[META] [Essay] How to Handle Criticism + Encouraging People to Criticise and Offend You

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi all,

like the title mentions this a short essay with a two-fold message. It is
posted only to ***@perl.org (for now) and is about criticism.

1. Handling criticism:
----------------------

People like to criticise other people. Whatever you'll do some people will be
unhappy and criticise you: see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_miller,_his_son_and_the_donkey .

However, handling criticism should not cause long-term offence. See what I
wrote about the cognitive therapy approach to handling criticism:
http://shlomifish.livejournal.com/909.html (also see the comments), and the
coverage and notes in the article's body.

Furthermore, there is also the Stoic Road to peace of mind :
http://shlomifish.livejournal.com/1747.html . And finally, it is important to
accept that you are feeling badly instead of trying to fight it:

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Moaning_Lisa

2. Encouraging people to criticise you:
---------------------------------------

As I noted in
http://shlomif.wikia.com/wiki/Sources_of_Enlightenment#Encourage_Criticism_and_People_who_Offend_You
and
http://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/2ej0ew/saladin_style_an_executive_summary_about_his/ck1tcdg

when someone gets offended it's usually an indication that there's a huge of
grain of truth that that person does not wish to admit. I don't mind that it's
100% true because "truth" in practical philosophy is both more complicated than
a single yes/no or True/false, and because it is dynamic - we must constantly
strive to be more and more honest and enlightened or we stop being honest and
become cynical. See:

*
http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/show.cgi?id=larry-wall-all-truth-is-gods-truh

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppets_%28film%29

So you should encourage people to offend you and hurt you as much as possible
so you'll grow and become wiser as an individual.

3. Entrust people with power.

The main theme of this film which I watched and found wonderful in almost every
aspect -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%282014_film%29
(which is a live action/comedy/etc. film exhibiting the usual "Hollywood
formula"[1], but still a great, professionally made, and a very intelligent
film) - is that people should be entrusted with power, regardless of how young
or old they are, how immature or irrational or quirky they seem, or anything
else about them.

Saladin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shlomif/Saladin_Style ) entrusted the
Knights Templar with power, and they started out as murderous, violent,
paranoid and often exhibited many mental illnesses (due to stress). As a
result, they became peaceful, carefree, happy, mostly sane, respected Saladin
as well and were completely unwilling to fight Saladin. OTOH, most of the
other history was of people applying the golem effect (see the opening
paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect ) to other nations
and people and as a result, they disobeying them regardless of how paranoid
their measures for trying to control them were.

When doing online communications, trust people to speak as they want. If you
find one thing they did wrong, use pleasant and soft-spoken words to write
and tell them how they can improve. But don't threat or accuse them of being
"passive-aggressive" (Whatever that means). Moreover, congratulate them and
thank them if they did something right. This will cause a positive feedback
loop of encouraging them to become more and more friendly and helpful.

<footnotes>

[1] - I call it "Hollywood formula" in quotes because it was neither invented
nor perfected by Hollywood. I know for a fact that
the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh (= the Jewish Bible) also contains all
that and more in a far more offensive way.

</footnotes>

4. Don't use force.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamsa_and_Bar_Kamsa for an apocryphical story
about what happens when a person uses force.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine noted «Where they have burned
books, they will end in burning human beings.», which actually took place. In
today's world, however, the concept of burning books and burning humans is
usually different: every single tweet, YouTube video, social media post or
comment, captioned image/etc. is in essence a book. Furthermore, most people
get "burned" - not by actually being physically killed - but by being banned
from an IRC chatroom, or from a subreddit or a different forum.

So it's important to not use force , except perhaps for people who spam
using bots.

===============

Sorry if my message was too long. This is now a phase of mine and I wanted to
share it.

Regards,

Shlomi Fish
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['lesleyb']

Post by Shlomi Fish
Hi all,
like the title mentions this a short essay with a two-fold message. It is
----------------------
People like to criticise other people. Whatever you'll do some people will be
unhappy and criticise you: see

People don't have to be unhappy with someone to be critical of them.
The two don't automatically go together. In fact I think it's somewhat
immature to be critical of someone simply because they've upset you.

Code reviews may be a case in point. No one needs to be unhappy with someone
else to adhere to a code style or point out an unintended or unwanted
side-effect in code. But being critical is necessary in a code review.

