https://curi.us/2038-breaking-people
(@Elliot, Should I copy past the entire blog post here? Feel free to edit this post.)
Goal: get perspective on unbounded criticism.
DD ran into the same problem with the world and it broke him even though he at least had one person (me) available to speak openly to without having to shelter me.
@Elliot, Did DD give you unbounded criticism from the beginning?
Should I declare halfway through a conversation that the other guy is irrational – which he totally denies – and stop discussing the issues and ignore his lies? :( Or perhaps refuse to discuss the issues and only participate in the meta discussion of whether he’s a liar? But he’d like that discussion even less. If I even mention he’s dishonest, that bothers people, but it’s the truthful explanation of why I stopped discussing…
Is giving the personal criticism in private a good path? The problems I can think of are that if he couldn’t take the damage to his public self-image will it make much difference if it’s done in private? Will he actually change anything? I think it’s different if someone comes to you and asks for help with changing attitudes on criticism and self-esteem, but if you have to push it onto someone then it won’t work. It’s a difficult issue. It’s very ingrained in people. It’s probably difficult to change in oneself even if one wants it. And therefore impossible if you didn’t really want it yourself.
- I don’t want to lie about why I stop discussing to protect others. I don’t want to come up with the lies they want to hear so they feel good, and basically try to manipulate them in just the right way so that they’re happy (despite their ongoing conflicts with reality). I don’t want to offer a safe space at all, let alone offer what people want even more: to pretend they are having real discussions, but then I somehow make it a safe space for them while they feel brave…
I realized giving the criticism in private probably means you have to lie:
Let’s say you did criticism in private and figured out the discussion couldn’t continue. To end the discussion you would have to either make the private discussion public, without evidence claim that the other person was irrational and didn’t want to improve, or lie to the public to save face for the other person (evil.) So private criticism is not a good way.
Suggestions?
I made one then criticized it myself. It was good that I thought of the suggestion and wrote it down. That I way I thought of criticism myself and learned more about the topic. Otherwise I don’t think I would have thought of it.
The best I can think of is just to discuss the topic and make it as entertaining to yourself as possible. When that doesn’t work anymore be disagreeable, give them criticism and let them leave if they’re offended. It’s their fault for being irrational. But again that can lead to problems like the other person being nasty. I guess it’s just hard to discuss rationally in this world. There’s still always a best thing to do given the world is terrible, but that may be just not discussing much. Sad.
I have written and thought about posting more of what I think even if I myself don’t think it’s good. So I expect there to be problems for people to criticize. So I think that if I make bad suggestions then it’s okay. I can think “then why even make the suggestion if you think it’s probably bad?” Who knows, it might actually be a good one. But if it isn’t it’s fine as I said, and I can improve myself and understand more about the topic. If I made the suggestion without writing criticism myself then I don’t see the problem with it. Either I don’t know it’s bad or I have some intuition that it’s bad. Either way it would be good if I figured out the problem consciously by letting people criticize it.
I wish we valued criticism more as a society. Literally the thing that promotes progress is the thing being suppressed so much. I know it hurts to deal with criticisms and more when there’s lots of criticism, but it doesn’t sound right to me to suffer in silence and opt out of the convo.
I don’t think it has to hurt.