I read two articles recently referencing criticism. Both of them caused me to pause and ask myself what I think about this concept. One was an excerpt from a writer from the past. When first looking at it, it seemed really outdated and archaic thoughts about how to become a genius. I can’t find it again now, but it was talking about how you shouldn’t listen to the opinions of others and just stick to what you can come up with in your own imagination. It also was talking about how to manipulate others in to seeing your genius and following your way of thinking. It said not to study or research or gather information, just go with whatever you think. Soon I realized the author was being sarcastic. They were referring to how people were trying to sway others to their opinions with manipulation rather than facts to appear to be geniuses. It was not actually saying how to be one. I laughed at that, and then realized, but people are doing this right now and trying to be revered as knowledgeable. You know, lying about where the “facts” they came up with came from, that they came from their imagination, and then trying to convince people they are actual facts. This is very scary stuff happening right now in the media and politics. The second one was someone was quoting stoic philosophy stating that we should not listen to criticism of others who are less accomplished than us, and to trust ourselves and not be swayed by the judgements or opinions of others. This person was not being sarcastic, and the comments that followed the statement were positive, like saying he was right on. Affirming that we should not listen to other people and trust ourselves. This was not laughable. It was concerning and after reading both, I thought, now, what do I think about this myself? I started to wonder why I felt concerned by these opinions.
Brene Brown discusses an inspirational story called The Man in the Arena. The story is attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. The basic premise of this is that if you are in the arena, trying to do what is right, the critics who sit on the sidelines doing nothing, should not be listened to. Only others also in the arena, fighting the fight you are fighting, should have a say in anything happening. I am paraphrasing for sure, but that is my take on her message. So, we can listen to those in the same trenches as us but should ignore those just throwing out information who are not in the arena with us. This is another opinion about how to deal with criticism indicating not to ignore all of it, as the first two, but to ignore only some of it. I am way less concerned about this thought, for sure. Criticism isn’t a bad thing though, no matter where it comes from, or at least it doesn’t have to be.
I don’t think I agree with any of these thoughts completely. One says ignore criticism wherever it is from, the other says only listen to those in the trenches with you. I think I am sort of in the middle of all of this. I think that if we never listen to anyone’s critiques of ourselves, which would include not listening to anyone’s feedback on anything, we will become egotistical, arrogant, and assholes. It is through the reflection of others that we see ourselves most clearly. If we only listen to the critics whose opinions come from being involved in the task at hand, we miss the possibility that someone at a distance seeing something we in the trenches cannot see. I believe we would benefit listening to all feedback, whether it is critical or not, no matter where it is coming from. We don’t need to believe all of it. We just might benefit from considering it.
Listening to, or considering it, does not mean we integrate everything we hear. We also do not need to allow any of it to break our self-confidence or drag us down emotionally. Even if the feedback or criticism is accurate, it is related to something that has passed. Something that was done or said, that is over now. If we allow it to trigger shame or break us, we can’t fix it or change it, we tend to just give up. I believe we can consider all feedback, whether positive, critical or neutral, weigh it against your intentions, goals, values and personal views of the situation, take in whatever feels true, or even a little true, and consider how we might learn or grow from it. We can also dismiss it when it feels completely off. For example, if the person giving the feedback has different values than we do, and they are critical of us for not following their values, then we do not need to change for them. However, we can consider others’ values compared to our own and choose if we want to change our values in some way because someone else’s values appeal to us.
Being wishy washy and following whatever the next person says is true is also a slippery slope to go down. In this case it’s like we have no values or beliefs of our own, and we just follow the next trend in front of us. This is not a healthy pattern to follow. Instead, it is a matter of using our own critical thinking brain. Listen, listen a lot, to all sorts of information coming from all sorts of different sources, then use your brain to consider all of it and choose what makes the most sense to you. This might mean we change our minds more often as more information comes in that makes sense, but are we being thoughtful about it or just following whatever is out there to be heard. There is a difference between those two.
