Although we don't realize it, criticism is one of the most integral tools for reaching our goals. Visualizing the journey is one thing, but the actual proceedings often unfold differently. People will run into obstacles that they didn't foresee. A free donut, a twisted ankle, or even a rough night could potentially stop your progress dead in its tracks. Obstacles that you don't see could be even more damning, however. This is where criticism comes in. Another person's perspective, through criticism, brings to light errors that our own point of view wouldn't have picked up on.
As a writer, I take in each piece of criticism I receive and really chew on it. If I don't, I risk making obvious mistakes. People often forget that writing is not a solitary endeavor. In actuality, a piece of writing passes through several hands. Aside from editing, most writers seek out the opinions of friends and family. Through these perspectives, things like style and organization are finely tuned.
Despite the common association of criticism with writing, evaluation is integral to every field— although it occurs in different forms. For instance, the type of "criticism" used in math is seen as a correction since it's content is objective rather than subjective. The answer is either correct or not. This duality is not present in the criticism of abstract art, however, since its content is purely subjective. Rather, there is a myriad of interpretations, which are equally as correct.
Really, no field of study can function without criticism. Even our interactions with others are governed through criticism, dictated through facial gestures and reactions. For instance, if someone tells a beyond rude joke and the other person is silent and rolls their eyes, they've been given the "criticism" that the joke was not only unfunny, but badly received. So, it is then obvious that every aspect of life is dictated by criticism.
The usage of criticism to sharpen our understanding of things outside of ourselves dates back to the modernist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel when he introduced his usage of the dialectic to reach quality conclusions. By a dialectic, I mean the process where two people with differing ideas about a subject thoughtfully argue to reach the truth and qualify each other's arguments. The dialectical process can be more simply understood as testing a thesis against its antithesis.
Even Sir Isaac Newton, one of the smartest men who walked this earth and the father of modern physics, made it a requirement for scientific studies to be "criticizable" or able to be proven wrong. For instance, evolution is a sustainable scientific theory which could be proven wrong if an animal fossil from one period of prehistory is found in a higher or lower layer in the earth's crust to previously established time period. On the flip side, conspiracy theories are labeled as such since they can't be proven wrong, and any "proof" against them is usually turned around to further fuel the conspiracy.
Today, however, criticism seems to have gained itself a rotten reputation. Lately, people close to me in my life have found criticism to be a pain rather than an asset. Someone, in particular, had even been told that they don't take criticism well, but then told me to write this article when I said they should try. Although it hurts to admit when something has slipped by you or that you are doing something incorrectly, it's important to understand this feedback is to help us— not hinder. The world would be a dark, dull place if everyone smiled and told them they were doing fantastic instead of saying how they really feel.
