Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#2I feel that people who feedback in a harsh way are often at blame. Harsh feedback is caused by something or someone not living up to your expectations, and lashing out is often caused by not having communicated those expectations upfront.
They also constitute terrible leadership where the only way to get by is tolerating being berated at random. Needless to say it’s widespread in industries such as investment banking and theatre, where fear trumps appreciation in schooling people on their way up.
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#3This is just some guy’s opinion, and it reeks of having started from the rather common conservative everything-used-to-be-better narrative. The exact genealogy is unclear, but it could be a close relative of Aristotle’s famous kids-were-better-when-we-still-hit-them speech.
In my experience, people quickly adapt to any leader’s style. If they tend to start with ad hominem (I. e. Torvalds) it uses any power except to make people hate working for you.
Conversely, a silent voice can be the loudest. Alan Greenspan comes to mind, although it’s a somewhat different context.
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#4This is just some guy’s opinion, and it reeks of having started from the rather common conservative everything-used-to-be-better narrative. The exact genealogy is unclear, but it could be a close relative of Aristotle’s famous kids-were-better-when-we-still-hit-them speech. In my experience, people quickly adapt to any leader’s style. If they tend to start with ad hominem (I. e. Torvalds) it uses any power except to…
Are you alluding to the Socrates statement that is often cited on hacker news?....because if you are, it is not a real quote. It was made up by a young whippersnapper at Cambridge around this time last century.
It is a joke.
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#5It is unfortunate that the editor could not have taught Mr. Enright to make paragraphs of more than two sentences. Does that show the weakness of the approach? The editor might also have taught Mr. Enright to spell "Hardwick" correctly. That might have been more useful than giving him grief for going to lunch.
The problem with citing Edmund Wilson is that Wilson a) did not think his job done when he came up with the title, but rather made a cogent case in the essay, and b) did not focus on Agatha Christie, but wrote about what he saw lacking in mystery novels generally. Reducing this to the headline is the sort of thing that leads young programmers to remember Dijkstra for his zingers, and think of him as an insult comic. Wilson could be caustic enough, but he gave reasons for his criticisms.
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#6This is just some guy’s opinion, and it reeks of having started from the rather common conservative everything-used-to-be-better narrative. The exact genealogy is unclear, but it could be a close relative of Aristotle’s famous kids-were-better-when-we-still-hit-them speech. In my experience, people quickly adapt to any leader’s style. If they tend to start with ad hominem (I. e. Torvalds) it uses any power except to…
Quite. Enright mentions John Simon. I heavily discounted Simon's unfavorable reviews. Many years after I last saw his movie reviews, the only two I remember were favorable ones.
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#7"Nice" is not essential, and can often get in the way of effecting real positive change.
"Respect", however, is absolutely critical. I would not have tolerated working for the editor mentioned in the article -- not because he wasn't nice, but because he wasn't respectful.
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#8This is just some guy’s opinion, and it reeks of having started from the rather common conservative everything-used-to-be-better narrative. The exact genealogy is unclear, but it could be a close relative of Aristotle’s famous kids-were-better-when-we-still-hit-them speech. In my experience, people quickly adapt to any leader’s style. If they tend to start with ad hominem (I. e. Torvalds) it uses any power except to…
I think you are missing the point of the piece. This is an appeal to "everything in moderation". What does conservative even have anything to do with it?
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#9There's a type of personality (who I have basically never been able to get along with) that can only give criticism in this flippant manner. I think maybe they missed some emotional development or something. It's like they're afraid of being sincere.
Re: Essay: Too much 'niceness' is bad for critical thinking
#10There's a type of personality (who I have basically never been able to get along with) that can only give criticism in this flippant manner. I think maybe they missed some emotional development or something. It's like they're afraid of being sincere.
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