M

metapain

(n.) The body warning of the threat of too much pain in order to continue functioning.

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.

moral inversion

(n.) - DEFUNCTION - wellness resistance

Reversing or displacing the good of resolving inflexible needs with the bad of not resolving such needs. And regarding the bad of not resolving inflexible needs as good.

Anankelogy recognizes that every need exists as an objective fact, and every unmet need objectively diminishes one’s capacity to fully function, or to be fully well. This instills into morality an objective dimension, independent of personal beliefs or values.

How we respond to needs can be relative to our beliefs and values. But the needs themselves emerge as objective facts separate from our personal agency. They objectively exist to serve our objective functioning. Which allows them to be measurable with the tools of social science.

Efforts to only relieve the pain of an unmet need tends to ignore the objective fact of that need, which signals more pain to be relieved. For example, avoiding your anxiety by not facing a threat you feel that you cannot quite handle easily leaves you with more anxiety. Regarding such avoidance as good can hint at regarding a courageously bold act as foolish and therefore bad.

Likewise, efforts to satiate cravings of a neglected need also overlooks the objective fact of that need, which typically results in more obsessive desires to be indulged. For example, indulging your desire for friendship by relying solely on social media “friends” can easily leave you feeling empty and craving for deeper connection. Regarding low-investment friendships as good may consider more meaningful friendships as too demanding and therefore bad.

Both of these easily prompt a vicious cycle that risks pulling away from the “good” of resolving needs. Both tend to normalize the “bad” of lowered levels of functioning. These also risk sliding into the “bad” of normalizing the conditions of unmet needs. The "good" of resolving needs can appear too unfamiliar to risk trying.

Some of this points to coerced dependence upon poor options (or CoPOD). Or the results of symfunction capture that manipultes one to acquiesce to less-than-optimal choices. Increased pain occurs besides the best efforts to curb it.

The good role of pain to alert one of threats to be removed become regarded as “bad” and avoided at all costs. Less healthy actions to ease such pain or satiate cravings with substitutes become regarded as “good”.

The more one leans into easing their discomfort without resolving the underlying need, or settles for indulging their desires with unhelpful substitutes, the less they can function. Their diminished wellness can blind them from this reversing of priorities. Motivated reasoning supports their defensive self-righteousness. They may become unduly hostile to any critique of their moral reversal.

The less their needs resolve, the more they tend to become self-absorbed in their consequential pain or obsessive desires. The more consumed by this mounting emotional discomfort, the less they can focus on other matters. They become less aware of their harmful impacts on others.

They may dismiss any good faith empathy as depraved bothsidesism, to defensively protect their painful norms of alienation. Or regard mutually destructive adversarialismand avoidance as good if only to denounce efforts toward mutual understanding as morally weak. They tend to protect the familiarity of what helps them cope with their painful situation. Mounting pain of their unmet needs strains how much more discomfort they can readily handle.

In short, they invert morality. What is good for resolving needs—like fully processing pain—becomes identified as bad. What is bad for resolving needs—like repeatedly ignoring the threats warned by pain or repeatedly indulging in substitutes that do little if anything to replenish what’s spent—becomes identified as good. This inversion can be isolated as observable phenomena with the social science tools of anankelogy.

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 defunctions like indulgent side-taking, mutual defensiveness and conflict porn.