Discuss Instead Of Criticize

There is an alternative to "correcting" and "criticizing." This alternative consists of comparing and contrasting alternatives without the intent of proving one right and the others wrong. To "correct," one must assume there is a single, universal answer. To "criticize" one must assume that a presented idea is partially or completely wrong, or at the very least, incomplete or needing improvement. Instead, present alternatives and trust others to make their own evaluations. In the end, one cannot force another to change his views. By discussing, though, one may very well find that another causes his own views to change.

DiscussInsteadOfCriticize? You're a silly man with silly ideas. This method is rubbish! completely wrong! - tongue firmly in cheek

Criticism as an Alternative to Discussion

There are situations where alternatives are legitimate, and there are situations where some party is just plain wrong. It very much depends also on the CriticalSpirit of the initial contributor on a subject. Some people can be their own critics and do their due diligence before contributing to wiki, examining alternatives, obvious objections that can be brought to their claims, double checking their "matter of fact" premises. Other are very easily confused between their own subjective experience and often prejudices and what can be claimed and defended objectively.

In any case, criticism has value in itself, and in order to "criticize" one need not assume that the object of criticism is wrong, but merely that it can suffer improvements. And in that sense CriticsAreYourBestFriends because if you don't know what are the weaknesses in your theories you cannot improve. Criticism and presenting alternatives should be for most of the cases, regarded as orthogonal. People are confused about this idea that critics have an obligation to present alternatives, they do not. However when they do not, they acknowledge that a valid response to the criticism is: "I can't improve on these weaknesses and I don't see a better alternative either". We all live in an imperfect world, and our own less than perfect status should make us more keenly aware that CriticsAreYourBestFriends.

What is the value the criticism has in and of itself?

It exposes areas of improvement. An extreme situation is when the greatest improvement may be to drop the idea altogether, and even some people suffer an ego problem in such situations, it is precisely in this case that criticism tends to have the greatest net value for those who can take advantage of it.

How does criticism expose areas of improvement? Does criticism not imply exposing areas of disagreement?

Perhaps in our imperfect world, there is not a rank ordering of ideas with some better than others. If there are sets of peer level ideas, presentation of alternatives provides benefit.

[There may or may not be; we'll never know. All we know is what we think, what others say, and whether we seem to be in agreement or disagreement. Absolute truth is beyond our grasp. So is control over other people, even if we're convinced we know the truth. So it is a social process of arriving at agreement where possible, and agreeing to disagree where it is not.]

There's no total order, that's for sure (or even if there is, we can't compute it which is just as good :). However there's a partial order, even if reasonable people may disagree on some parts of the graph. But for sure there are bottom elements, ideas that are just plain wrong, deeply flawed, etc.

[In our opinion. There's still a question what to do with that opinion, and again that goes back to social processes -- unless it concerns work we're doing on our own.]

[Hmm...I suppose another case is when the original author disagrees, but doesn't contest being corrected -- which happens moderately frequently here.]

CorrectInsteadOfCriticize is specially applicable to those who must put something on every page and place criticisms like "This page is long and needs refactoring". It is also applicable in the case of poor language ability and spelling ability. There have been times when critics instead of correcting the spelling or language, make some comment which makes such weaknesses apparent to the embarrassment of the original poster. This is particularly true of pages which have been authored outside of the mother tongue of the writer. Other cases where one may reply with "that's silly" or "what a stupid thing to say" instead of showing how it might be incorrect or based on bad information.

... ideas that are just plain wrong ...

The more learning that is inherent in an idea, the more that idea will be seen as wrong. Learning involves change, change from one's past experiences. The more an idea challenges past experiences, the more it will seem wrong. When one learns a new idea, one must re-weight past experience. When criticizing, one is rejecting an idea. It is far better to study an idea and learn how it might be right, than to criticize and end all discussion.

Except that it is so very common for someone to put forward as new an extremely old idea that was long, long ago formally proven to be incorrect (e.g. that PiIsNotIrrational). People who don't bother to study a field think their ideas are rejected because of closed-mindedness, whereas actually, a certain percentage of practitioners in any field attempt to be radical for its own sake, which often causes radical ideas to be proposed early, rather than late. The pi issue is the perfect example; it was examined from every possible angle before any of the participants here were even born. The 2500 year old proof stands as correct even today, despite innovations in philosophy and meta-mathematics in the 20th century that would have made the ancient Greek's heads burst from the sheer weirdness of approach. But how many of the posters who said "hey, keep an open mind!" were aware of any of that? Exactly zero.
- But what aid is criticism in this case? I cannot claim to know the specific proof that Pi is irrational, but one of the more common means of proof is to investigate the opposite of what is believed to be true. One follows the implications until one violates an axiomic truth. In other words, one does not begin by replying, "You are wrong," but rather, "Let's assume Pi is rational, therefore ..." It is the latter approach, avoiding criticism, that can lead to learning. In many other cases, the outcome of the discussion is not a foregone conclusion and it may be difficult to agree on basic axioms.
The point of this is that some kinds of things should be put forward as questions, so that ignorance can be cured with the help of others. This is completely different than a truly never-before considered new idea. How can the person in question tell the difference? 99% of the time it's easy: if you haven't studied a subject, ask questions, don't make assertions.

