three an everyday reality. Applied anankelogy is much like clinical psychology . It puts anankelogical ideas to work in everyday situations. As an applied sci ence that recognizes the objective fact of our natural needs , it complements or competes with other institutional responses to our many needs. In contrast to the mostly rational-legal approach of institutions like politics and the court system, applied anankelogy takes a more empirical approach . It holds power accountable to resolving our inflexible needs, removing our consequential pain, and raising our functional levels. Applied anankelogy implements this by forming of a new professional field called need-response . With anankelogical tools, such as a disciplined mutualizing process , need-response more effectively addresses our many needs. And can solve those problems neglected by other options overlooking the specifics of the needs themselves. Here lists just some of the benefits of this more loving approach of need-response , or NR for short. NR prioritizes the resolving of needs over the relieving of pain . NR enables you to work through pain to remove its causes . NR expands your potential to reach more of your functional capacity . NR offers a loving alternative to the “ oppo culture ” ripping us apart . NR holds authority accountable to its purpose to serve our needs . NR provides a disciplined mutualizing process to resolve all affected needs . NR restores our potential to be more loving to each other . ​ 1. NR prioritizes the resolving of needs over settling for less. The more you rely on authorities to ease the pain of your unmet needs, the more you will stay trapped in managed pain. Political and judicial authorities can only offer relief to the winning side in an election and court battle, respectively. The losing side gets to keep their troubling pain, perhaps more. NR raises the bar. It provides tools to more fully resolve your needs. The more fully your needs resolve, the less dependent upon authority or laws you must be. There is no greater authority under heaven than resolved needs . 2. NR enables you to work through pain to finally remove it. There is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs . It is literally impossible to experience any pain when all of your needs remain fully resolved. Pain and desire can only occur when your body perceives a threat or depletion. Once all threats feel removed and anything lacking gets fully replenished, all discomforts naturally dissolve. NR provides tools to stretch your potential to endure life’s natural moments of discomfort. Modern conveniences have sapped our ability to tolerate natural levels of pain. NR can restore you to your capacity to accept natural loads of pain, to get to the underlying needs provoking such pain, and then to fully resolve such needs to remove the cause of such pain. 3. NR expands your potential to reach more of your functional capacity. Anankelogy recognizes a range of functional capacity . Too many of us miss reaching our peakfunctional potential. We slip too easily into the comfort zone of symfunctionality , as we habitually depend upon one another to scratch and crawl through life. Instead of stretching out to reach life’s full potential to respect each other’s inflexible needs, we expect others to respect our needs without offering as much to respect their needs. NR encourages us to shift from pouring our precious life energy into opposing one another to investing in the needs of others. The more of us practice this potential to be more loving, with these anankelogical tools, the less trouble we face in daily life. We find ourselves empowered to see each challenge as an opportunity to be our best. 4. NR offers a loving alternative to the “oppo culture” ripping us apart If you jumped on the bandwagon of outrage culture , NR can help you disembark into a pleasant world of meaningful peace. The more responsive to the inflexible priority of needs on each side in the culture war , the more you can dissolve the tensions with the power of love. Instead of kneejerk opposition to seek relief, NR raises the standard of seeking to solves problems by addressing the needs on all sides of a conflict. You respect their needs as you would have them respect yours. If you cannot change your needs to fit their expectations, why should they change theirs to fit your preferences? NR negates popular misinterpretation around moral relativism or “ moral neutrality ” and around “ bothsidesism ”. Reliable critique applies to what we do about our needs and can never apply to the natural existence of the needs themselves. All morality—what we regard as good or bad about what we do about our needs— is relative to the needs themselves. What some claim as a false balance actually occurs as a false dilemma —since our natural needs can never oppose the natural needs of others. You can contest another’s stance on private gun ownership, but you argue in vain against their underlying need for personal security. You can contest another’s stance on gun control, but you argue in vain against their underlying fear of gun-involved violence. NR warns you to never oppose the underlying needs themselves. Opposing what others need does not extinguish moral conflict, but enflames it . Conflating your opposition to what others insist you do about their expressed needs along with the inflexible needs themselves guarantees you will slip deeper into moral conflicts. NR unpacks such mistaken oppositions that are widely encouraged by media institutions and law-based institutions of politics and the judiciary. By affirming each other’s unchosen, inflexible needs, we make it possible to vulnerably admit how our need-informed actions can negatively impact others. Only by being more honest with each other, to face more of reality, can we find lasting peace. NR applies this to address the problem of political polarization and adversarial justice. Harmony Politics is one project aiming to apply this need-responsive approach to address polarized politics. Another need-responsive project seeks to address the problem of wrongful convictions underserved by law-based institutions. 