CRITICISM

Criticism rarely creates more positive influence than the negative. More often, it highlights the obvious shortcomings thereby making the not-so-obvious strengths more subdued. Simple discussions enriched with additional facts from the side of the critic are a more constructive way of evaluating something.

A critic, who knows a few things; just as the one whose work or deed is being criticized, and who has a temperament of appreciating others’ hard work; is a constructive critic; he adds value to one’s efforts. What is good and beneficial in a work or deed should be supported, and, what is of doubtful nature may be left for the users’ assessment giving additional information to help the user judge for himself. A constructive critic, in fact, must try to become an integral part of the process of creation.

Whatever valuable knowledge we possess today is the outcome of the efforts of many complementing and supplementing the earlier knowledge, thereby renewing the entire content. Human beings have not stopped thinking and acting, but, they have got more into the habit of demonstrative one-upmanship. In our efforts to show that we have something of much value to contribute to the world, we grossly undermine the efforts of others, even if we have built our castles on the land developed by the others. When we devalue the efforts of others to establish the value of our efforts, we, in a way, unknowingly create a foreground for devaluing our own.

Man has created much useful knowledge in modern times and circumstances, but, has also destroyed a large part of it because of competition and mutual devaluation. We know of a ‘creative’ dimension of competition and about an ‘ugly’ (hurting) dimension of completion, but, are somewhat ignorant about a ‘self-destructive’ dimension of completion. This has happened because of our lack of realization that we, actually, do not create; we only modify according to the time, space and circumstances. When one modifies he cannot assassinate the character of what has been modified; it has to continue till it is fully imbibed into the train of thoughts, before becoming irrelevant of its own.

PROMOD KUMAR SHARMA

[The writer of this blog is also the author of “Mahatma A Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]