The Art of Constructive Criticism

“Don't trust a mirror that only tells you how wonderful you look.” -- Matshona Dhliwayo

Constructive Criticism must be criticism and it must be constructive. It is criticism when it focuses on standards; it is constructive when it articulates those standards so that the shortcomings in a piece of writing (or item of construction) can be dealt with.

"Pats on the head," effusions of delight and the like are not criticism. They dodge the issue of criticism, except in the case where the text being critiqued is so excellent, so far removed from improvement that there is nothing left to do but to express wonderment and pleasure. (This is a rare situation.)

Criticism minimally expresses to an author,"There are standards which are relevant here that your paper does not meet." To be constructive, the critic must go beyond, indeed, avoid simple formulations like,

"This is poorly written," or "This makes no sense." 

It is more useful - not to mention, non-threatening - to avoid using such statements entirely. One might say, "The problems with this paper are that ...." This foregoes unnecessary emotional engagement and does the work that a critique should do: specify what it is that makes the paper fall below expectable standards!

We may - and sometimes do - encounter the following situation: a disagreement as to what standards are applicable in judging a paper. For example, what is acceptable as a report in a business might be criticized in an academic context as a hodgepodge pasting together of plagiarized material. Understanding the context of presentation and the audience that will receive your text is, consequently, important here.

The best procedure as as constructive critic is to adapt the attitude of a team-member trying to improve the workmanship of a colleague. Don't hold back from expressing concern if you think there is a problem; but don't try to intimidate or "one-up" the person whose paper you are criticizing by delivering judgment, but withholding the reasons for it.
(Note that this essay itself is a kind of critique. Do you think it, itself, meets the standards it articulates for constructive criticism?)

For specialized applications of constructive criticism, see:

What is a Synopsis? Controversy Analysis Worksheet (Interrogatory)
Worksheet with Examples 
Solving School Problems: a conflict resolution approach

Cordially, EGR

What Does a Consensus Mean, Anyway?

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree.(C'est par le malentendu universel que tout le monde s'accorde.) – Baudelaire

We might be inclined to agree with Baudelaire. In many situations, people caught up in the enthusiasm of a crowd or hypnotized by the rhetoric of a ceremony claim to be in agreement with one another -- and, they often fervently believe it to be so.

The bride and groom at a wedding ceremony may agree to "love, honor and obey." But question them privately afterwards and you will find discrepancies between what each of them explains is their understandings of those words. If no discrepancies initially turn up, ask them after the honeymoon is over.

However, what Baudelaire seems to overlook is that an agreement is often little more than an expression of concession or acquiescence. Faced with a potential impasse, parties may make concessions or acquiesce in a formulation of mutual responsibilities that none really find optimal.

Why would they do such a thing? Because, by examining their options, parties to a negotiation may find out that concession or acquiescence is less costly than disrupting relationships with their opponents by, say, walking away. You don’t sever relations with someone you might need to depend on in the future, even if, for the moment, you might strongly disagree with them. (See Choosing The Lesser Evil: a Moral Failure?)

Such realities keep unsatisfied voters from switching political party, bad marriages from divorce or antagonistic nations from war.


To examine these issues further, see The Indeterminacy of Consensus


Cordially
--- EGR

Institutionalizing Wisdom: uses of delay and obfuscation

We appreciate frankness from those who like us. Frankness from others is called insolence. -- Andre Maurois

One of the most popular myths of our democratic culture, The Frankness Rule, is that communication is almost invariably improved in a face-to-face encounter by frank, plain-speaking people. Such "transparency," such direct talk is supposed to avoid misunderstanding and therefore unnecessary conflict.

Given as an example justifying this belief in frankness is the hotline telephone conversation that occurred in October 1962 between President Kennedy and Premier Krushchev that brought about a resolution to the confrontation between US and Russian forces during the very scary Cuban missile crisis.

What was overlooked was by all of us democracy-loving free-society afficionados was that this reconciliation was not presented for review to the general, diverse American public; or, even the Congress of the US. Nor did Kruschev ask the Russian people -- nor, I suspect, the general membership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- for their "input."

(I remember the situation -- the little we knew of it -- well. I was a junior in college at the time and expected, as did most of my classmates, that that our nuclear incineration was imminent. We planned the most amazing good-bye party and were not completely ecstatic, although very relieved, to hear shortly later that the crisis had been resolved.)

