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this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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The first step to correction is understanding there is a problem in the first place. This is quite constructive, it may just not feel like it is because it's framed combatively.
You're doing it wrong is the phrase that lets teachers teach at one of the most basic levels.
The public is essentially a self teaching teacher, so this is just the process of public correction happening. It may look/feel like public shaming, and it may be if they're going too far, but that is the mechanism that I think is playing out here.
Does that framing make it any more palatable to you or does it still seem unnecessarily disrespectful?
It's probably just a definition thing.
To me, constructive criticism means that the criticism doesn't just point out failure, but that it then also shows how to correct that failure.
By itself, "you're doing it wrong" is just destructive: it takes something apart, it destroys it. Without a subsequent "and here's how you would do it right," it doesn't become constructive, it doesn't help in putting things back together in the correct way.
Sure, as a first step, "you're doing it wrong" is completely justified when something is actually wrong.
But without the second step - the constructive part - it just doesn't constitute constructive criticism. By itself, it's just criticism.
Ah I get that, like the frustration of a sociological paper pointing out a societal issue but offering no steps on how to solve it due to fixes being out of scope (utterly infuriating lol).
I still think the criticism is valid, but I do think I agree in that the criticism could be more constructive... But I still think laying the foundation of the argument, so to speak, is still constructive even though it may not go as far as one may need for it to cross the threshold back into polite...
I am still convinced this is a knee jerk feeling issue more than anything truly being amiss, but I have been wrong before. What do you think?
I agree it probably is a definitions thing, I'm very pedantic sometimes and it feels like my definition of constructive is much more optimistic/wider/encompassing than yours. That doesn't mean that my definition is right or that your position is wrong though, that's just what I think is going on here.