Also, I think there is a fair bit of tension between your suggestion that we should be taking advice from others about how much things should hurt and the idea that we should use the degree of pain we feel as a way to identify abusive/harmful communities/relationships. I mean the more we allow the advice from those communities to determine whether we listen to those pain signals the less useful they are to us .
What I mean is more like “if someone is suggesting that you do something painful, they should present you with a model of why and how that pain is okay”. This doesn’t rule out misappropriation—I’m sure cult leaders and certain brands of interpersonal abusers do it handily, especially if they’re weaponizing guilt—but it’s at least robust against generic, opaque commands to “suck it up”, and if you go in with that expectation you’ll have an opportunity to notice something is wrong if someone tells you that you shouldn’t be in pain and your pain is invalid (they don’t have a model that describes the thing you are in fact feeling, so they don’t have a good model of the situation as a whole).
I agree with the idea that it’s important for people to understand their pain when they aren’t going to just flinch from it.
The framing you chose seems odd to me though. Instead of saying “if you’re going to suggest people do something painful, you should present them with a model/make sure they understand” or saying “if someone is suggesting you do something painful, make sure you have a model”, you say “*they* should present *you* with a model”. Are you intending to suggest to your audience that they should feel *entitled* to having a model accompany the initial request, above and beyond the fact that it’s important to understand?
Hm, I guess that’s a slightly stronger claim, but I do endorse it now that I think about the distinction; not to the point where every single such piece of advice should come bundled with an unsolicited painfulness model, but to the point where if you’re giving painful advice you should have the model on hand.
Also, I think there is a fair bit of tension between your suggestion that we should be taking advice from others about how much things should hurt and the idea that we should use the degree of pain we feel as a way to identify abusive/harmful communities/relationships. I mean the more we allow the advice from those communities to determine whether we listen to those pain signals the less useful they are to us .
What I mean is more like “if someone is suggesting that you do something painful, they should present you with a model of why and how that pain is okay”. This doesn’t rule out misappropriation—I’m sure cult leaders and certain brands of interpersonal abusers do it handily, especially if they’re weaponizing guilt—but it’s at least robust against generic, opaque commands to “suck it up”, and if you go in with that expectation you’ll have an opportunity to notice something is wrong if someone tells you that you shouldn’t be in pain and your pain is invalid (they don’t have a model that describes the thing you are in fact feeling, so they don’t have a good model of the situation as a whole).
I agree with the idea that it’s important for people to understand their pain when they aren’t going to just flinch from it.
The framing you chose seems odd to me though. Instead of saying “if you’re going to suggest people do something painful, you should present them with a model/make sure they understand” or saying “if someone is suggesting you do something painful, make sure you have a model”, you say “*they* should present *you* with a model”. Are you intending to suggest to your audience that they should feel *entitled* to having a model accompany the initial request, above and beyond the fact that it’s important to understand?
If you don’t demand an explanation, you will at least sometimes confabulate one. This is part of how hazing works.
Hm, I guess that’s a slightly stronger claim, but I do endorse it now that I think about the distinction; not to the point where every single such piece of advice should come bundled with an unsolicited painfulness model, but to the point where if you’re giving painful advice you should have the model on hand.