What is overlooked by our happy harbingers of frankness is that direct confrontation can just as well exacerbate a deteriorating situation, unless a good deal of wisdom is brought to it.

It is a forlorn hope to expect that, as a commonplace, a good deal of wisdom will be exhibited in everyday life. So it is that organizational shields act to keep separate powerful decision makers from others like them in rival organizations. This not only protects the in-house leaders from exterior aggression, but buffers them from their own inadvertent, or rash missteps.

I was once hired as a headmaster of a private school whose board of directors, although publicly hail-fellows-well-met, were not infrequently in disagreement. This was not very serious, since they seemed to be only peripherally interested in the school; but, it was important enough for them not to publically display mutual animosity: they were mostly all neighbors living in the same community.

Their solution was to try to recruit the headmaster (me, as well as my predecessor) as a go-between or intermediary decision-maker with a bias toward their own individual desires, so as to present the fellow with whom they were in conflict with a winning fait-accompli, as it were.

I announced this perception at a board meeting -- being at the time an adherent of the Frankness Rule --, remarking that they should approach each other directly since I was not going to bear the pressure of trying, at the same time, to surreptitiously prosecute and defend every board member’s personal agenda. I suspect this comment substantially reduced, in their eyes, the expected length of my tenure.

Wise action often requires preparation time for careful thought. This helps avoid rash decision we may well end up regretting. In smaller, intimate contexts, social niceties and etiquette enable us to temporize. We may, for example, at a family party meet relatives we would rather not maintain extensive contact with. So, we say, “It’s been nice talking with you again. We should try to get to see each other more often.” But, disregarding The Frankness Rule, we do not say, “O.K. let’s just say some nice words to keep the rest of the family happy. But we’re really out of here. Don’t call.”

Organizations institutionalize barriers to use of The Frankness Rule by setting up structures that cause delays and obscurities in communication. Personnel, e.g. secretaries, public-relations people, lawyers, are hired to formalize and to assist in what would otherwise be just another social strategem.

The last thing President Obama wants to have is an easily publicized, face-to-face conversation with President Angela Merkel about the NSA tapping of her private phones. Just as the last thing you want to have is a frank conversation with your significant other about a past ephemeral, yet very stupid thing he or she has done.

Being a decision-maker is often hard enough, and risky. Openness and speed of reply to one’s actions does not help persuade one to accept the burdens of such a role.

To examine these issues further, see Buffering: Enhancing Moral Hazard in Decision-Making?


Cordially
--- EGR

METI: Here We Are! Come Eat Us! Our Children Are Especially Tasty!

...the fetish to narrowly define the (SETI, Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) has resulted in a view of alien life that is as constricted and ironic as it is unsupportable.-- David Brin, Ph.D. [1]

Forget about freedom, the economy, terrorism, disease, obesity, the state of public schools and bad taste. If those who practice METI (sending Messages to ExtraTerrestrial Civilizations -- a subfield of SETI,) have made a bad bet, then none of our trivial local concerns will mean much. (Imagine the movie, Independence Day [2], with an unhappy ending.)

David Brin comments about the METI advocates (METI’s, for short) :

Serenely confident in a “we know best” attitude, they are embarking upon this path in blithe confidence, unwilling to even discuss their plans in an open forum. A path that might have serious consequences to humanity.

(In other contexts, we might say that METI’s exercise Moral Hazard ).)

If this planet’s unhappy history provides any example, all we can expect from the arrival of technologically advanced, interstellar newcomers is conquest and extinction. Why would anyone on this planet want to take the risk?

Here are some possibilities:

A. METI researchers believe that advanced civilization most likely indicates advanced “morality,” -- read here “altruism;”

B. METI’s are exercising their “inviolable right” of free speech.

C. METI’s hope that by inviting ET’s they will ingratiate themselves with the invaders enough to be spared the general harvesting of our bodies and resources;

D. As first “discoverers,” METI’s will enjoy fame and its blandishments if even only for a short period in the likely not much longer history of the human race.

Let’s return to the issue of altruism (-- most likely a case of pathological altruism). Can we bank on the altruism of a technologically superior civilization? Does the development of refined intellectuality and rational, technological skills naturally produce refined, rational moral development that considers the needs and is tolerant of those weaker and different from the stronger?

