Man : Fault (Critism)

Criticism

Criticism is the practice of judging the merits and faults of something or someone in an intelligible (or articulate) way.

• The judger is called "the critic ".
• To engage in criticism is "to criticize".
• One specific item of criticism is called "a criticism" or a "critique".

Criticism can be:

• directed toward a person; at a group, authority or organization; at a specific behavior; or at an object of some kind (an idea, a relationship, a condition, a process, or a thing).
• personal (delivered directly from one person to another, in a personal capacity), or impersonal (expressing the view of an organization, and not aimed at anyone personally).
• Highly specific and detailed, or very abstract and general.
• Verbal (expressed in language) or non-verbal (expressed symbolically, or expressed through an action or a way of behaving).
• Explicit (the criticism is clearly stated) or implicit (a criticism is implied by what is being said, but it is not stated openly).
• The result of critical thinking  or spontaneous impulse.

To criticize does not necessarily imply
  a. "to find fault", 
  b. simple expression of an objection against prejudice or a disapproval. 
  c.  active disagreement, but "taking sides". It could just be 
  d. an exploration of the different sides of an issue.

 Criticism is often presented as something unpleasant, but it need not be. It could be friendly criticism, amicably discussed, and some people find great pleasure in criticism ("keeping people sharp", "providing the critical edge")

Purpose of criticism

‘Criticism’ is a word that carries such unnecessarily negative connotations. It gets a lot of criticism itself. Take a look at some quotes on the topic of criticism.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” —Benjamin Franklin

“Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.” —Jean Sibelius

 “When we judge or criticize another person, it says nothing about that person; it merely says something about our own need to be critical.” —Unattributed

 “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” —Winston Churchill

Types

a.   Negative Arguments

Criticism may not be a positive response to an individual, action, or belief in all circumstances. There are two reasons that this:

• The recipient of the critique may be hurt by it. This is particularly true when the object of criticism is personal (a political or religious belief, for example) or when the critique is composed in a malicious way, rather than in an attempt to improve the recipient.

• The critique may not result in any positive change. If the critique is not written in a persuasive manner, if the recipient of the criticism isn't willing to acknowledge their faults, or if the recipient lacks the resources needed for change, then the critique will not have an impact.

b.   Affirmative Arguments

There are also significant reasons why a critique may be necessary or desirable in particular situations.

• Diagnosis and correcting error: critiques would identify the limits of the object of criticism. A film critic, for example, might discuss the extent to which a particular film was able to express a theme, identifying prejudices, biases, and hidden assumptions.

• Improvement: by evaluating the ability of an individual, action, or idea to a given objective, critiques identify possible improvement areas. Criticisms may also present alternative perspectives or suggestions, to facilitate improvement.

• Ethical implications: critiques of societal norms or public policies have the potential to affect a large number of people in a profound way and are thus ethical norms and values.

Psychology of criticism

    It refers to the study of unhealthy forms of criticism, and of unhealthy kinds of response to criticism. Psychologists often associate these with particular categories of mental disorders, especially personality disorders.

• Low Self esteem :

Emotionally vulnerable individuals that are often excessively sensitive to criticism, or to being defeated, they can't handle it.

• Narcissistic Disorder : 

Although they may not show it outwardly, criticism may "haunt" and/or leave them feeling humiliated , degraded, hollow, and empty. They may react with disdain narcissistic rage,  or defiant narcissistic personality disorder. Nacissists  are extremely sensitive to personal criticism and extremely critical of other people. They think they must be seen as perfect  or superior or infallible or else they are worthless.

• Paranoid personality disorder : 

These people are often rigidly critical of others, but have great difficulty accepting criticism themselves.

• Avoidant personality disorder : 

These people are hypersensitive to criticism or rejection. They build up a defensive shell. If the criticism seems to imply something bad about them, a defensive shell immediately snaps into place.

• Dependent pesonality disorder : 

Individuals that will often apologize and "self-correct" in response to criticism at the drop of a hat.

