On Reactions to Criticism

Day 23

I've noticed that there seem to be three major paths of reacting to criticism. We've established that criticism is like an attack on a world, something that threatens the stability of the world and thence of the self. The first way of reacting is one that I have already talked about in On Multiculturalism and Responsibility; Call this the brave path. On the brave path, we are willing to accept criticism, and to accept that we might be wrong. This can come in one of two major flavors.

The first is minor criticism, which isn't usually a problem. This is stuff like criticism of the way we do a math problem, kick a football, or draw a picture of a hand. When these are criticized, there is often both a definite and simple way of telling which method, the original or the one improved/worsened by criticism, is the better one. If someone tells you to the correct way to do a math problem, then you can pretty quickly figure out if they are right or not, by seeing if you get the correct answer. You don't have to do this practically, you can also model it out. Imagine what would happen and incorporate the new information into a small section of the world and see if there is a clear improvement. You might of course be wrong, but this is what happen when we experience a 'flash of clarity' after being told how to do something correctly. It just makes more sense. Of course, sometimes people tell us things that are wrong,and it is easy too to deal with that situation, just in reverse. These are minor because they are at the edge of the world and generally far away from a foundation pillar. They are easily changed and verified one way or another, and can be simply reversed most of the time. They don't really matter for your identity or vision of the world, and if they are broken down the world doesn't substantially change.

The other version is a major criticism. A major criticism is one that effects a large part of the world, introduces a noticeable instability in the world, or touches upon a foundation pillar. These are things like the existence of an afterlife, the heliocentric solar system, germ theory, and war. Each of these things has the ability to, and in my examples has actually caused, changes in the way the world is structured. Are you safe? That is a major assumption that holds for most of our lives and effects most of our decisions – war, being mugged, or terrorism can disrupt that and shake the world. Germ theory is a vital part of modern medicine, the heliocentric solar system has its own history, and believing in or losing faith in an afterlife seems to be an important part of actual religious faith. Do you think that you are a kind person, that your country is great, that your people are oppressed, or that murder is sometimes necessary? What if you were wrong about one of these – or right?

Beliefs like these are often important part of a persons identity, and important parts of the world. We often speak of them as if we 'know' that they are true, instead of just being a belief. This suggests to me that they are an essential part of a current world construction when they are used in this manner. To 'know' something is for that something to be a part of the world, and to be integrated into the world. Beliefs are also integrated, but there is a difference between 'knowing x' and 'knowing that I believe x', and the difference is in the importance of that knowledge to the world. That, or the part of the world. Knowledge about 'I believe' can be just as important as 'knowing x', but in a different manner. One is about the way the entire world is, and the other is just about the part of the world that is you. You can survive in some fashion if your beliefs change, and beliefs change all the time. If you change a belief, you are generally still mostly you, and in a pretty stable place. These can still be major changes, but don't have to be. You can still function. Changes in pillars that support the outer world are generally large changes that introduce a major instability, because for most of us the other world is larger than the inner, and supports it. Almost always if you know 'who you are', you also know 'your place in the world', and that place is also an important part of who you think you are. Questioning the first is a normal part of life, and so we have some practice at it. Questioning the second is a rarer, and thus usually harder, thing to do. You can, however, know who you are without knowing your place in the world and vice-versa. The first is easier than the second.

The path of bravery open up to this and realizes what this means. It involves being brave because you, by allowing these issues to your attention, step just a little off the edge of the map. You enter the part where it says 'here be monsters'. That bravery can lead to a bit of magic, to a strength that comes from nowhere. You temper yourself in the fire and can handle instabilities easier because you have some things that you are sure of. Its not a tempering on the edges, but rather a strengthening of the entire world field. You lose frailty and gain endurance, strength, and recovery. This, of course, is a very difficult thing to do and its often difficult to figure out if you have succeeded or not. Time will tell.

The second path is what I'll call the path of the fortress. In this path, you temper a part of the world and let the rest go to ruin. This is, I think, a very common reaction to world stress. A fortress is created, a belief in a certain something. This might be a religion, a country, an ideology, a status. You can base our whole life around being a 'monk', an 'American', a social activist', or 'a parent', just to name a few. Have you met people who simply don't care that much about the world that doesn't concern them, or who live for their job? This is something like that. I think that we all have a bit of this in ourselves, just like we all have a bit of bravery in us. You can choose to simply focus on your life and not worry about the greater questions, never have deep existential doubts. This is on the surface a bit like being an intentional ignoramus, but its a little different. For one thing, its being an intentional ignoramus only about certain things. For example, a farmer might not care to know too much about social issues in the inner cities, rocket artillery, or what the newest graphics card is, but they probably are quite willing to learn more about soil loss, genetic differences in crops, and problems with tractor software. Take a nerd from the inner city, and you might have the opposite inclinations. Its not that people are dumb, selfish, or incurious. Its simply that people are limited. We are all limited, and we focus our efforts on certain parts of the world over others. When I go to the library I read some books and skip over others. That isn't a fault in me, but life.

