E06 Conflict Principle

Which do you think is more likely?

It’s better to strike preemptively than be struck down and not get back up.

OR

It’s better to not react violently as too often a violent reaction spins out of control.

Anankelogy

False urgency gets us into trouble. A skewed perception tempts us to see a threat where none actually exists. Or is not at menacing as assumed. A quick fix can break something long-term.

Sometimes we act too soon. Anger provokes a premature reaction. We react to situations better suited for a thoughtful response. Regret soon pours in.

Anankelogy steps outside of conflict to take a less partial view. Anankelogy prioritizes being descriptive over being normative. In other words, to carefully observe all sides (i.e., descriptive) to a conflict over favoring an immediate response (i.e., normative).

Indulgent side-taking prioritizes being normative over being descriptive. Its lack of discipline creates conditions where fewer needs resolved. Painfully unresolved needs can prompt more violence.

Violence too easily begets violence. Anankelogy identifies the pressing needs, and how they’re experienced, to better understand and then end the violence. Anankelogy instills the discipline (i.e., delaying gratification) to attend to these screaming needs even while others demand we go to war.

The first casualty of war, so the saying goes, is the truth. The more desperate to relieve pain, the more eager to act upon errant beliefs. No time to reflect when you feel a gun pointed at your head. Even if no gun is really there.

Need-response

Need-response illuminates each other’s deprioritization blind spots. The more you prioritize one set of needs over another, the less aware of a different natural priority of needs.

You may presume those serving a set of needs at odds with your own are clearly in the wrong. That presumption is wrong when applied to unchosen natural priority of needs. Before you react, it’s best to separate out the inflexible needs from flexible responses to them.

Many fights, battles and wars could by duly avoided with this disciplined approach to conflict. Unfortunately, we tend to rush headlong into opposition without the slightest idea what we’re getting ourselves into.

Reactive Problem

Premature opposition, the rush to take a stance against others prior to relating to the underserved needs, creates the very condition you ostensibly oppose. What you reactively resist you reflexively reinforce. They cannot change their inflexible needs to suit your flexible responses.

In any sustained violent conflict, both sides are ultimately wrong. Even in war. Because violence interferes with resolving needs. From an anankelogical perspective, there is no good nor bad except for needs.

There is always a potential path to address unresolved needs without violence against one another. Failing to find that route usually ends in a path of destruction for both sides.

One side can be less wrong than the other. The American revolutionaries were less wrong when fighting the British trying to force them to pay a tax without Parliamentary representation. The Allies were far less wrong than the Axis powers. But they committed some atrocities as well.

Those who fail to identify the other side’s exposed needs that they affect, however remotely, become complicit in the other side’s reaction. They are not responsible for the other’s violent reaction, but they do play a role in limiting the other side’s options.

This introduces a higher moral standard many are apt to reject out of hand. Reality could care less if you reject its standards. Those who fail to meet this standard of engaging affected needs tend to repeatedly provoke violence. They lower themselves further morally when trying to use violence to combat this violence.

An eye for an eye has left them blind to their own moral quandary. What one wins in war or by violence seldom matches the value of all that gets lost.

Responsive Solution

Need-response instills the descriptive discipline to distinguish between inflexible needs and what we flexibly do about them. Those failing to stop and ask themselves what inflexible needs are affected during a conflict tend to be among the self-righteous and arrogant.

Bring peace by relating to the inflexible needs on all sides to a conflict. No, this isn’t a false balance or bothsidesism. The problem of “bothsidesism” (or false balance) never applies to the unchosen natural needs themselves. Only to what we do about them.

Likewise, the problem of “whataboutism” cannot justify ignoring the underlying needs. Only to say “what about the inflexible needs we overlooked”. Mutual respect resolves more needs than mutual defensiveness.

Many who denounce bothsidesism and whataboutismconflate flexible responses with the underlying inflexible needs. Premature accusations of bothsidesism and whataboutism tends to serve what anankelogy recognizes as oppo culture, avoidance culture, and the power delusion. Ignoring both side’s needs reinforces the conflict and then traps us in misery.

Need-response unpacks this important distinction. Need-responseprioritizes resolving needs over easing the pain of such unmet needs. Need-responseencourages us to empathize with the needs on both sides without siding with their reactions.

Indulgent side-taking and generalizing both side’s responses as equal avoids the discipline of relating to each other’s affected needs. The more you prioritize resolving needs on all sides of a conflict, the less confronted by violence in the long run. When violence seems the only option, now you can ask about the inflexible needs to restore peace.

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:

• Sometimes, I’ve just got to fight and ask most of the questions later.

• What if using force is the only answer in a tricky situation.

• I wish our leaders distinguished between inflexible needs and flexible responses.

• Failing to appreciate this distinction seems to drag us into unnecessary wars.

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.