Constructive Criticism

People give constructive criticism and advice to be helpful.  Surely that’s not a bad thing.  But even good intentions aren’t enough to ensure that constructive criticism will be helpful.  There are some people who just don’t appreciate advice as much as others.  I mean, I guess I am one of those people.

The thing was, if you just plainly give advice, it’s likely that it will seem as though you’re making a lot of assumptions.  Assumptions that can be seen as insulting.  Assumptions such as: the person you are advising has never considered what you are saying before, or that you are completely right, or that the other person is completely wrong.

For example, maybe you say something like, “In that situation, you should have done such and such.”  Something like that is often said assuming that the person is unaware of the fact.  And then, if you say it with no doubt at all, you’re essentially saying that what you recommend is a better choice than what was done in the situation, for sure, for certain, no doubt.  What you are recommending should have been done.  Which, depending on the circumstances, can be true.  Maybe you’re playing a game, and, under the assumption that you want to get the highest score, you should have taken a different option, because it gives you the most points.  But, it very well might not be true in many cases.  Can it be proven that it is true?

So I guess the best way to avoid this would be to be overly formal and indirect, adding in a lot of unnecessary uncertainty, saying something like, “I don't know if you already thought of this before or not, but, in that situation, I think it might have been better to do such and such.”  Which is one pointless way to be unreasonably polite.

And then there’s often an, I don’t know what to call it, an expectation of perfection?  Like when people watch (American) football and say, “Why’d they run the ball?  They should have done such and such pass play and they would’ve scored.”  Or like when people comment on Mario Kart world records saying what was bad and should be improved.  First of all, the best are the best for some reason, and second of all, people aren’t perfect.  I mean, I expect a whole lot of myself, but I don’t even expect myself to be perfect, and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to be either.

Of course, it can easily go the other way as well.  Like, you thought you considered all the options, you thought you knew what was best, but you didn’t.  And someone could give you advice and have all those assumptions be accurate, even though you might not believe that they’re true.

Because you know, if you’re going to tell people to consider that they might be making wrong assumptions when they give advice, well, you ought to consider that they might be right.