The Perils of Criticism

Everybody loves to criticize. From the inconsequential to the portentous, everyone has an opinion just waiting to be expressed. And it is generally to point out things that are wrong and need fixing. Most of us start conversations with bemoaning the weather – about which of course we can do nothing—and progress to lamenting the traffic jams, the smog, the difficulty of finding reliable servants and, of course, these “ damned corrupt politicians”. These criticisms are good conversation starters and help to oil the normal cocktail party discourses with no harm being done. The correct response at these times hence is to pitch in your pet peeves too into the conversation.

But there are other criticisms, which, especially when they proffer suggestions for improvement, have the possibility of either enlightenment or embarrassment. Once I was late for a party and launched into a bitter critique of the transport system, the lack of adequate flyovers and managerial incompetence little realizing that one of the people in the party was a transport expert and on the Delhi Urban Arts Commission responsible for setting precisely these things right. During the next hour, he calmly took me through all that had been done, the problems they faced with the politicians and their plans to solve the issues in the future. It was an educative hour and the next time somebody complained about the traffic snarls, at least I had learnt enough to keep my mouth shut. On another occasion, having just finished a book on our neighboring countries, I lit into the author for its pedantic, pompous and generally uninformative piece and suggested that it could have provided new information and some background on the key personalities. In short the covers of this book were too far apart for what it contained. While the author was not fortunately there, another present took serious umbrage at my swipe and proceeded to explain the restrictions and constriction members of this civil service labored under in writing pieces for the common man. “ Those in the know”, he said, “ would have been able to read between the lines and understood the points being made”. Clearly not being a member of the cognoscenti, it was implied, I had missed the point and so had forfeited my rights to criticize. I demurred saying that a book was for everybody and one should not have to come to it with a specific background or need for a higher degree. Later I realized that he had taken the criticism personally as he too was an author who wrote on similar subjects and my criticism of a specific piece was seen as a denigration of the entire genre including his writing which I had not till then read. So a well-meaning criticism of a simple mole can sometimes be misinterpreted as condemnation of the entire body leading to embarrassment all around. My wife too fell into this trap when she criticized the layout and décor of a hotel room we had recently stayed in. Our hostess, who worked for this hotel chain but was not responsible for either the design failure or the art décor, was most offended and launched into a vigorous defense of the artistic superiority of their entire hotel chains art acquisitions. What was meant as an innocent criticism of a specific hotel room with a mild suggestion for improvement quickly became a personalized issue of artistic import covering the entire hotel industry. The response at these times for the critic is simple—quickly change the subject.

Then there are the professional critics who make their living running down eating establishments, bars or the latest books. In the past, the response to these fulminations of Sunday columnists was generally a good rant over the breakfast table. Sometimes the anger could turn into a furious letter to the editor, which may or may not be published. But now times have changed and these critics can be criticized in turn. Since most newspapers now are being carried on the internet, so are the critics columns with a space for responding with your own comments for all to see. Nowadays the most interesting part of these columns are the responses from angry readers giving the critic a taste of his own medicine. You can of course also write your own blog—as this writer is now doing—to vent your own views on the wrongheaded analysis of the weekly pundits on the Sunday papers. But then the critics may not read your criticism!

So while all of us have the right to criticize, and do we exercise it in spades, we may like to remember Disraeli who said “It is much easier to be critical than to be correct” or that “most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood”.

Of course there is another approach that one might follow, as suggested by Eleanor Roosevelt- “ Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle”. If you can find a candle!