People are getting funnier by the day. Honestly, any day now people will stop telling jokes to each other and just describe how their day went and others will crack up laughing.
I could be wrong but I guess this is directed at me. No names and very vague, but let`s face it…I fit the description to the T. Or N. Or whatever.
Faculty is a funny place. You get all kinds of people wanting to be all kinds of things, carrying with them images of success and triumph. Idealists. The flowers. Who walk around with their flower-heads raised up high but as soon as wind hits them they bow and break. And then they lie on the ground, crying “Woe is me!” It`s funny how people ignore the criticisms, not wanting to learn anything from them and always making an excuse for their own actions. No matter how silly or unjustifed they might be.
Another site I would like to submit into evidence and that is one of the famous Rozina blogs. Pay attention to the comment written by Pavle in which I am named heartless and plain cruel.
The question that is posing is whether or not should people be reminded of their own mistakes? Should an opinion clash with another opinion? Or should all opinions be equally respected, no matter the quality of them? And should everybody just let everything fly and not offer an ounce of critical thought?
It seems to me that the phenomenon is a typical Slovene characteristic. We always hated the ones that offered new point of views and constructive criticism. Always. We are the sheep. We bee with the others and when people call us sheep we are offended and make up thousand of reasons why we are like that and why is that good.
Keeping my mouth shut was never one of my traits. I was always the mouth of the group. At one point I feared that is the sole reason people are avoiding me and looking at me strangely. I felt that sheep is the way to be and I tried to demean myself, trying to keep flying under the radar and not stand out. I believe this is what you call the tyranny of majority. Good ole Alexis.
The thing that currently bothers me the most is that some of my classmates show no spine. No spine whatsoever. Expressing your own opinion is like running them over with a steam roller. They close up like a sea-clam and just mutter under their breath. Victimising themselves. Which again takes them on a negative curve, bringing them even lower. And instead of learning something new (like I usually do when someone explains something to me), they change focus through victimisation and demonize the constructive criticism, thinking everybody are out to get them.
Does this mean that I will stop correcting their errors, making constructive criticism and showing them that eventhough their mommies told them they are gods?
Hell no. Let the sissies burn.
Well, I personally have always been a staunch opponent of critical thought. It is unpleasant, uncomfortable, and nothing good ever comes of it. I never saw any point in clashing my opinions against those of other people; my opinions are always entirely dogmatic in nature, and therefore cannot be altered or changed through debate; at the same time, this means that I don’t have any arguments with which I could change the opinions of others. To pontificate is far more pleasant than to argue, and to ignore others is far more comfortable than to engage them in debate.
I am also a big fan of the proverb: don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It doesn’t work and it annoys the pig.
Or the opposite but equally suitable perspective: don’t try to mud-wrestle a pig. You are going to lose and the pig enjoys it way too much.
Both proverbs illustrate why I consider things such as debate, criticism, arguing, etc. to be largely worthless and pointless.
Besides, I think that feeling good is much more important than being right. Thus it is utter boorishness to correct and criticise others in cases when you see that it is making them uncomfortable.
As for being sheep, I think there is something to be said for that olden principle of treating others as you would like them to treat you. And who in their right mind would like to be annoyed by the petty and pointless criticism of other people? What looks like sheep instincts to you may in reality be just an expression of that blessed and benevolent spirit of cooperation and tolerance without which any kind of society more humane than a pack of wolves would be impossible to sustain.
As for your comment which caused people to call you heartless and cruel: I’m not sure about heartless and cruel, but tactless and foolhardy it certainly is. What may look like constructive criticism to you may well feel like impertinent, pointless, useless, petty nagging to other people. You may think you are offering good advice, but others may think you are a self-important prick trying to appear superior to others due to an obscure and largely unimportant skill. Even if the author of that post did take efforts to improve his or her punctuation skills, this wouldn’t really make the blog any better — the contents matter far more than punctuation, and the punctuation wasn’t so bad as to make it difficult to understand the contents. Thus your criticism wasn’t particularly constructive in that case. And the way it was expressed was no less than boorish. Perhaps if you had said the same thing in a more civil way, it might not have been taken in such a bad light. Indeed I have more than half a mind to start purposedly littering my comments on this blog with random spelling and punctuation errors, just to counter this lamentable spirit of pointless punctuational pedantry. 🙂
We disagree on the matter. I believe in the way of thinking planted by John Dewey. I believe people are basically good and smart and they only need a gentle shove now and then to put them on the “right” track. I never used my criticism to expose errors of other and to make a laughing stock out of them. And I think it`s a matter of zeitgeist that people respond so poorly to good-natured criticism.
Tolerance is not the same as being a sheep. This is a common misconception, where people think that just cause I am saying something to oppose them, I am being inconsiderate and “evil”. And if we develop this further, just cause nobody says anything, people think that they are without mistakes. I believe the title of the story is called “Cesarjeva nova oblačila”.
I always found debating and exchanging ideas a fruitful deed. Mind you, not every conversation is a debate and yes, I often found people so closed up in their own world that not even a power-drill could get through. Alhough the results were not visible that very instant, something stuck inside of me, a new piece of the puzzle that was obtained through the debate. Learning through exchange. The best way there is.
As for Arko`s comment…she had it coming. You cannot insult someone that offers an advice and my first comment was nothing more and nothing less. Why sugar-coated it? It only makes things sticky and messy and people often do not get it. Saying it directly and clearly is a way better option although I agree tends to get misinterpreted as something bad. But that is their fault, not mine. The purpose is to learn and teach. Not to insult and bitch. I am not John Lippmann.
Ej Domen, si gledal mogoče zadnjo oddajo Preverjeno? Jaz sem jo zamudila, ampak sem videla neke reference na Kitty Bonsai stran. Vsi so vedno hudo zgroženi nad to stranjo, nihče pa ne ve, da so jo kot šalo gor postavili avtroji rotten.com. Prav rada bi vedela, če je Arkova prilezla do tega ali ne.
hehe. nisem gledal, ampak glede na splošno poznavanje interneta s strani slovenske strokovne javnosti bi rekel da ne. jebiga, daleč je slovenija.
Ampak ali si prepričana, da so jo postavili avtorji rotten.coma? Kolikor je meni znano, so avtorji bonsaikittena v resnici drugi ljudje — neki študentje z MITa, če se ne motim — ki pa so potem, ko so jih brcnili s prvotnega strežnika, navsezadnje našli zatočišče na rottenovem strežniku, ker jim nihče drug ni hotel gostiti strani.
Je pa silno zabavno, kako se vsi z velikim veseljem zgražajo nad tisto stranjo, prav nihče pa ne pomisli, da je zadeva dovolj bizarna, da je najbrž ne kaže jemati resno.
cookie, glede tvojega deljenja nasvetov pa sem še vedno mnenja, da bi jih ljudje pogosto lažje prenašali, če bi jih povedal na prijaznejši in manj neposreden način. S tem bi lažje prepričal ljudi, da je tvoja kritika dobronamerna in konstruktivna.
Očiten namig, da je stran bogus je tud to, da nikjer ni cenikov teh kvazi bonsai mačk, niti navodil za naročanje. Slab biznis 🙂
I’m torn. Although leaning a bit to the idealistic side, Ill-advised is still my idol.
And Cookman, damn, your comments give me so much joy… I’m torn, nana, nanana, na na…