I feel that this life style generally leads to acceptance of criticism in a certain well-known area, a bravery within the fortress if you will, or fortresses, but the same bravery does not show up outside that fortress. This occasions to another danger – looking outside the fortress. When the strongest part of the world is the fortress, then the strongest part of the world tends to have an outsize effect upon the rest of the world. If you live, breath, and eat social justice then you will see social justice issues everywhere, of your particular kind of justice. Ditto for politics, economics, or fighting. I tend to look at the world through a certain lens, a certain political stance, economic position, and antagonism. We all do. The braver you are the less pronounced this issue is. This is because we are very sure of one particular thing, one part of the world, and less sure of the other parts. We can appear to strengthen the parts of the world that we are less sure about, that we haven't questioned and forged sturdy, if we simply glue them to the part of the world that we are sure about. This is strength of a part of the world by proxy, a pseudo-logical support. The beliefs outside the fortress don't rest upon themselves, or the world in general, but upon the fortress. If the fortress falls, then the entire structure falls down to. Have you ever spoken to someone on the other side of the political or historical spectrum and found out that they have good reasons for their beliefs? Have you ever learned that someone you really respected had a different opinion, about something moral, than you, and been forced to re-evaluate your stance? We form fortresses and webs of beliefs rather quickly and they can fall just as fast. The difference between minor and major is less important here then is the form and structure of the world in areas like this. It is this very concentrated form which distorts the world so that certain things are hidden, and makes cowards of us all.

The third path is the path of retaliation. On the path of the fortress one stands tall and firm in their beliefs. On the path of retaliation, you strike back at the world which challenges those beliefs. The fortress rejects certain points of view. The path of retaliation rejects those points of view and then attacks them. Sometimes this is bad, and sometimes it is good. Its very, very hard to tell which it is. You might hold a particular political stance and reject the stance of your enemy, and not just say that your enemy is wrong, but accuse your enemy of lying, of being traitors, of being thieves, or of being puppets. Maybe your 'enemy' is a racist bastard. Maybe your enemy is a anti-war hippie. Maybe your enemy is a barbarian, a communist, a capitalist, or a monarchist. Maybe your enemy wants lower taxes, or war, or isolationism. This doesn't have to be politics. It can also be an academic disagreement over definitions, a work disagreement over policies, or a family disagreement over inheritance. Do you think that your enemy is foolish, selfish, evil, or worthless? You are probably on this path. This is a dangerous path, because this path is not the fortress where you stand still, or bravery where you fly and fall. Rather, this is the path of the road, of going in a direction. Of trying to change the world. It is not a path that is obsessed with self-reflection or of questioning your beliefs. The key of this path is an attack on those who disagree with you. Sometimes you are right, and sometimes you ae wrong. Most of the time you aren't totally one or the other.

The most dangerous aspect of this path is the rejection of criticism. Someone on the path of the fortress or the brave path allows criticism, while someone on the path of retaliation can barely countenance its possibility. A sturdy belief in being right is needed for strong movement forward, but if you are wrong then you will go down the wrong path. There were noble intentions behind acquiescing to Germany's claim to Austria in WWII. Maybe not a whole lot, but they were there. Even the missionaries who enslaved Natives in California, the Japanese internment camps, or the damming of the Nile had 'good intentions' somewhere behind them, for that we can look back on them now in scorn. It has been said by Emerson that “you should question the ancient philosophers because they were once just young men in libraries like you”.* While, the orchestraters of most of the disasters in human history were just as confident of themselves as you were.

Of course, its likely that just as many problems have been caused by those who were over-confident in their way of looking at the world as those who were under-confident. With every disaster, there are always a few people who saw it coming. How many times have you noticed a world disaster, a issue at work, a problem with money, that, in retrospect, seemed obvious? Stop and think of a while, and hopefully you can exit this most dangerous aspect of the path of retaliation.

There is one further danger, and one that I think is most insidious. It has been said that the more you fight your enemy, the more you become like them. I find this to be generally the case. It takes great fortitude to resist this. You can, and sometimes should, fight fire with fire. But the issue with fire is that it has a way of spreading. Does your enemy sprout propaganda, conveniently forget to mention certain information, or pretend that they are something they are not? Are the people who believe them starting to trust them more and ignore anything you say, to disagree with your basic facts, wither those facts be about the result of an election, the effects and reasons for racism, or the actions and intentions of a foreign power? Do they not believe that the sky is blue, or the earth is round? Are you enemies calling you liars, devils, and thieves? How easy it is to point out the same about them. If your enemy is a liar, then just call them a liar – but who am I to believe now? There is no easy way out. It doesn't matter if its an issue of national politics or an argument between brothers about who broke the PlayStation; If everyone is stuck on the path of retaliation, then when the arrows go everywhere, we are all injured.

* The American Scholar Adress by Ralph Waldo Emerson