• Hypercriticism:

These people are often regarded as  nitpickers (nagging) . Nitpickers engage in minute, trivial, and unjustified faultfinding to excess. Nagging means endless scolding, complaints, and faultfinding.

• Hypocriticism: 

          These individuals are hypocrites  who criticize and accuse others about the vice that they are guilty of themselves. 
           Hyprocrisy contains some kind of deception, and therefore involves a kind of lying.


Types of Criticism

Criticism is like a knife: it cut, it hurts. It reflects negatively on us, implying we are lacking in some way. It is a judgment. Criticism comes in a number of forms: As children it comes from parents and teachers; as adults we must deal with it in the workplace; and friends or lovers might have something to say about what we do or how we are. Reflecting on the validity of the criticism either helps us grow, or just makes us feel badly about ourselves.

Professional

o   Job performance to be scrutinized by employers and peers. The need of employers to give feedback to employees to encourage professional growth and workplace standards. Feedback from someone who is knowledgeable in their field, the ability to gain experience will be an asset for job development.

Constructive

o   Learning from criticism when our best interests are of the main concerned. If our parents chide us for jaywalking, we know they guard our safety. Correcting our grammar helps develop us into well-spoken adults. When instructors correct our technique in writing, playing the piano or painting a scene, our proficiency improves. Constructive criticism helps us to grow.

Personal

o   Sometimes criticism takes the form of personal attack. "You should wear red shoes with that dress, not those boring black ones. You need to work on your fashion sense." Personal preference takes the form of opinion which shouldn't be confused with fact. Sugar the words, but the message is the same, you are the slack, not the shoes.

Self-Scrutiny

o   The harshest critics are those when we reflect on our own perceived shortcomings. Too fat, too thin, not enough this, or too much that; self-talk echoes negative commentary that rattles as our inner voice throughout the day. Margaret Moore, McLean/Harvard Medical School Institute of Coaching states, "Our speech patterns can be so automatic that we don't even notice them. And though we may not even really mean what we say, it can have a negative impact on how we feel about ourselves."

Low Self Esteem

o   Criticism directed at others allows the critic to feel superior. Pointing out your shortcomings makes the critic feel better about themselves. Similar to the bully who hides low self-esteem behind aggressive behavior, the verbal aggressor disguises self-esteem issues.

Abusive

o   In a dysfunctional relationships, criticism camouflages verbal abuse. Repetively Inflicting verbal pain, biting words damages a person as destructively as any knife. A form of belittling, the intention of destroying person's self-image. In the Emotionally Abused Woman, Beverly Engel notes, "With emotional abuse, the insults, the insinuations, the criticism, and the accusations slowly eat away the victim's self-esteem until she is incapable of judging the situation realistically."

Why do people criticize others?

There are many reasons why people attack and criticize others. People attack and criticize because:

• They have not been trained how to master and control their mind, emotions and negative ego programming.
• They are run by fear, and fearful people attack.
• They are out of control which causes them to get angry in a vain attempt to get back in control; however, this is illusion for their angry response is showing they are still out of control.
• Control by their emotional body by allowing their feelings and emotions to run their life, the negative ego become the programmer of their feelings and emotions.
• Feeling of jealously. They suffer from low self-esteem and are constantly competing and comparing themselves with others to try to feel good about themselves. They are trapped in that negative ego complex of being better than others or worse than others.
• The lack of self-love and self-worth. They attack and criticize to try to move to the topside of the negative ego instead of the bottom side of the negative ego. They don’t understand that they are trapped in negative ego duality.

Effect

When psychologists analyze the effect of criticism on others, they are concerned with how people respond to criticism (cognitively and emotionally), and how criticism can influence the way people are relating.

a.   Positive and negative effects

When people criticize, it can have a fruitful, enriching and constructive effect, because new ideas and viewpoints are generated in trying to solve a problem. People have the benefit of ideas which they did not think of before, themselves.

