Criticism is Valuable
Sep. 17th, 2019 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unspeakablehorrorI don't think it's anyone's obligation to try to start a conversation about something they disagree with me on, but I do appreciate when people do that and it tells me that I must be doing something right if someone who's not just trying to troll or steamroll people can be willing to express disagreement directly to me. I don't think I could handle it constantly (which is also why I don't bring up even every significant disagreement I have with others, because it's stressful lol), but that's not currently my experience and I think it is unlikely to be.
I think when people are able to discuss (not debate, there is a difference) their disagreements with each other that that is an opportunity to better understand each other's views. So like when I post a political opinion, it's not because I think it's the last word on that topic or the ultimate assessment, but because I have given it some thought but am interested not only in convincing people of something, but in getting feedback on the idea. And sure, agreement is feedback, and appreciated, but the times where I have had the most opportunity for learning and improvement are when people either also gave me additional information beyond simple agreement or where they expressed a legitimate doubt or concern for something I said. I neither know everything nor think that I do, and I have learned many important things from people from all walks of life. Other people may perceive things I cannot simply because they have lived a different life and had different experiences, and the act of communicating those experiences by its nature is an act of teaching another something about the world. Even trolls can teach us something about the world, it's simply that the positive value of what we learn in that case tends to be overwhelmingly overshadowed by the negative value of dealing with someone who's just trying to rile you up for the sake of it.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you ever have doubts about anything I say, that's a perfectly reasonable response to have. It's also perfectly reasonable to want to communicate those doubts without having to expect the sort of egregrious verbal abuse that seems to be the norm for such cases, and I try very hard not to resort to such behavior (even though I am just an ordinary and sometimes immensely petty human being haha), both for the sake of other people and for my own sake (because as you may know if you've read other things by me, I am very confrontation avoidant).
I think when people are able to discuss (not debate, there is a difference) their disagreements with each other that that is an opportunity to better understand each other's views. So like when I post a political opinion, it's not because I think it's the last word on that topic or the ultimate assessment, but because I have given it some thought but am interested not only in convincing people of something, but in getting feedback on the idea. And sure, agreement is feedback, and appreciated, but the times where I have had the most opportunity for learning and improvement are when people either also gave me additional information beyond simple agreement or where they expressed a legitimate doubt or concern for something I said. I neither know everything nor think that I do, and I have learned many important things from people from all walks of life. Other people may perceive things I cannot simply because they have lived a different life and had different experiences, and the act of communicating those experiences by its nature is an act of teaching another something about the world. Even trolls can teach us something about the world, it's simply that the positive value of what we learn in that case tends to be overwhelmingly overshadowed by the negative value of dealing with someone who's just trying to rile you up for the sake of it.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you ever have doubts about anything I say, that's a perfectly reasonable response to have. It's also perfectly reasonable to want to communicate those doubts without having to expect the sort of egregrious verbal abuse that seems to be the norm for such cases, and I try very hard not to resort to such behavior (even though I am just an ordinary and sometimes immensely petty human being haha), both for the sake of other people and for my own sake (because as you may know if you've read other things by me, I am very confrontation avoidant).