In Praise of Tough Criticism | Hacker News Reader

In Praise of Tough Criticism

chronicle.com

20 pointsphilk15 comments

There's no point in blowing sunshine and rainbows up people's asses. If somebody has a bad idea, you're probably doing them a disservice by not making your criticisms of it indisputably clear.

That being said, criticism does not have to be combative and destructive - you can criticize someone's work, behaviors, or ideas without leaving them feeling lousy and resentful about it.

One of the most amazing things I've seen some of the people who've managed me do is give critical feedback without making me feel like I need to go on the defensive at all. They make criticism feel like a cooperative growth exercise, and that's really the best way to do it if you are finesseful enough to pull it off.

you can criticize someone's work, behaviors, or ideas without leaving them feeling lousy and resentful about it

Exactly. It's not a choice between being a jerk and handing out free passes. You can be very critical while also approaching the criticism from a "I am doing this to help you explore the issue" perspective rather than "I am doing this because I am smart and you are stupid"

"Hey, maybe you and I could sit down later and brainstorm some good words we could use that are maybe a bit more formal than 'finesseful'. I mean, I actually think it's pretty clever, but there's probably some readers who might get turned off by it."

Like that?

Yeah, I'd say you've got the right idea. It's just putting criticism in a way that feels cooperative rather than "me vs. you," which you did.

Funny; I agree with the conclusions of the article in general, but not in their specific case. As long as you're looking for "original and heterodox" ideas in the field of Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) criticism, an example I did not make up, you might as well be nice about it. This guy deals in subjective issues full time, being a critical ass is sort of silly when there isn't a right or wrong.

In engineering and science it's important to be critical and for all ideas to stand up to the sandblaster of truth. But in literary criticism? Seriously?

Just like there are good and bad movies, there is good and bad work in literary criticism.

Yes, but are you so sure you know which is which that you should be that critical? The field has left objective standards so far behind that it's hardly more than an aesthetic choice for anything that someone would publish. (It's not like someone is going to publish something with spelling errors every third word.)

I was fortunate enough as an undergrad to be allowed to take several graduate creative writing classes; my time in those classes was by far the most important time I spent in college. The reason is because I became immune to criticism, or at least I learned to not take it personally, analysis the comments and use it to learn and grow. It's funny they mention the war-like atmosphere of the English program in this article because honestly, I've never faced harsher criticism than I did in those 3 classes.

I'm not sure if it's just the way we raise children in the U.S., or maybe it's because generally people like to avoid conflict, but it seems that a lot of people lack an understanding that criticism - at least good/valid criticism - is typically not personal at all, but rather someone trying to help you understand a short-coming. For whatever reason it's just easier to react with a wall than a light-bulb moment of 'wow, I never considered this before'.

Most people are not grown-up enough to realize that it's not effective to runn away (or lash out at) anybody who/anything that makes you feel "bad emotions."

It takes guts and patience to experience the bad and look for the good in it, and I've met very, very few people (of any age) who do it on purpose and only a slightly larger handful who do it naturally without realizing.

The perspectives in the comments are more enlightening than the article. In some sense, the article sets up a false dichotomy. It's possible to be very critical while still being humble and empathic. But it's really easy to make criticism about yourself and your status in relation to the other rather than about the topic at hand. (cf. snark)

I don't understand the author's criticism of anonymity. To me it's the best way to receive criticism - a faceless wall that tells you what you need to be told. Sure, the power tends to be abused for cruel ad-hom attacks, but they're unsupported by weight of authority, so they tend to look weak.

This reminds me of the 4 types of people I have worked with:

             right         wrong 
        +-------------+--------------+
  nice  |    ideal    |  teachable   |
        +-------------+--------------+
  jerk  |  tolerable  | unacceptable |
        +-------------+--------------+

You better be right or nice, preferably both. Nobody should put up with jerks who are wrong.

"Here is my simple formula for generalizing everyone into categories. If I think you're a jerk, and I think you're wrong, then clearly nobody should have to put up with what you have to say."

Hmmm.

Reminds me of the magic quadrant:

http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=131166

Though that's not how I heard about it personally. One of the smartest people I've known in business used it for analysis of the costs/benefits of groups and persons within a business (it seems impersonal -- and perhaps patience with those in the negative/negative area makes sense).

It's amazing how effective two-dimensional analysis can be though (esp. with two dimensions that are measurable, meaningfully, in relation to some other dimension -- e.g., short-term and long-term benefits/costs, as axes, are related to each other via the axis of time).

Why two work so well and not three is also curious. I guess 27-cubic analysis is harder on the ol' pre-frontal cortex.

Because I think the beauty of this quadrant analysis is that it's thorough. You're able to judge two dimensions thoroughly, whereas normally they're just averaged together. A star developer who is arrogant and lowers the productivity of others can be put in a context (maybe he or she is a short term benefit, but a long term detriment, which is otherwise easy to overlook).

One can distinguish "tough" from "mean-spirited." There is a middle ground between skipping over faults and delivering ad hominem attacks.

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