This piece caught my eye since it is still being discussed a bit—I also don’t think anything is too old to talk about.
I think it is largely incorrect—and I don’t typically say that things are incorrect, if they seem like good-faith efforts. This doesn’t seem like a good-faith effort. I’ll explain why I can tell it’s not, and also, why we can still know it’s wrong anyway, without judging the intent of the author.
For one thing, I think when people name names, and use them as negative examples, then these are put-downs, which are in general, not true.
Throughout the post, Aella uses Frame Control in the context of abusers and manipulative people, which is also all in the negative, even when it’s not naming names. However, “Frame Control” itself is not defined in the negative, and is explicitly described in the neutral sense. This is why I think the basis of the post is incorrect. I often see cases like this used intentionally to be able to use it as a pretext for labeling of other (non-malign) behavior as evidence of treachery or simply to make people anxious—this entire post reads a lot like things you’ll see in other media about things like “mansplaining” or “sea-lioning” or other similar things.
You can’t actually construct a useful framework built around something you define in the negative, which this is.
“Frames” are defined as the context of the conversation and all of its assumptions, which is said could be good, but is often used by someone else to manipulate you in deceptive ways. This could only be as pernicious as it is argued it is if it were actually inherently easy to fool people, which it is not. Furthermore, it has its own assumptions which I believe we can dismiss as untrue. (This is really merely the idea that false information can somehow flow into the conversation unnoticed, be believed in, and cause large changes to the belief-structure of the conversants before they have time to notice and-or update). I don’t find that idea particularly compelling, and that gives me confidence that I don’t think anyone really needs to worry about Frame Control.
Here is also a quote that I find fairly easy to dismiss off-hand:
A related strategy is pushing the painful update button. I’m sure you’ve had experiences where you learned and grew, and it was really painful to do so. You had to face some hard truths, let go of how you saw yourself, and maybe even do a bit of surrendering your ego. This is legitimately good!
No, actually. I never have. I’ve never had a painful update. This is one of those things that I have never believed in—the so-called “hard truths”—and find kind of absurd, frankly. This is also one of those things that if you say to me, “You’re lying! You definitely have had a painful update!” I can laugh at that, and say “Actually I would know better than you about my own life, and also I think you’re lying.” This is why I think that this post was not written in good-faith. I don’t think that someone could honestly say the above.
This piece caught my eye since it is still being discussed a bit—I also don’t think anything is too old to talk about.
I think it is largely incorrect—and I don’t typically say that things are incorrect, if they seem like good-faith efforts. This doesn’t seem like a good-faith effort. I’ll explain why I can tell it’s not, and also, why we can still know it’s wrong anyway, without judging the intent of the author.
For one thing, I think when people name names, and use them as negative examples, then these are put-downs, which are in general, not true.
Throughout the post, Aella uses Frame Control in the context of abusers and manipulative people, which is also all in the negative, even when it’s not naming names. However, “Frame Control” itself is not defined in the negative, and is explicitly described in the neutral sense. This is why I think the basis of the post is incorrect. I often see cases like this used intentionally to be able to use it as a pretext for labeling of other (non-malign) behavior as evidence of treachery or simply to make people anxious—this entire post reads a lot like things you’ll see in other media about things like “mansplaining” or “sea-lioning” or other similar things.
You can’t actually construct a useful framework built around something you define in the negative, which this is.
“Frames” are defined as the context of the conversation and all of its assumptions, which is said could be good, but is often used by someone else to manipulate you in deceptive ways. This could only be as pernicious as it is argued it is if it were actually inherently easy to fool people, which it is not. Furthermore, it has its own assumptions which I believe we can dismiss as untrue. (This is really merely the idea that false information can somehow flow into the conversation unnoticed, be believed in, and cause large changes to the belief-structure of the conversants before they have time to notice and-or update). I don’t find that idea particularly compelling, and that gives me confidence that I don’t think anyone really needs to worry about Frame Control.
Here is also a quote that I find fairly easy to dismiss off-hand:
No, actually. I never have. I’ve never had a painful update. This is one of those things that I have never believed in—the so-called “hard truths”—and find kind of absurd, frankly. This is also one of those things that if you say to me, “You’re lying! You definitely have had a painful update!” I can laugh at that, and say “Actually I would know better than you about my own life, and also I think you’re lying.” This is why I think that this post was not written in good-faith. I don’t think that someone could honestly say the above.