5. NR holds authority accountable to its purpose to serve our needs. Every institution and every authority risk mission creep. They stray from their founding purpose when shifting to prioritize the sustainability of their own existence. Institutional powerholders, of various authority types, then use the law to serve them more than to serve you and me. NR gracefully humbles powerholders, while uplifting the powerless, with several applied principles . 5.1 ) While no one sits above the law, no law sits above the needs it exists to serve . NR checks the legitimacy of any cited authority or referenced law by identifying the need such authority or law aims to serve. Then reviews how that law’s creation, application, interpretation and enforcement impacts your needs. Mindless obedience to their flexible authority gets replaced with assertive responsiveness to our inflexible needs. 5.2 ) No human entity has any authority over your naturally occurring needs . NR holds the powerful accountable to their impact on your objective needs. NR can scientifically correlate the rise of chronic anxiety and major depression with authority’s imposing overreach. NR debunks the exaggerated but widely accept claim that maladies occur squarely within the individual, apart from authority’s indiscriminate pressures. NR supports all authorities whose impact empirically results in your resolved needs. 5.3 ) You don't exist for human authority; human authority exists for you . As Jesus put it, “Humanity doesn’t exist for the Sabbath rest, but the Sabbath rest exists for humanity.” Our naturally occurring needs—like periodic rest—occurs first. Legitimate authority arises afterward to serve such needs. When slipping from primarily serving public needs to primarily serving itself, it loses legitimacy. NR quantifies the legitimacy of authority figures by how well it aids in resolving your needs. NR offers constructive feedback to authority, with valuable date to inform its legitimate purpose. Devoid of the hostilities familiar in oppo culture , NR inspires authority figures to demonstrably serve the needs of those they impact. Left to their oppo norms, many authority figures avoid supporting resolution of needs, coercing us to settle for mere relief. They either support resolving our needs or risk losing any competitive advantage to other influential authority who can demonstrably serve those needs better. 6. NR provides a disciplined mutualizing process to resolve all affected needs. As currently envisioned, NR introduces you to a process for incentivizing all sides to a conflict to equally respect each other’s affected needs. The less we react in opposition to others, and instead welcome each side to express all of their affected needs, the more opportunity to fully resolve all of our needs. This mutualizing process involves a four-part cyclic process: 1) announce, 2) assess, 3) audit, and 4) avow. This process can enable the powerless to boldly speak truth to power while incentivizing the powerful to listen to those they impact . 6.1 ) Announce . On the powerless side’s behalf, NR introduces itself to the powerful side. “This is to announce that you are identified as impacting the needs of our client.” 6.2 ) Assess . The powerless side utilizes NR tools to assess how responsive is the powerful to their exposed needs. The powerful are encouraged to compete with other potential leaders, to demonstrate who is more responsive to our inflexible needs. 6.3 ) Audit . After giving the powerful appropriate time to respond and make any corrections, the powerless client audits the powerful. The powerful are assigned a legitimacy score we widely publicize. 6.4 ) Avow . Finally, we pledge to resolve all affected needs—with or without the support or cooperation of illegitimate powerholders. Love compels us to do no less. After avowing to resolve the identified needs, the process may bring to light more needs to address. So the process repeats, until all relevant needs get specifically resolved, each one's pain gets satisfactorily removed, and each other's functioning levels significantly improve. 