A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People

Trotting out absolute statements does no one any good. I could just as easily spin this on its head and say that it feels socially safe to always show blind enthusiasm for the latest trend lest you be labelled a "hater".

It feels like we're just redefining critic to be synonymous with cynic. There's no reason that you can't simultaneously be both fan and a critic of X.

But, and I mean their without snark: What value is your praise for what is good if I cannot trust that you will be critical of what is bad? Note that critique can be unpleasant but kind, and I don't care for "brutal honesty" (which is much more about the brutality than the honesty in most cases).

But whether it's the joint Slavic-german culture or something else, I much prefer for things to be _appropriate_, _kind_ and _earnest_ instead of just supportive or positive. Real love is despite a flaw, in full cognizance if it, not ignoring them.

“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.”

I think of a company where young inspired engineers want to build new things all the time.

Their heart is in the right place but they need someone(s) to be respectfully critical since their efforts and time spent have very real impacts on the company.

I played high school sports (with a three day hospital stay for a serious concussion to show for it - thanks, football), but I've never been a fan of watching sportsball on TV unless it's a social gathering like Superbowl parties. I've generally had a low opinion of people who cared about their city's teams and all the useless competitiveness that goes along with it.

But being there, in the stadium around all the other fans? Fucking electrifying. I celebrated, I jeered, I cried, I booed Edmonton, I cursed the refs, I complained about the stadium food and the line for the men's bathroom, and I was probably the loudest person in the 318 section of the Staples center. I almost fell over the glass boards onto the ESPN newscasters during Wednesday's game on the fourth goal. Too much overpriced beer plus standing up to wave the "Built for This" towels too fast.

I still don't give a flying fuck about the Kings or Lakers or Clippers or whatever, but I am definitely going to enjoy going to their games and feeling the energy. The exact words my mom used were "I've never seen this side of you."

WE WANT SKINNER!!!

Otherwise you just get labeled as a hater, a contrarian, or worse - a critic. It's exhausting. People confuse being direct, dry, or taking a level-tone with dispassion, disinterest, or again being a "hater."

I would even say I've seen so many people being "super excited" about something that it's the opposite of contagious for me, it causes me to doubt how knowledgeable or sincere they are about the subject (whether it's a general topic or even a person).

We have too much fake-niceness, and we are over-enthused quite often on things that turn out to be nothing, at least in the U.S. We don't need more of it, at least IMO.

It also feels very socially safe to be group of rabid fans.

We didn’t last long.

There are also unhealthy ways of being a fan, for example if you admire someone there's probably someone else you despise. It's much better to follow the title of the post and believe in people in general.

However I noticed a peculiar thing. In every field you will find people who are really enthusiastic for the field without doing it themselves. Maybe we could call them "enthusiastic consumers". These are very often the people giving the harshest, most unfair, least constructive critiques for some reason and the closer your thing is to the thing they love the harsher they can become. To them consuming that thing is their identity, so which thing they consume is existentially important to then. To me music is much more about the making, and while listening about countless things. Musicians tend to be more open about what constitutes good mhsic than these enthusiasts.

As a former art student one important leason I have learned in countless group reviews is that criticism based purely on taste are utterly worthless. If a classical music nerd dislikes your noiserock piece purely because of taste that just tells you something about them. This is what the criticism of most entusiastic consumers looks like. Another thing I have learned is that people are usually correct something feels wrong to them if they are really going into the thing with open eyes and an open heart. But people totally suck at telling you how to fix it.

So my advice on how to deal with criticsm is:

1. Figure out the nature of the criticism and judge accordingly. Is it purely a matter of taste? Is the root cause of observation valid?

2. Most criticism can help you getting better or worse, which one depends a lot on how you deal with it. You can reframe criticism to not be about you, but about the thing you do (and try to do well!). In that case every valid point someone makes will now no longer be an attack on your person, but a chance to make your work even better

3. Do things for their own sake and you're somewhat immune to criticism. If you enjoy playing guitar, it should not matter to you that you suck while doing it. Everybody good sucked for a long time before they were good and many of the most innovative new developements were made by people who did not care they were "doing it wrong"

4. There is no single correct way to do a thing and thus there are always people who will hate your stuff for a various number of reasons. This means nothing unless they got a valid point be it in terms of craft or emotion.

5. In German there is the notion of "Wer macht hat recht", which very loosely translates to "those who do are in the right". Action beats opinion. Talking is cheap.

CRITIC: n. A man who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.

Chesterton is just giving clever voice to the eternal prediction that the decline of traditional morals will produce a fundamental degeneration of humanity. T.H. Huxley, who had been dead for over ten years when Chesterton wrote this, was a wildly successful person, an eminent scientist, prolific author, and public figure. But these predictions are eternally about a coming collapse. It didn't matter that Chesterton's exemplar of the "new humility" had been one of the most shining examples of ambition and fruitful labor of the 19th century. He could still predict that Huxley's ideas would reduce the next generation to helpless ineffectualness. And even after three of Huxley's grandchildren became eminent public figures in the 20th century, there will be people who read this and find it a compelling prediction about the 21st century.

"But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether."

This just fundamentally misunderstands what aims are. They can neither be doubted or correct. I can doubt empirically, or epistemologically, but I can't doubt that I want to eat a doughnut or that I want to be healthy or that I want a world with less cruelty in it. It's a waste of time and energy to doubt these things, although I can try to line up all my desires and figure out how they stack up with one another when I try to make plans, the efficacy of which is in the realm of the believable. I can look at other people's actions, try to determine their desires, and decide whether to assist them or interfere with them or fight them, but when I do this its not a cosmic battle about truths. Its just two people acting out on their desires in a shared world.

Because they do.

I have a fairly senior presence, in an organization that I participate in, and my voice often carries a bit of extra weight (just like me).

I have found that opening my mouth, early in a silent meeting, will often “break the ice,” and get things flowing. I don’t have to say anything particularly earth-shattering. Just the talking, is all that is necessary.

In order to “win,” someone else needs to “lose.”

That’s not something that I am personally comfortable with, but I totally understand that it’s not reasonable to expect others, to have the same attitude.

I’m also quite capable of preventing others from treating my attitude as “weakness,” and trying to make me the “loser.”

Kindness is not weakness.