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Everyone's a Bloody Critic! - or "Why People who Breath Oxygen are Worse than Stalin"

12:24 / 24.01.03

No one who has done time in the interweb can have failed to notice that vast tracts of it are devoted to identifying exactly which people are wrong, or bad, or both. If you've read a few books, papers or magazines, or watched the occasional bit of telly you'll be aware that an incredible amount of time, thought and energy is devoted to telling someone to STOP IT, or at least be ashamed about it. Practically every human activity, from 'baby murdering' to 'sitting still' has been scrutinised and found wanting. However inoffensive your hobby, kink or taste might appear, someone, somewhere, will have you pegged as a wanker because of it, and they'll be very keen to tell you why.

The upshot is that none of us can have escaped - we must all, at some point, have found ourselves thinking "hang on, that's me they're talking about." So....

1 - Have you ever changed your behaviour, habits, way of thinking etc as a result of such an encounter? Please give as many interesting details as possible, eg what form did the criticism take? Did you go willingly or was there a huge internal struggle involved? How long after the encounter did you change? Was it a sudden change, or did you slide gradually into a new way of going about things? Do you feel better as a result?

2 - How much does the form and style of the criticism - or even the critic - affect your response to it? Have you come to identify specific styles which deserve a 'default' response (eg x = ignore, y = respond with all guns blazing). Do you respond less favourably to criticisms from some sources than others?

3 - If you're a regular ranter / critic / informer / bringer of bad news, what is your chief aim? Is it catharsis, or do you hope to change something? If the latter, do you favour a particular style, and how effective do you expect or hope your comments to be?

All that and/or anything else you can think of to say about the subject.

14:28 / 24.01.03

On the flip side, there are an awful lot of fan sites for all sorts of things.

I see what you mean, though. Lazy, knee-jerk criticism from left or right says little other than the pinhead writer wants to be seen as having good taste/politics. The fact that people fall for it makes me want to spit. I despair.

But isn't this thread in danger of being guilty of recursion? STOP saying STOP! :-)

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:13 / 24.01.03

1) Almost never. In one or two rare cases, where the criticsm has been both justified and well-reasoned, I've been induced to change my conduct in some regard. Since the kind of criticism I get is almost invariably along the lines of "God's going to punish you because you're a HOMOSEXUAL!" (innacurate) "Ha, ha-- you can't spell!" (true, but irrelevant) or "I'm going to kill you because I kill uppity bitches and you're an uppity bitch" (unlikely), criticsm usually doesn't do anyting except make me dig my heels in and carry on doing whatever it was only harder.

2) Not so much. A reasonable criticsm comes couched in l33t-speak and punctuated with cussing is still a reasonable criticsm. Ditto a criticsm buried under a pile of self-aggrandizing verbiage.

3) Catharsis. I rant to exorcise my attacks of irrational fury with the world at large, and because said rantage provides innocent amusement to passersby. I try and restrict my less constructive criticism to my personal blog (with varying degrees of success). I could just sit in a bus station and shout at imaginary people, but such conduct generally invites comment.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

17:39 / 27.01.03

1) I think these encounters have helped make me the bitter twisted evil genius that stands before you today, because I post a lot on USENET a lot of arguments have been with trolls and intransigent people, so it's great as a means to unwind but not that useful as a means to intelligent discussion. However, I once made the mistake of pulling that trick here and was a laughing stock for all of about four hours, which in Barbe-time is about six months. I still wake up screaming...

2) The critic means a lot to me, to use a Barbelith example, 9 times out of 10 if Bengali or Ganesh slap me for something it would mean more than if it were innercircle or Chromeo. I don't take the latter's complaints about how I responded to innercircles exigesis seriously at all, but if other Barbecitizens had said they thought I, or we, were being unfair, I might well have reconsidered my actions. Or Gilded the thread anyway.

On USENET it's much the same. Most of the time the only criticism I receive is from the known Net trolls. So that's discounted straight away. But if someone that I feel I've developed a 'friendship' with as 'proper' users of the forum tweaks me, I may modify my performance, unless I can justify my actions.

3) My general role seems to be negative, finding problems in plans and schemes. I'm generally quite cautious when it comes to new ideas, but I know I come off a lot more negative than I mean, because I'm always trying to anticipate the problems. But I am trying to be helpful. If I didn't care about something I wouldn't post at all.

15:45 / 28.01.03

Thanks for the excellent and interesting responses, Mordant and Flowers. I'll post me own answers when I can make some sense of 'em (my thoughts, I mean, not your replies. They make perfect sense. Ach! Words! In my brane!)

Ignatius_J:

"But isn't this thread in danger of being guilty of recursion? STOP saying STOP!"

Ah, I know the original post constitutes a bit of a dig, but I'm more interested in finding out what effect the continuous outpouring of opinion and criticism from all directions has on people, and how effective it is generally, than I am in railing against it.

I meant to say in the original post, btw, that I'm interested in any examples of powerful arguments changing your mind on an issue, so if any other bugger can be arsed to reply to this, please have a think about that too.

13:28 / 07.07.03

1 - Have you ever changed your behaviour, habits, way of thinking etc as a result of such an encounter?

Not directly, but each encounter - each article, message-board post, satirical dig, pop-psychology analysis etc - installs a virtual critic in my brain, who pops up every now and then to hector me, usually when I'm feeling cheerful or have to make a decision of any sort (a simple, dumbass example: I cannot peruse the CD racks in HMV without hearing a chorus of opinionated bores whining and wailing their disapproval).

It doesn't matter how confident I am that the criticism is wrong, or unworthy of brain time, I seem to have no control over the little wankers and their appearances. I don't keep an accurate population count, and I'm sure that some of them must have died off over the years, but I'm convinced that the numbers are growing, and with each new voice the task of simply getting on with life becomes slightly more difficult, or at least less enjoyable. So the net result is that I don't do things differently, just more awkwardly, and with a pained or confused expression on my face.

2 - How much does the form and style of the criticism - or even the critic - affect your response to it?

I f***ing can't stand hate-filled rants against people who are not actually arseholes, or anything which amounts to an observation of another's weakness, and I react to these accordingly (ie I ignore any truth contained within and shout "Wanker!" at the telly, radio, paper or monitor). Hmm, that's more to do with content than style. Okay, a dismissive tone will generate the "wanker!" reaction. The virtual critic will still be installed in my brain, though, as long as the ranter is reasonably articulate and does not match one of the Pr!ck Profiles in my brain.

3 - If you're a regular ranter / critic / informer / bringer of bad news, what is your chief aim?

I'm not a regular ranter, but when I do it's mostly just to get it off my chest.