C04 General Principle

Which do you think is more likely?

You can control what you need by making better choices.

OR

Choices only impact when you feel a need or what to do about it, and never the need itself.

Anankelogy

We often assume more control over our experiences than can be delivered. We may expect to have the self-control to not act on a feeling. We may even believe we chose to need what we feel we must have.

Life doesn’t work that way. Whatever you naturally require to function exists independent of your beliefs, feelings and actions. Sure, your belief-informed behaviors could trigger a need in the moment. But that need conveys something necessary for your function despite your beliefs, feelings or actions.

You cannot choose to not require something to function and not suffer from a lack of functionality. Your innate priority to continue your own existence, in order to have the option of choices, compels you to serve your needs.

Your moral agency speaks to your actions and not to the needs prompting your actions. Your need for water is amoral. Requiring a friend to talk to is amoral. The necessity to be alone for a while is amoral.

The less you respect these needs, the more they compel you to respond or to react to them. You don’t choose to require whatever your life requires, but they sure do choose you to respond to them promptly.

Need-response

Need-response is unique in how it distinguishes between unchosen needs and chosen responses. Failing to recognize or make this distinction is called response conflation or moral conflation. That unnecessary provokes many of our conflicts.

If the one you oppose did not choose whatever need they are acting upon, then why oppose that need? Keep your disagreement to their actions. As stated in the Serentiy Prayer, accept the things you cannot change, then find the courage to change the things you can. No one can change their needs to suit you, only their response to such needs.

Reactive Problem

Too many conflicts erupt when expecting the other to be able to choose what serves your affected need. Consider the times when someone expected you to change some need.

Look at the conflicts in the Middle East. Israelis do not choose to require security in their ancient homeland, or to require the self-determination to run their own lives according to their own Jewish values, free of other religious or ethnic influences. Palestinians also never chose to require security in their long-time homeland, or to require the self-determination to run their own lives according to their own religious or ethnically influenced values.

If you pick a side in this fight, and slip into moral conflation of opposing either side’s unchosen needs, you risk doing more to enflame the problem than extinguish it. Indulgent side-taking does more to make problems worse. Instead of resolving needs to solve problems, ignoring the needs to relieve their pain promises to keep such painful problems in place.

Sometimes a choice, especially a poor choice, needlessly provokes a problem. You may choose a course of action that results in prompting a certain need. Once triggered, you can hardly choose to ignore it without repercussions. You can either passively react by expecting others to choose something they cannot choose, or learn to be more responsive to your own and other’s unchosen needs.

Responsive Solution

Responsivism provides a simple three-step process to deescalate a conflict. When you find yourself at odds with another, quick apply these ABCs.

      A.  Affirm the natural needs they cannot change.

      B.  Bring up the responses that can be changed.

      C.  Cultivate mutual understanding and respect.

We can steer clear of plenty of problems if we just first affirm each other’s unchosen needs before questioning their chosen response to them. We can replace our hateful alienating norms to impersonally argue our differences with a love-encouraging process to better understand one another’s actions springing from their inflexible needs.

It is better, for example, to affirm the new mother’s inflexible need to assert autonomy over her exploited body when considering the option of terminating a pregnancy forced upon her. It is better to empathize with her situation, and recognize her limited options, to better understand her behavior. She cannot simply choose not to prioritize her unchosen need for bodily autonomy that ensures your continued ability to fully function.

Likewise, it is better to affirm the inflexible need of some to speak up for the voiceless unborn. It is better to empathize with their priority to protect what they hold as the sanctity of life. They cannot simply choose to not prioritizes their unchosen need to preserve the life of the unborn. They cannot choose to not require how this ensures their continued ability to fully function.

The needs themselves do not clash. They exist within each person. The conflict remains in how we choose to respond to these inflexible needs. You can’t choose your needs, so why try? Let your needs choose you to keep you optimally functioning. And then maintain the moral agency of responding to your natural needs with an aim to resolve them with minimal impact on others. That will take you much farther than presuming anyone can change the needs themselves.

Responding to your needs

How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these:

• How does this speak to existentialism assertion of our freedoms of choice?

• Personal responsibility depends on choice, so hopefully this does not rationalize any irresponsibility.

• Choices depend on options, and too often I am faced with terrible options.

• That ABCs process seems easier said than done.

Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below.