7. NR restores our potential to be more loving to each other. The more we replace oppo norms with mutual respect for each other’s inflexible needs and inflexible priority of needs , the more fully we can experience love—or innate value—for each other. NR inspires you to let go of any self-serving expectations you may have of others. NR encourages you to explore what you can do for others as you would have them explore what they could do for you. Click on this image to learn more about this visionary platform. NR could enable you to demonstrate such love with a visionary platform called Saybackr . It gives you the means to speak truth to power with the power of love. If constantly striving against those in powerful positions produces little fruit, then try respecting their natural needs as would have them respect your needs. This platform provides the proactive mutualizing process for replacing mutual hostilities with mutual understanding and support for each other’s affected needs. Instead of arguing that they fit some norm to ease your pain, you lay it all out there for all to see. You raise moral standards to the high bar of love, as you vulnerably admit your needs and shortcomings. You negate any cause to oppose you with the power of your love. Your response to this need-responsiveness What do you think about this new professional field of need-response ? What about this vision for a speak-to-power platform called Saybackr ? Can you see yourself utilizing these alternatives? Do you have any questions or suggestions? Or simply want to learn more? Follow the discussion in the forum . Become a site member to add to the discussion. Consider becoming a member of the Anankelogy Foundation to help integrate this need-responsive understanding into our intersecting lives. Ready to spread some love ? ​ Your responsiveness to applied anankelogy Your turn. Consider one or more of these options to respond to this need-responsive content. Check our Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact with others and to create your own forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this anankelogy category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating below to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment below to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top

Anankelogy offers the public three levels: academic anankelogy , applied anankelogy , and accessible anankelogy . Each with its specific focus. This post focuses on academic anankelogy . The Anankelogy Foundation seeks to make all three an everyday reality. Academic anankelogy is the scientific study of need. More specifically, it is the social science for the disciplined understanding of our human needs, but can include any need beyond the human experience. Even planets “need” a central star to orbit in order to maintain its level of energy. Our discussion of anankelogy zeroes in and thinks most critically about our human phenomena of needs. As a basic science , it focuses on research using tools and methods already employed in the other social sciences. Check out nine ways anankelogy can create something of value for you. Anankelogy serves as a distinctive social science . Anankelogy shows how a natural need is an objective fact . Anankelogy starts with a nature-based paradigm . Anankelogy defines need for serious study . Anankelogy starts with familiar scientific methodology tools . Anankelogy appreciates your range of biases . Anankelogy sheds light on our cyclic experiences . Anankelogy democratizes science . Anankelogy replaces "disorder" with "defunction" & "refunction" . ​ 1. Anankelogy serves as a distinctive social science. Anankelogy aims to complement the other available social sciences . All of these sciences exist to provide us answers to our many human needs . Psychology offers answers to understand our mind and behavior. By understanding our mind and behavior, we can better serve our needs. Apart from our needs, there would be little motivation to understand our mind or behavior. Sociology seeks to understand groups and our interactions with each other. By understanding our interactions with others, we can better serve our needs. Apart from our needs, there would not be much incentive to understand our social interactions. Anthropology helps us understand cultures throughout history. By understanding the dynamics of culture, we can better serve our needs. Apart from our needs, there scarcely be any reason to understand human cultures. Economics provides clues to understand the trading of goods and services. By understanding our exchange of the things we need or want, we can better serve our needs. Apart from our needs and wants, there wouldn’t be enough cause to understand our economic transactions. If these all exist to provide for our needs, why not study the needs themselves ? From their largely Western worldview, these social sciences often skirt the issue of our underlying needs, as if too subjective of a topic to include. As a result, academic discussions reduce individuals and groups as having motivations, interests, goals and beliefs. Anankelogy cuts to the chase by delving behind all these motivations, interests, goals and beliefs. Anankelogy clarifies such motivations, interests, goals and beliefs as directed by our experience of needs. Far from subjective, anankelogy shows how each core need begins as an objective fact. 2. Anankelogy shows how a natural need is an objective fact. ​Anankelogy begins on the defensible presumption that any natural need exists independent of human subjectivity . Your need for water, for example, exists apart from what you believe or feel. You either maintain fluid and temperature balance with this abundant fluid or you will cease to function—even if you don’t believe it or feel it. Whatever your life demonstrates as necessary to function exists independent of human subjective experiences. Any essential thing your life requires to function—water to drink, oxygen to breathe, interpersonal connection for support to do what you cannot do for yourself, personal space to do what you can provide for yourself—all exist as an objective fact. Mind you, this is distinct from the broader concept of need that talks about how we satisfy these core needs. “I need you to buy me a drink” or “I need to find a better job” are not natural needs, but socially constructed arbitrary ways to address a natural need. Anankelogy emphasizes the objective reality of core natural needs driving our human reactions we may also label as need. We routinely lump together this objective aspect with our less objective rhetoric around “need”. Anankelogy instills the discipline to keep these separate in our illuminated understanding. 