Consider the last 100 years of this history of this planet. Consider just exactly who it was that inflicted needless death and destruction upon millions of non-combatant inhabitants around the world. Were those inflictors lacking in refined intellectuality or rational, technological skill?

Clearly, neither physical, intellectual or technological development is any guarantee of “moral development.” Status competition, i.e. honor and one-upmanship, alone -- don't even mention resource scarcity -- produces conflicts, which intellect and science are likely brought in to support. That is unless a happy development in technology generates more wealth, of which it is not cost-effective for oligarchies to try to curtail the sharing.

For a longer article with references examining the relationship of cognitive development to moral development, see Moral Education: Indoctrination vs. Cognitive Development?

Cordially
EGR

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FOOTNOTES

[1] Brin, David (2008) SHOUTING AT THE COSMOS
…Or How SETI has Taken a Worrisome Turn Into Dangerous Territory by Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member David Brin, Ph.D. A very important article.

[2] See Independence Day

Does Public Education Support American Democracy?

updated 8/20/20

…there is a need to redefine democracy, making it consistent with what people are able and willing to do and to know in the complex modern world. Jefferson’s model of “government by consent of the governed” is much more realistic in such a world than is the classical definition of “government by the people.” -- E. E. Schattschneider (1969) The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America>

Dewey’s primary public message was that public schools, in order to prepare their students for life in a democratic society, should replicate that democracy within themselves: the schools, making allowances for student intellectual development, should be democratically run. Throughout his lifetime John Dewey was lionized, honored and seldom listened to by “practical people.” His opponents said aloud what his followers guided their practice with: he has got to be kidding!

In Philadelphia recently, a public school teacher was removed from duty for having provided carfare to high school students so they could participate in a protest over the closing of their school and the transfer of their teachers. The same administrators who were unable to predict a $400,000,000 budget shortfall for the coming year, who awarded contracts in a questionably unofficial manner to persons they favored, apparently ascertained in a very short time that the teacher’s behavior threatened the health and welfare of the students she gave bus tokens to.

Most of the people I went through twelve years of public school with were intelligent enough to dodge being dragooned into service as a student council representative. After all, as Class Representatives, we would be intimidated by our teacher sponsor to “discuss” at length what everyone knew were unimportant things, e.g. what rooms could be used for holiday parties, what color the balloons would be, etc. Certificates at graduation were no recompense for hours of boredom.

What public school students’ experiences with such “democracy” seems to inculcate is, on the one hand, something obvious: there is no “real democracy” in public school.

But what is bizarre is that a second thing manages to be planted in their brains: “real democracy” means “everyone should participate and make important social decisions in order to exercise their rights as citizens.” John Dewey put it that the more people we can interact with, the more democratic our society becomes. This seems to be the classical model that Schattschneider in the epigraph above mentions.

The total population of the United States in July 2009 was 307,006,550 (in 2020, ~330,000,000). When we take into consideration this number along with time, energy, money and opportunity needed for interaction with even a small fraction of Americans, how are we supposed to make such a democracy work? How many people will you be able to discuss any given issue with?

Perhaps Jefferson’s idea is more appropriate. And then we wouldn’t need to feel, in school or out, so hypocritical about making necessary decisions for others; or to feel so irresponsible for allowing others to make the decisions for us. And we would come to understand that, but for their compulsory nature, public schools fit right in with American democracy.

To examine these issues further, see Democracy vs. Efficiency in Public Schooling


Cordially
--- EGR

Teachers: to make things clearer, talk less, much less and, instead, …!

In the course of his or her professional preparation, every teacher has had the experience of having to listen to a long lecture on the evils of lecturing. Lecturing is a high status activity: not only do professors do it almost exclusively; but, generally so do teachers down through middle school.

Why do teachers at all levels talk so much? Isn't a picture "worth a thousand words"? Not only do teachers tend to underutilize visuals in their teaching in the middle and high schools, but university faculty (and students, too) tend to react to the use of visual aids with hardly disguised condescension. Rapid-fire loquaciousness is mistaken for profundity of thought. Lips move and heads bob and understanding remains untested.

We are trapped in antique metaphor. For example, when we understand something, we say that we "see" it. As teachers we chatter away to make things "transparent" to our students. We take joy in a "bright" student, who is a "clear" thinker. But these visual metaphors are misleading, the rubble of ancient philosophies. Something else is needed.

To examine these issues further, see The Mind’s Eye and Pedagogical Practice

Cordially
-- EGR