Criticizing Wont Win You Any Friends

... which is fine if you don't need any friends, but most people do.

: If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive. -- DaleCarnegie

[imperfect] Rebuttal

If people are no longer your friends because you criticized them, they weren't your friends in the first place.
If someone is not likely to become your friend because you criticized him/her then he/she couldn't have been your friend anyway.
Some people have a very lax notion of what friend really means. They might have not known a true friend.

The rebuttal does not make sense for any definition of 'friend' I am familiar with aside from yours. Here's a sample of a popular definition http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=friend. It says nothing about tolerating criticism. HowToWinFriendsAndInfluencePeople has plenty of examples to support the assertion. Do you have anything to support the rebuttal?

Actually, the rebuttal doesn't even address the assertion -- that criticizing won't win you any friends. It talks of losing friends, it talks of removing the potential, and it wanders off on some other excursion. The rebuttal does nothing to show that the principal action will transform the potential into reality.

Better(?) Rebuttal:

I have made friends specifically because I criticized them. I pointed out a problem they were having in dealing with other people, and suggested an alternate way of dealing. By following this change, they were able to deal better with the other people, and this improvement in their life induced them to stick by me long enough to become friends.

One could argue that the friendship was not due to the criticism, but instead due to the suggestion, but the latter could not be made without the former at least implied.

Criticism alone won't win you any friends, but ConstructiveCriticism might.

Do you have anything to support the rebuttal?

Yes, practical examples. I won friends because I criticized them (I never practice ConstructiveCriticism unless I am asked to offer alternative solutions) and prevented them from making errors or persisting in errors. My friends know me and are never bothered by my criticism (even if they are annoyed sometimes :). People who are not able to be upfront with me are not likely to become my friends until they will be able to. I've met a lot of people with the same attitude, and I can cite regional cultures where not being upfront about good or bad is considered as a lack of respect.

This page is rhetorical. It may certainly be possible to win friends by criticizing people. The point is that this is not a great strategy for the majority of people. The title of the page is obviously wrong and this page should either be deleted or renamed, or redirected at least.

CategoryCriticism