People can also be very hurt by criticisms, when they experience the criticism as a personal attack. Psychologists concerned with human communication, such as therapists, therefore often recommend that people should choose the right words to express their criticism. The same criticism can be raised in different ways, some more successful than others.

b.   Formulation

If people formulate their criticism in the right way, it is more likely that other people will accept it. If the criticism is badly expressed, people might reject it, not because it is wrong in itself, but because they do not like being talked to in that way. Even if the content of a criticism is quite valid, the form in which it is expressed may be so bad, that the valid point being made is never accepted. The content may be something that people can work out on their own, but the form concerns the social relationship between people.

Learning to criticize

The ability to criticize is something which rarely occurs naturally; it must be learnt. Good critics exhibit several kinds of qualities:

• Insight:

Critics must understand the meaning of criticism (it is not simply about "being negative"), and they have to know clearly why they are criticizing.

• Attitude

Critics must be emotionally confident and morally comfortable, both about making a criticism, and about dealing with the response to criticism.

• Inquiry

Critics must question authority, popular opinion, and assumptions.

• Knowledge

Critics must research the subject of their criticism to maintain the factual integrity of their criticism.

• Skills

Critics must choose and apply the correct kind of criticism to an issue so that the criticism will be balanced, complete and persuasive. Critics must have adequate skills in reasoning, research, and communication.

• Integrity

Critics must remain consistent and honest before, during, and after a criticism is written.

Proportionate Balance in Criticism

With criticism it is always important to keep things in proportion, neither overdoing things, nor being too timid. These require ability to relativism things, and a level-headed approach.

• People can be too critical, but they can also be insufficiently critical. To orient oneself realistically in the world, in order to achieve success in what one does, it is important to strike a good balance: to be neither excessively critical nor completely uncritical.

• People, who are too critical, focus only on the downside or limitation of things - they run into the problem that others perceive them as being "too negative", and lacking a "constructive attitude". If there is too much criticism, it gets in the way of getting anything done - people are just "anti", but "it does not lead anywhere".

• People who are uncritical, however, are often regarded as naive and superficial ("suckers"); they lack discernment, they are prone to being deceived and tricked, because they readily believe all kinds of things, which they should not accept just like that, for their own good. If they thought more critically, they would not give in so easily to what others say or do. The idea here is that "one should not be so open-minded that one's brains fall out."

Quality

Especially educators, but also e.g. lawyers, managers and politicians are very concerned with the quality of criticisms. People might raise all kinds of objections and criticisms, but how good are they? Criticisms can be just "noise". They can also be a nuisance if they are misdirected; they get in the way of getting things done.

  i.     A good criticism

Ideally, a criticism should be:

• Brief and succinct, with a start and a finish, not endless.
• Relevant and to the point not misplaced.
• Clear and precise, not vague.
• Well-researched, not based on hear-say or speculative thought only.
• Sincere and positively intended, not malicious.
• Articulate and persuasive, so that the recipient both understands and is willing to act on the message.

Not all criticisms have all these features, but if one or more of them is missing, the criticism is less likely to achieve its goal.

 ii.     Harmful criticism

Logically, there are just as many ways to get a criticism wrong as to get the criticism right.

• Criticism is too long: people get confused over what it is all about; they get lost in it, and become disoriented.
• Criticism is vague: people are likely to say, "so what"?
• Criticism is inappropriate, or the critic is not really in a position to make it: people will say "you're way out of line".
• Criticism has no clear target: people are likely just to conclude that "so-and-so is in a bad mood right now" or "he's had too much of it."
• Criticism states problems without suggesting solutions: others are likely to get impatient, or say that they cannot do anything with this information.
• Critic did no research before making the criticism: people will say, "Very interesting, but this cuts no ice."
• Criticism has no clear motivation: "why are you telling me this, and why are you telling me about it now?”
• Critic makes bad criticisms regularly: it discredits the critic.