3. Anankelogy starts with a nature-based paradigm. Academic anankelogy, like any social science, begins with a "paradigm" to suggest a framework, or lens, through which to frame concepts to be scientifically tested. Its first paradigm is indigenous , or nature-based . It starts with the challengeable assumption that observable phenomena of needs exist as a feature of nature. This suggests any naturally occurring need exists as an objective fact , independent of human subjectivity. If so, the phenomena of need can now be subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry. In its most basic sense, a need is movement essential for living things to stay alive . Or movement of any kind by nonliving entities, essential for its function. Subatomic particles move around each other. Even at this most elemental material existence, subatomic particles basically “need” in relation to each other. Much as planets “need” its central star. They move to function in relation to each other. Just as these particles dance with gravity in relation to each other, much of life dances in relation to others in its environment. Move closer. Move apart. Move closer again and apart again. Cycling again and again and again. 4. Anankelogy defines need for serious study Anankelogy defines need as anything essential for functioning. You lack something essential for your life to function, so you draw it in. You experience awareness of such depletion as desire, but the essential item to restore yourself to full functioning exists independent of mere desire. Or you must remove something to fully function in life. You experience awareness of such an apparent threat as pain, but the essential item to remove to return to adequate functioning exists independent of mere pain. There is no such thing as pain nor desire apart from unresolved needs . At its core, anankelogy defines “ need ” as movement for functioning . And such movement occurs in observable cycles of nature. This helps makes the experience of our needs scientifically predictable. 5. Anankelogy starts with familiar scientific methodology tools. The scientific method includes tools to counter the risk of confirmation bias . Anankelogy also utilizes the tool of the null hypothesis for statistical hypothesis testing , which tries to find correlation for the opposite of what the researcher expects to find. The idea is to not try to prove what you believe during the testing process , but to find enough evidence that—at a statically significant level —can discount what you believe about a correlation. If you cannot find enough evidence to discount what you believe, this suggests you are onto something. You accept ambiguity along your journey of discovery around our more complex experience of needs, to remain open to newer discoveries. In contrast to the hard sciences like physics and chemistry, the social sciences accept a high degree of uncertainty in observed correlations. Where a chemical experiment expects to find a one-to-one correlation, a social science experiment producing only 70% degree of statistical certainty is good. The social sciences recognize human behavior tends to be far more complex. Anankelogy also appreciates there are many intersecting factors, than the simple relations between inanimate objects. But anankelogy offers something the other social sciences do not. 6. Anankelogy appreciates your range of biases. Anankelogy takes this discipline a step further. Anankelogy adds to this discipline something lacking in all other sciences: supportive bias . Instead of treating all bias as only a bad thing, anankelogy appreciates a range from unhelpful to unhelpful biases. The more resolved the needs of the observer of phenomena, the less of a pull to cherry-pick what their unresolved needs would urge them to prioritize. The more your bias prioritizes the full resolution of needs, which we can label as “supportive bias”, the more you will prioritize seeking the full breadth and depth of reality. Anankelogy defines bias as prioritizing to ease need. If you’re in pain right now, you will naturally feel biased to whatever can ease that pain. And that can distort your perspective. If all of your needs enjoy full satisfaction, you will experience less urgency to see what your pressing needs compels you to see. You will be freer to see what is actually there, and accept the uncertainty of not seeing all there is to know. Responsibly keeping your needs resolved makes it much easier to distinguish between normative and descriptive (or empirical) claims . The more your needs remain resolved while observing phenomena, the less tempted you will be to insist something about that observed phenomena. You will generally be more open to disconfirming whatever the the available evidence does not support. Without attention-grabbing needs prioritizing your attention, you can find it much easier to simply note what is there and not what you might expect to see. Granted, a history of unresolved needs can imprint unhelpful biases. We can keep the traditional scientific tools in place to catch our unwanted biases and illuminate any cognitive distortions . But a fully disciplined utilization of the anankelogical scientific process includes accountability to resolve needs as fully as possible, to liberate one’s potential to relate honestly with intellectual integrity. 