There's no such thing as criticism being the end of all discussion, and learning something outside of CriticalSpirit is not good learning.

How does criticism enhance discussion? If one criticizes another's statement, how does one learn any of the truth of the other statement? Would we not expect the response to criticism to be returned criticism rather than consideration of the points raised? How does criticism enable learning?

This has been exposed above, in many other places, and besides it is well known for some 2500 odd years ever since Socrates, I'm not going to repeat the obvious. It is true that your average AmericanCulturalAssumption tends to value more one mr Dale nobody Carnegie over the old but respectable Socrates, and tends to apply the lessons of the former outside their domain of applicability (namely sales and petty corporate politics). But if you want we can use mr. Socrates reputable method to clear up your confusion with regards to the applicability of CriticalSpirit in the process of learning.

So we can explore what may be wrong with applying criticism in learning, shall we ? Before we proceed however, we shall agree to clear up some matter of non-fact confusions: to "criticize" one need not assume that a presented idea is absolutely wrong. It is the first paragraph of this page is absolutely wrong in claiming the contrary.

If, as stated above, criticism "exposes areas of improvement," does this not say that there are areas that are wrong, not partially wrong, not potentially wrong, but absolutely and undeniably wrong? Doesn't the opening paragraph to this subsection imply criticism is necessary because "there are situations where some party is just plain wrong"? How should one differentiate between an idea being wrong and an idea needing improvement?

By suggesting alternative ideas which are more suitable or more adequate, though not perfect, and to admit that perhaps much more is right, than is wrong. To invent is perhaps to be "ahead of the curve". Some things which are new and not yet completely fleshed out, when compared to the "usual way of doing things", may appear to be "wrong", when what they are is "not acceptable" or "easily implementable". When an idea exposes a radically different way of accomplishing a task, there are inherent hazards one may encounter in "bucking the established structures and methods". -- DonaldNoyes

[You learn from criticizing someone else's work by reflexively criticizing your own criticism. Every weakness in your own criticism corresponds to a surprising insight in the work under consideration. You not only learn a different way of thinking, but you learn precisely how different that way of thinking is from your own. This is very valuable.]

[Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of people lack the intellectual honesty, or paranoia, to so reflexively criticize their own criticism. For most people, "criticizing" is just an euphemism for abuse. At best, an excuse to engage in abuse while being in denial about it. This only works when the abuser is quite stupid, but that goes hand in hand with emotional immaturity.]

The problem seems to be that you don't realize that you do this kind of abuse, too, so I'd be more hesitant to call it "stupid", were I you. You're at your best when you remain emotionally neutral and polite; it is irrelevant whether people "deserve" abuse (as you've said elsewhere).
I am not sure I see how someone would possibly criticize himself. I must be missing something entirely, because (without exaggeration) this seems to be describing actual mental illness. Could someone expand upon the original statement in this section?
- It definitely is not mental illness in its usual forms. Believing in two mutually exclusive things at once is literally a universal in humans; it's technically called "cognitive dissonance", and it is common to self-criticize as a result.
- But in the context of this page, it's more to the point to look at the case of criticizing one's own past beliefs/statements/behavior, which isn't even a conflict, it's a form of learning. The most routine form of this is, after all, simple proof-reading. If I type "its" and go back and correct it to be "it's", this is a minor form of self-criticism, followed by corrective action. If I'm sleepy and say "11*11 = 131", and the next morning realize I was wrong, that's self-criticism. If I vote for Bush and realize 12 months later that I was wrong to do so, that's self-criticism.
  - I am a little unclear where this definition of criticism is going. It appears to cover any and all change making "criticism", as defined, a triviality that does not seem capable of providing "surprising insight in the work under consideration." How does correcting typographic errors serve as a form of criticism?
- This all seems so common-sensical that I don't really see why it strikes you as strange.
  - Is it not possible to answer the questions above regarding criticism?
  - Please note that "common-sensical" probably implies we are reaching an axiomic truth concerning support for criticism. There is no fault or short coming in reaching this point; it is merely a reflection of the belief system. Those who do not believe this as an axiomic truth must accept the fact that others do, and there is no point in trying to dig below axiomic truths. Perhaps it is time to refocus discussion on this page back on "Discussion" rather than "Criticism."