The main effect of the criticism is usually that, rather than clarifying things, it becomes disorienting or confusing to people. Therefore, these criticism is usually regarded as unhelpful, or as an unwanted distraction getting in the way of things. The only thing a harmful criticism achieves is to make it clear that somebody has an objection (although the objection is not well-taken).

Techniques of constructive criticism

Constructive criticism is aim to improve the behavior or the behavioral results of a person, while consciously avoiding personal attacks and blaming. This kind of criticism is carefully framed in language acceptable to the target person, often acknowledging that the critics themselves could be wrong. Insulting language and hostile language are avoided, and phrases are used like "I feel..." and "It's my understanding that..." and so on. Constructive critics try to stand in the shoes of the person being criticized, and consider what things would look like from their perspective.

·     Giving and receiving the message

Some people are not open to any criticism at all, even constructive criticism.  There is an art to truly constructive criticism:

a.      being well-intentioned is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for constructively criticizing, since one can have good intentions but poor delivery ("I don't know why my girlfriend keeps getting mad when I tell her to stop with the fries already; I'm just concerned about her weight"),

b.      egocentric intentions but appropriate delivery ("I'm sick of my subordinate coming in late for work, so I took her aside and we had a long, compassionate talk about her work-life balance. I think she bought it.").

As the name suggests, the consistent and central notion is that the criticism must have the aim of constructing, scaffolding, or improving a situation, something which is generally obstructed by hostile language or personal attacks.

People can sometimes be afraid to express a criticism, or afraid to be criticized. Criticism can "press all the wrong buttons." The threat of criticism can be sufficient to silence people, or cause them to stay away.

Self-confidence can play a big role in criticism - the confidence to criticize, and the confidence to face criticism. If people's emotions are not properly considered, criticism can fail to succeed, even although it is well-intentioned, or perfectly sensible. Hence criticism is often considered an "art", because it involves human insight into "what one can say and cannot say" in the given situation.

·     Sandwich method

One style of constructive criticism employs the "sandwich method", in which each potentially harsh criticism (the "ingredients") is surrounded by compliments (the "bread"). The idea is to help the person being criticized feel more comfortable, and assure the person that the critic's perspective is not entirely negative. This is a specific application of the more general principle that criticism should be focused on maintaining healthy relationships, and be mindful of the positive as well as the negative.

Respond to criticism

The following are guidelines that can help you respond to harsh criticism in a very effective way:

• Don’t reply right away, if possible:

If the critical comment was received on an Email, Facebook or any other place that can allow you to respond later then never respond right away because

i.       Responding quickly shows how badly the comment affected you to the extent that you couldn’t wait to reply

ii.      Most likely you will be emotionally charged after reading the message and so you won’t be able to think logically

• Never Defend yourself:

If someone sent you a message telling you that you are worthless, incompetent, dumb....etc then never try to defend yourself because this shows that

a.      You care a lot about the opinion of the person who criticized you

b.      You feel really bad because of the wrong impression he formed of you

c.      You think that you aren’t really worthy and so you are trying to prove it.

• Counter attack:

Assuming that you already made sure that the other person's intention is bad. Respond with something like “You are dumb” I would reply saying "Millions read what I write, and that doesn't make me dumb, now what proof do you have that you are not dumb?"

• Ego breaking:

Most people will respond in a defensive way trying to prove that they are worthy, if this happened then, simply knock them out by putting no value the words they said. For example if a person replied saying "I am not dumb because of so and so and so" reply saying "hahahaaha, you did all that? You made my day, Good luck :)"

This is very effective because when someone starts to give proofs of his worth then this means that he has identified with these proofs and so ignoring these proofs breaks the person. 

• Let him know that you are aware of the underlying causes:

If for example you made sure that the person is jealous  of you then you could reply saying something like "Instead of trying to put me down to feel Good about yourself why don’t you try to make some achievements yourself to feel better?"

• Build self confidence:

The lack of self confidence can make normal critical comments appear way worse than they are. The more confident you are the less will criticism affect you.

Excerpt and extract taken with thanks from:

Wikipedia

Mary Beth Viveiros