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Criticism can be motivated by a desire to communicate useful information and/or motivated by status-seeking/dominance. Criticism that repels even secure people

Criticism can be motivated by a desire to communicate useful information and/or motivated by status-seeking/dominance. Criticism that repels even secure people is the kind that appears to have that self-promoting agenda. I like the way Ben Franklin put it in his autobiography: "I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat everyone of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention." He describes how he cultivated "the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. ... When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear'd or seem'd to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right."

kaiserama 18y ago
Too bad Ben Franklin didn't know about Twitter...
shiranaihito 18y ago
Then again, some people will compain if you speak in uncertain terms. It seems to me that there could perchance be another problem in our communication, namely that of people of a certain persuasion expressing themselves in quite a convoluted manner perhaps better fitting a person in the process of producing a work of literature, in an attempt at asserting their intellectual prowess. We have something to say, but we encode it in a carrier signal of verbal acrobatics. It's logical because intelligent people want to appear intelligent too, but communication shouldn't be a competition of who can bend the English language in the most ways while still saying something.. and that was close too! Then there's Programming Reddit, where (often very intelligent) people gather to argue about things and out-smug each other while still being more right than their opponents. I read it because there's still a lot of useful information floating around, but it's getting tiresome to read conversations that have a "winner". "C-C-C-COMBO-BREAKER!!" And what's with the Franklin quote? Was it normal to write "I walk'd to the store and purchas'd a banana" in those days? Quick - someone hit me with a "Never start a sentence with 'and'"!
- jules 18y ago
  > Then again, some people will compain if you speak in uncertain terms. This is my experience too, especially on the internet.
- michaelkeenan 18y ago
  I agree that Franklin's advice might lead to explicit dominance behavior being replaced by the subtler status-seeking antics of convoluted text. That would still be an improvement in my opinion. Fortunately, the internet has an existing idiom for "simplify and shorten your message", which is of course: "tl;dr". Franklin's prose could get very convoluted! I don't know whether he was showing off, or whether it was just the style of the time that he didn't think to change. He was fond of listing things in dense paragraphs so it's unfortunate that bulletpoints weren't invented until 1958 (seriously). Modern pundits are aware that simplicity can lead to more effective messages; we have widely-publicized advice like "Keep It Simple, Stupid". Maybe that's a modern insight or fashion.
  - shiranaihito 18y ago
    True, convoluted text is much better than the outright hostility present on Reddit. I thought people used "tl;dr" mostly because dismissing things is so much fun, not because they'd be willing to read a shortened version.
    - michaelkeenan 18y ago
      > I thought people used "tl;dr" mostly because dismissing things is so much fun, not because they'd be willing to read a shortened version. You might well be right! But I like to give the benefit of the doubt.
tjr 18y ago
Also pertinent here is the Alexander Pope quotation included in Franklin's autobiography: "Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown proposed as things forgot." You may know the answer to the problem someone else is going through. You may know that their approach is utter garbage and that they are clueless as to what they are doing. But rather than saying so outright, which will likely come across as offensive, it seems better to phrase things in such a way as that they will come to see the better solution for themselves. They might not even realize the role you played in that, nor credit you for the insight. But they will have learned something, improved their work, and didn't feel insulted. In my experience, it's a route worth trying, anyway.
- 11ren 18y ago
  When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

kaiserama 18y ago

Too bad Ben Franklin didn't know about Twitter...

shiranaihito 18y ago

Then again, some people will compain if you speak in uncertain terms. It seems to me that there could perchance be another problem in our communication, namely that of people of a certain persuasion expressing themselves in quite a convoluted manner perhaps better fitting a person in the process of producing a work of literature, in an attempt at asserting their intellectual prowess. We have something to say, but we encode it in a carrier signal of verbal acrobatics. It's logical because intelligent people want to appear intelligent too, but communication shouldn't be a competition of who can bend the English language in the most ways while still saying something.. and that was close too! Then there's Programming Reddit, where (often very intelligent) people gather to argue about things and out-smug each other while still being more right than their opponents. I read it because there's still a lot of useful information floating around, but it's getting tiresome to read conversations that have a "winner". "C-C-C-COMBO-BREAKER!!" And what's with the Franklin quote? Was it normal to write "I walk'd to the store and purchas'd a banana" in those days? Quick - someone hit me with a "Never start a sentence with 'and'"!

jules 18y ago
> Then again, some people will compain if you speak in uncertain terms. This is my experience too, especially on the internet.
michaelkeenan 18y ago
I agree that Franklin's advice might lead to explicit dominance behavior being replaced by the subtler status-seeking antics of convoluted text. That would still be an improvement in my opinion. Fortunately, the internet has an existing idiom for "simplify and shorten your message", which is of course: "tl;dr". Franklin's prose could get very convoluted! I don't know whether he was showing off, or whether it was just the style of the time that he didn't think to change. He was fond of listing things in dense paragraphs so it's unfortunate that bulletpoints weren't invented until 1958 (seriously). Modern pundits are aware that simplicity can lead to more effective messages; we have widely-publicized advice like "Keep It Simple, Stupid". Maybe that's a modern insight or fashion.
- shiranaihito 18y ago
  True, convoluted text is much better than the outright hostility present on Reddit. I thought people used "tl;dr" mostly because dismissing things is so much fun, not because they'd be willing to read a shortened version.
  - michaelkeenan 18y ago
    > I thought people used "tl;dr" mostly because dismissing things is so much fun, not because they'd be willing to read a shortened version. You might well be right! But I like to give the benefit of the doubt.

tjr 18y ago

Also pertinent here is the Alexander Pope quotation included in Franklin's autobiography: "Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown proposed as things forgot." You may know the answer to the problem someone else is going through. You may know that their approach is utter garbage and that they are clueless as to what they are doing. But rather than saying so outright, which will likely come across as offensive, it seems better to phrase things in such a way as that they will come to see the better solution for themselves. They might not even realize the role you played in that, nor credit you for the insight. But they will have learned something, improved their work, and didn't feel insulted. In my experience, it's a route worth trying, anyway.

11ren 18y ago
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.