[And on a completely different level, one can mix criticism into abuse in order to confuse the target and make it harder for them to defend themselves. But engaging in this tactic requires a great deal of self-awareness and intellectual honesty because the criticism has to actually stand up to scrutiny. It must not only be valid but be perceived as valid by third parties. Such a person doesn't need euphemisms, and they know exactly what they're doing. -- RK]

This later attitude, described by RK, is generally called self-righteousness. It is of course as antithetical as you can get to CriticalSpirit and is widely viewed to be the hallmark of weak minds.
The most significant word in that contribution is "enemy". I've never thought of anyone on Wiki as my enemy. Perhaps if I wore a cape and tights while I typed...

[The word that initially came to mind was 'victim' but that's got too many sympathetic connotations for my tastes.]

Learning, Discussion, and Criticism

I would take it as a premise that learning results when one is exposed to new knowledge. A second premise is that new knowledge does not arise spontaneously, but is developed from ideas. If I now define discussion as the act of listening to a new idea (new relative to oneself) and asking questions to understand the new idea, then discussion provides an avenue to improve the ideas and to build and acquire new knowledge.

Does the approach of criticism agree with the premises above concerning learning and new knowledge? If so, how is criticism defined and how does it align with the premises?

Criticism is the identification of strengths, weaknesses, fallacies, distortions and failures in the development and support of the statements which make up the ideas which make up the knowledge. It follows that false ideas can lead to false knowledge, particularly when knowledge is not taken to mean that which is complete and true. Criticism is meant to improve the completeness and truthfulness of the knowledge exposed for acceptance.

How is criticism "the identification of strengths, weaknesses, fallacies, distortions and failures"? How is criticism any more than a disagreement provided by an individual who hears an idea to the one who presented that idea? Why the presumption that the criticizer is correct and the criticized is incorrect?

"Criticism", considered as a formal activity, does not presuppose disagreement. It is essentially a neutral judgment. People can and do take objective criticism personally, so the word has acquired more negative connotations than positive ones. Nevertheless, the word ultimately derives from the Greek word for a judge and retains, in more formal usage, the kernel of neutrality.
- How is criticism used as an expression of agreement? What is an expression of "neutral" criticism? What is meant by criticism as a formal activity? [It appears they may be widely divergent definitions of criticism here, so it is probably worthwhile to create some definitions that help answer these questions.]

Discussion

For discussion to be effective, one must believe that reasonable people can rationally come to wildly different conclusions. For each conclusion, there will be an underlying set of supporting logic. At the very bottom will be personal axioms, those things one believes are intrinsically true. These "truths" cannot be proven; they are merely assumed and asserted to be true.

With discussion, one does not begin by asserting that a particular conclusion is "wrong," rather, one concentrates on identifying the context and conditions in which the conclusion is correct. Eventually, in a discussion, we reach the underlying, root beliefs, those things I have termed axiomic beliefs. One of the most intellectually stimulating results of a discussion is in the rare instances where one is able to break through a personally held axiomic belief and discover underlying beliefs. This, however, is always a personal discovery and cannot be forced by the outside. An alternative statement of this is that, as an outside force, one cannot force another change, justify, or explain his axiomic beliefs; one can only accept the other's belief at face value.

To discuss, one must possess an underlying curiosity concerning why differing conclusions have been reached, and not be concerned with proving one's own position is "right." One needs to believe there is underlying logic supporting an alternative conclusion and desire to understand what that logic might be. It is often quite fascinating to see how the underlying logic supporting alternate conclusions agree and diverge.

A short overview for approaching discussion is a technique called "The Five Whys." The classic description is to uncover root beliefs, one should ask "Why is this true?" five times. In practice, the number "five" is not important, but rather one should continue as long as supporting logic is discovered.

A word of caution, this approach must be taken gently. It can lead to a great deal of frustration when an axiomic belief is challenged; the frustration will only multiply if the challenge is repeated. Always remember, the intent is to discover the underlying axiom, not to change it.

The value in discussion is in understanding one's own belief systems and the belief systems of others. It is not intended to prove one conclusion right nor another wrong; in fact, these proofs may not be possible.

CategoryCriticism