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chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months agoMost people aren’t taught how to deal with criticism and see it as a personal attack, an attempt to discredit them.
A lot of the time that’s what it is though. Accepting criticism at face value takes a lot of trust because the main intention of the person giving it could very well be to assert dominance or persuade people to stop listening to you rather than give you useful information and help you improve. This is why people are afraid of criticism; it has always been used as a way to build social hierarchies, and it goes against our instincts to see it as not being about that.
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Some people definitely use it as such and I do think it became more and more common as the previously mentioned habit of treating accepting criticism as a weakness started being normalized. It’s something worth keeping in mind but preferably within reason. It’s also worth remembering that besides the usual jerks there are people who mean well but are complete trash when it comes to communicating - this is another issue with the lack of proper teaching about how to approach criticism in my opinion.
That said, just because someone tries to belittle you for your mistake or can’t provide proper feedback doesn’t mean the actual criticism is wrong. Sure, you shouldn’t take everything people say as complete truth but rather use it for introspection instead. They might have a point, even if they try to use it against you.
I don’t disagree with your point, humans aren’t always a nice and friendly bunch. I do think however that some people use this kind of thinking to shield themselves from accepting their own shortcomings. I used to be terrified of people criticizing my work/knowledge/actions and would react with anger (in my head and towards myself) for letting myself get to this position. It’s something that can be really hard to overcome.
Again, I don’t want to present my way of thinking as the one true way. I was lucky enough I didn’t have to deal with people trying to put me down for their own benefit (or fun) so my mindset is a bit more… idealistic (?) than if I were bullied as a kid or trampled as a coworker. There is no perfect answer and the best I can do is to try doing what I preach.
I’m also interested in how other people approach this question so I’ll be coming back to reading through this thread when I have some time.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Even if someone has a point, if they are using it as social aggression you have to expect the other person to get their hackles up and dismiss it, and I don’t think that’s even an unreasonable response since how can they trust someone who is attacking them to be giving their honestly considered judgment rather than just making up something that sounds plausible?
I think the solution has to be building trust. Like establishing that you respect someone and aren’t their enemy before offering criticism, and giving people credit for considering ways they could be wrong.
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Of course, building trust is definitely an important part though even that can be misinterpreted as trying to be tricky. But yeah, I agree.
As I said before, I have a bit of an idealistic view on things and try to approach everyone at face value even if their criticism or question might seem antagonistic or a bait. As long as they aren’t obviously trying to start shit I’m willing to start by giving people a naive benefit of a doubt - one that’s very easily lost if things go south but still. That’s just me trying to find a right way to do things for myself though.
I absolutely wouldn’t want to convince people to change their approach to my liking. Everyone has their own threshold of bullshit they’re willing to put up with.