Inspired by Lord Ibrahim Tash-Murkon’s post “A Thread of Critical Words”. I agree with Lord Tash-Murkon, that criticizing should be done in a form of a loving disapproval, and should target for improvement. And I am honestly terrified by what certain people consider “criticism”.
First of all, the goal of a critic is to find errors and mistakes of the author, to point where he got wrong. If you instead of that taunt the author as a person, you are not a critic,
you are a jackass.
Lord Tash-Murkon has suggested that the criticism should be negative. And with this I disagree, it should not. There’s just a problem, that if criticism is completely positive, it means that you simply couldn’t find anything in author’s work that you could improve, it is humiliating yourself. On the other hand, finding positive sides can show that you did greater work, studying the subject, and that what you say is indeed a weighted and well-thought answer, and not a rant. During criticising it is important to always keep in mind, that your goal should be the improvement, and you should help the author. But if instead you want not to help, but to show that author was simply wrong and “can’t be right in anything”, you are not a critic,
you are a jackass.
Lord Tash-Murkon said that ones shouldn’t rebuff a critical statements. And with this I can’t agree as well. Critical statements should be made reasonable, and if they are, rebuffing them shouldn’t work. But what if they aren’t? Then the author should be able to rebuff that easily. You shouldn’t defend weak critics from rebuttal. Because critics should be able to prove that the wrong thing is wrong, and they can skip that part only if it is too obvious. And if you post criticism too fast without thorough investigation, that even you yourself might doubt your words, than you are not a critic,
you are a jackass.
And finally, disregarding how much you disagree with the author, you always should remain respectful and polite. You shall not insult and taunt, you need to show that you respect the person you are criticising, and then they will respect you in reply. And if they will respect you, they will actually read what you write them and what you want to tell them. Otherwise, they can simply discard what you say, they will stop considering you a reliable source, and all these goals for self-improvement will go down a rail. Even disapproval should be loving, as Lord Tash-Murkon said. Because if you disapprove not out of love, but out of hatred, you are not a critic,
you are a jackass.
