Most frameworks break because they take everything to its logical conclusion. Sounds smart. Clean. Defensible. But what it actually does is kill nuance. It strips away the messy part, the human part. You end up with rigid principles that are easy to follow and almost impossible to bend when reality doesn’t fit. And fuck… reality rarely fits.
This isn’t just theory. You see it in everyday interactions. You call a company, there’s a person on the other end, but they’re not really acting like a person anymore. They’re running a script. “I do this.” “I don’t do that.” That’s it. I get why. All of this makes life easier. Less thinking, less responsibility. You just follow the rule and move on. But it also means no judgment.
Same pattern shows up in philosophy and psychology. Doesn’t matter if it’s Freud, Adler, whoever. The frameworks push things to extremes. Everything becomes yes or no, black or white, one or zero. Because that’s how you make something scalable and explainable. But the real world doesn’t behave like that. It’s messy as hell. If you actually live by those rigid lines, you don’t become disciplined or principled, or whatever you tell yourself before going to sleep. You just become an asshole. A principled asshole, but an asshole nonetheless.
You see the failure clearly in extreme cases. Kid brings asthma medication to school. Policy says no drugs (aka “Zero Tolerance” approaches that’s becoming popular). Kid gets punished. Technically correct. Completely stupid. Easy to spot from the outside. Harder to notice in your own life, your work, the rules you follow without questioning.
Adlerian psychology says “Trauma doesn’t exist”, I’m not a big fan of Freud and I think he got many things wrong but “Trauma doesn’t exist” is more like bumper sticker than an actual philosophy or psychology. All nuance is lost in this very complex topic. “Trauma do exists, but your past doesn’t define who you are today” would have been a better take. But what the fuck do I know? On the other hand Freud thinks everything is about his dick, he has a point. Many things are about it (not Freud’s particular dick, but generally people following their proverbial dicks ), but so many things really about it? Bottom line is, there are very smart people who lost in their bullshit, took things to their “logical conclusion” to a fault.
Most systems are built for the lowest common denominator. They have to be. And let’s be honest about what that means. The lowest common denominator is the dumbest person in the room. The one who won’t think, won’t care, maybe cannot even think. So rules get designed for that person. Everything gets flattened so it’s safe, predictable and can be followed with one and a half brain cell.
But just because the system is designed for that person doesn’t mean you have to operate at that level. So the question becomes personal. The question becomes, when you are not that person, what do you do? Do you bother to use your brain, do you invoke your humanity, or just run on auto-pilot.
A lot of the time it’s not about logic. It’s about self protection. Someone comes to you, they need something. The rule says X. You know X makes no sense here. You know it’s going to cause problems. But you still say it. “Sorry, policy.” Because if it blows up, you’re safe. “I followed the procedure.” That’s the trade. They take the hit. You avoid risk.
You see this everywhere. Insurance companies denying treatments that people clearly need. Decisions that make no sense on a human level, but are perfectly justified inside the system. Dumbest of all? People who attaches their ethics to the law. It’s so sad to think someone’s right and wrong attached to some random borders and some stupid bureaucrats. How one can be so completely devoid of original thinking to say “something is legal therefore it’s ethical” or “illegal therefore unethical”.
In a world intentionally designed for the idiots, choose not to act like one.