7. Anankelogy sheds light on our cyclic experiences. With its need-based paradigm, anankelogy identifies reflexive correlations . This is where one thing that seems to contribute to change in another item also appears to be changed by that item. This suggests a cycle is in play. A prompts something to change in B , which in turn affects a change in A . Typically, there are other items in between these initially observed items. The nature-based paradigm informed by indigenous wisdom suggests our needs are affected by a four-quadrant cycle . Move in, be together, move out, be apart…repeat. Anankelogy relies heavily on this four-part cycle to illuminate many aspects about our needs. For example, anankelogy recognizes you experience pain in response to an excess . Bad. Then you experience relief when that excess gets removed . Good. You then experience desire in response to something depleted . Bad. Then you experience pleasure when replenished . Good. Rinse and repeat these reflexive correlations . Look for more cyclic diagrams like this, illuminating our experience of needs. This nature-based feature of cycles can illuminate your experience of needs like no other social science can. 8. Anankelogy democratizes science. This nature-based approach invites anyone to relate closer to their needs than ever before. It provides a basic tool for formulating your own testable hypotheses. It’s called relational knowing . The more you identify for yourself these need-affecting relations, the less vulnerable you will be to the apparent priesthood of academic experts. That statement serves as an example of relational knowing . The more of this, then the more (or less) of that. Any layperson can frame what they observe with such a statement. The more hostile my boss, for example, the more defensive I tend to get. The less appreciated for my contributions to the team project, the less incentivized I am to give my full input. The more openly vulnerable I am with her, the more she trusts me with her own secrets. The less I focus on what could go wrong, the more prepared I am to improve my chances for success. Each of these “relational knowing” statements could be tested. But the most meaningful result has less to do with scientific accuracy and more to do with how fully you resolve such needs. The more resolved your needs, the more other matters can take care of themselves. See, more relational knowing statements. Such statements are best framed as tenuous associations. You remain open to further possible inputs. You tolerate ambiguity, and let go of having to be certain. The more you remain uncertain about the little things, the more you can be certain about the big things. The more you can benefit from anankelogy, the more your needs can resolve more fully, and the better your life—and all of our lives—will be. 9. Anankelogy replaces "disorder" with "defunction" and "refunction". Traditional psychiatry with its foundation in the medical model characterizes various maladies as a disorder . In 2008, I recall reading in the introduction to the DSM-IV an admission that the construct of "disorder" lacked precise boundaries . Updated versions drop and add "mental disorders" in what can seem like an arbitrary process. Indeed, some argue to dump the DSM with its outdated diagnostic approach . Anankelogy with its nature-based paradigm focuses not on what we societally expect from an individual but on the objective fact of how nature designs us to individually and collectively function. Instead of speaking of some mental disease or disorder located squarely in the individual, anankelogy addresses whatever reduces our individual and shared capacity to fully function. Such "defunctions" are countered by "refunctions" for restoring us personally and socially to more of our full functional potential. With this functional approach, anankelogy does not fall trap to the notion that the individual must do all or most of the adjustments to be well. Rather, it helps us look in all directions to realize the many impacts on our wellness or lack of it. Reaching wellness may require us to sometimes challenge authorities and to transform some calcified social structures to be more responsive to some overlooked needs. Your response to its need-responsiveness What do you think about this new social science of anankelogy? What about this nature-based indigenous approach? Can you see yourself benefiting from crafting your own relational knowing statements? Do you have any questions or suggestions? Or simply want to learn more? Follow the discussion in the forum . Become a site member to add to the discussion. Consider becoming a member of the Anankelogy Foundation to help integrate this need-responsive understanding into our intersecting lives. Ready to spread some love ? ​ Your responsiveness to academic anankelogy Your turn. Consider one or more of these options to respond to this need-responsive content. Check our Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact with others and to create your own forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this anankelogy category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating below to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment below to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top