People criticizing us is not a bad thing or a good thing. It is a neutral thing. You know, just a thing. Human beings are wired for judgment and discernment. We are thinking beings. That means that we are hard wired to think and judge and decide. Other animals on the planet can do this to a certain degree, but none like the human can. Schools used to, and some still do, teach thinking skills. It’s not about Math, English or Science as much as it is about thinking and making choices, about developing your own set of beliefs and values about the world, and how we want to be a part of it. Only humans are capable of this higher-level development. If we do not consider anything from outside of us, we can’t develop a rounded sense of self. It is too much from within and an isolated view of the world from only our perspective and is not healthy. It’s also not healthy to never consider anything that contradicts us as having validity. We need to consider both affirming and contradictory information to develop a well-rounded look at the world. Again, that doesn’t mean we believe or take on everything we hear, but to openly consider its validity in the scheme of things is important.
We can look at an opposing view and note how it has value on some levels, and we can still choose to not agree with it or incorporate it into our set of beliefs and values. We can see truth in something without taking it on as our truth. The problem arises when people start to think that there is only one truth out there. That is when we start to not tolerate anyone or anything that disagrees with us. We can’t even consider an opposing viewpoint if we believe that there is such a thing as one truth, and we know it. Other viewpoints tend to have truth in them even if we don’t agree with them, and so considering that there might be truth in other things we don’t agree with might mean our truth is less valid, which is in fact, also true. No truth is actual truth. It is just one of many options for truth. I do not care what other people think or want to believe is true for them. It is when they start to assert that everyone needs to believe in their truth, and if they do not adhere to their truth, they are wrong and not just wrong but somehow evil and need to be stopped with some sort of aggressive act. Violence almost always is the result of one or more people trying to decide what is true for someone else. Whether it is a small thing between just two people or a larger societal thing. Anytime one person or group tries to use their truth to diminish or destroy anything that does not agree with them and labels that evil, that is an issue for our society as a whole.
Unfortunately, the way our society is going the people with the most money and political power are attempting to highjack thinking. They want us to bypass our critical brains and judgment and just believe them because they say it is so. It is interesting that they are being completely up front about doing it too. They admit they lie and make up information and stories to get us to align with their way of thinking. They say they do this for our own good, or for the greater good. They don’t. They are doing it for their own profit, which they also are willing to admit, which makes it even scarier to me. They are no longer hiding why they are trying to destroy other viewpoints and people who hold them. They are directly stating it is for the profits of their group.
A person in the world today has access to a lot of information. So much information that we sometimes cannot process all of it. When I say it is good to consider many viewpoints and information and form your own opinion based on critical thinking and your values and beliefs, I am asking a lot. There is a lot of information out there and a not just from a couple of different perspectives. Each person seems to have an opinion on things and is putting it out into the world like it is true for all people. It is often very overwhelming considering all of the information possible on any given topic. I quoted from just three opinions on criticism to write this, and you might guess those are just the most recent three things on the topic I have encountered in life. I have experienced criticism for all of my life, so that is one sort of resource. I have read about it on many levels, so other sources. I have asked the opinions of people I trust about it, and so on. I have come to the conclusion that to consider all, and only keep what helps you grow as a person and use your critical thinking brain to decide what that is.
There is another opinion I have not mentioned. That is that we should use our emotions to decide what feels right to us. I don’t disagree with this directly, and I feel cautious about it. When we have a conditioned trauma response to certain words or certain groups of people, no matter what the content, our bodies may tell us through emotion that it is dangerous information, even if it is not. Trauma response is reflexive, not necessarily to the present, but to anything in the present that seems close to a dangerous thing from the past. It is not truth. It is globalization of fear from one event to all events of a similar type. In this way, our emotions can lead us to dismiss information that could be valuable to our development just because we feel afraid of it. I caution us not to do this too readily. I do think we can sense danger or what is right and wrong for us, and sometimes those gut feelings are based on inaccuracies or over blown globalizations in our own experiences, so need to be handled delicately and with open eyes. Pay attention to the feelings, yes. Give them their place in choosing what to believe or what to take on as your truth, but do not allow them to make anything automatically without consideration wrong, good, bad, or whatever. Consider the feeling, but don’t solely rely on it to choose.
Until Next Time,
Namaste