But you're right some people like to criticise others - needlessly in my view.
That energy spent criticising others around them could perhaps be put to better
use. I see an overly critical person as having their own set of mental health
problems they really need to address to learn not to reflect them out onto
other people; they need to be managed, tolerated and one has to
minimise/reduce the damage they can cause a team.

Kind regards

Lesley

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Lesley,

thanks for your comment. You're raising some interesting points. I'll reply
below.

On Thu, 28 Aug 2014 10:53:41 +0100

Post by 'lesleyb'

Post by Shlomi Fish
Hi all,
like the title mentions this a short essay with a two-fold message. It is
----------------------
People like to criticise other people. Whatever you'll do some people will
be unhappy and criticise you: see

People don't have to be unhappy with someone to be critical of them.
The two don't automatically go together.

Yes, you are right.

Post by 'lesleyb'
In fact I think it's somewhat
immature to be critical of someone simply because they've upset you.

Yes you are right. Nevertheless, I sometimes get angry at my parents for doing
things, or speak with an angry tone that my mother notices. My father recently
attended a talk on this con which we both attended this year -
https://nineworlds.co.uk/ - which concluded by indicating that when a persons
curses, the contents of his cure (= the meaning of the words) is also
important. And since then I noticed that what I say is often truthful and still
gets ignored.

Post by 'lesleyb'
Code reviews may be a case in point. No one needs to be unhappy with someone
else to adhere to a code style or point out an unintended or unwanted
side-effect in code. But being critical is necessary in a code review.

True. Well, if someone wrote crappy code which you reviewed, you are unhappy
with some aspects of him. Like I note in
http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Buffy/A-Few-Good-Slayers/ongoing-text.html#faith-s-childhood ,
it is the individual qualities and capabilities of a person, or a group that
makes them who they are, and you should be proud and exploit all of them,
because they all make you awesome.

If you're old enough, you probably may remember
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton who exploited the fact that she was
the granddaughter of the current owner of Hilton Hotels, and using her own
resourcefulness and while making use of some recent trends in entertainment and
communication, became the most talked about woman in the world (or what I
called the "alpha female"). So she was lucky and born advantageous... all the
power to her! While not all people were born that way, it does not mean that:

1. People who were not born so advantegeous cannot achieve great deeds (See for
example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopi_Goldberg ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds ; and most recently:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Lawrence ).

To quote Lady Gaga, "We were all born superstars":

.

2. People who were born advantageous are necessarily going to fare better than
people who are less advantageous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain was
a superb author and died very rich, but he has no living descendants, because
they all died. Moreover, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne 's
descendants (who I believe are still alive, mostly healthy, and well-off)
maintain a relatively low profile (for better or for worse) and are not the
centre of attention.

Post by 'lesleyb'
But you're right some people like to criticise others - needlessly in my view.
That energy spent criticising others around them could perhaps be put to
better use.

Like I said - I welcome criticisms in hope they will hit the mark and allow me
to improve. Like the great Klingon warriors (crazy I know, but my personal
insanity makes me a more interesting person) say after admitting they were
wrong, "Congratulations! You killed me! What a good day it was to die!" (And
don't ask me how to say it in Klingon.)

Post by 'lesleyb'
I see an overly critical person as having their own set of mental
health problems they really need to address to learn not to reflect them out
onto other people; they need to be managed, tolerated and one has to
minimise/reduce the damage they can cause a team.

As someone who suffered from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder , and from a few
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania s, and have known people with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoaffective_disorder - let me tell you:
personality quirks, weird opinions, proclaiming various beliefs, or even
annoying tendencies are not necessarily equivalent to bad mental health. You
can be a quirky or annoying person while still having a perfectly sound
mind and body. Is Richard Stallman mentally ill? Is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond ? Someone on IRC told me that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Portman is crazy, and she's held in
incredibly high esteem (and is far more "normal" than a large number of the
previous celebrities in Hollywood) .

You can improve yourself without the need to be accused of being mentally
unsound. And you are allowed to ask, or even pay, for help or even for
advice[1], as long as you take full responsibility for the outcome of your
final decisions.

[1] - Many people earn a lot of money by being consultants or experts, who
get hired to share their experiences and insights on what needs to be done. I
recall us hiring some of those back in my first workplace.

Best regards,

Shlomi Fish
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