Welcome to From Insults To Respect.
Some of my blog posts are designed to help readers improve their skill at providing negative criticism. In them, I present a system of rating the maturity of each incident (see HERE). I then describe an incident or two in which someone provides negative criticism, and then readers are asked to use the rating system to assign a rating. Immediately after doing so, I provide my rating, thereby providing an opportunity for readers to compare their rating with mine (for an example see HERE). Participating in this type of exercise is fun, and helps readers to think more deeply about when not to provide negative criticism, and how best to provide it when it makes sense to do so.
Today I offer readers another opportunity to practice this skill, this time utilizing two examples of different people criticizing President Biden’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Before getting to those examples, I shall describe how the rating system works so readers who have already read my earlier posts will have an opportunity to refresh their memories, and readers who have not will still be able to participate.
The Providing Negative Criticism Rating System
Below you will find preliminary descriptions of how people at five developmental levels of maturity provide negative criticism, that is, criticism that points out what we don’t like about someone’s actions, beliefs, or appearance. Level one is conceptualized as the most immature and uses observations of babies as its starting point. Each successive level is viewed according to this system as more mature.
It is perfectly permissible to disagree about whether or not one level is indeed more mature than another. Regardless of any disagreement, playing along with utilizing the system in these practice sessions still serves to clarify for readers what they personally view as mature and immature ways to deal with these types of incidents.
To utilize this rating system, readers compare an incident of negative criticism with each of the five levels, and then they decide which of the five levels best matches the incident being rated. Then they decide according to their own lights how mature the incident was handled:
- This level requires displaying one or more of the following:
- Cries without stating what the crying is about
- Physically attacks the person being criticized
- Damages property
(Although these three descriptors may not appear to be incidents of providing criticism, in some situations we can see that it is the very beginning of the development of this skill. Let’s say Jill takes baby Bob’s crayon away believing he is done with it. Bob begins to cry and takes a swipe at Jill. She manages, by moving away, to avoid Bob’s swipe. Bob now looks even angrier and crumbles up a piece of paper and flings it on the floor. An observer to this may conclude that Bob, in a sense, is criticizing Jill for taking the crayon.)
2. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:
- The criticizer does not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead expresses displeasure with general words of dislike, glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm. (For example, someone might be making too much noise and the criticizer might turn to the noise maker and glare, or cry out, “Jerk!”)
- Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said.
3. The criticizer clearly states the criticism with enough detail so the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couples it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm.
4. The criticizer states the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance. If the person receiving the criticism becomes defensive or angry, the criticizer empathizes without returning, glares, insults, threats, or shouts.
5. When the criticizer provides criticism, he or she does so in a manner very similar to a level four response, but beforehand, the criticizer considers the person who is the target of the criticism, and the situation that he or she is in. As a result of such considerations, the criticizer may decide to alter the criticism.
Rating Two Incidents of Negative Criticism Directed at President Biden
On August 17, 2021 NPR published an article by Barbara Sprunt titled, “There’s A Bipartisan Backlash To How Biden Handled The Withdrawal From Afghanistan” (see HERE). There we find several quotes from people providing negative criticism of Biden. We’ll be looking at two of them.
The First Incident
In an August 16, 2021 tweet, given shortly after President Biden gave a speech explaining how the withdrawing of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan was going, Rep. Liz Cheney, who has on numerous occasions argued that we should remain in Afghanistan, wrote:
“Biden’s surrender strengthens our terrorist enemies, hands them a massive new caliphate [A government led by a chief Muslim ruler], abandons our allies & ensures a longer, costlier war for years to come.”
Now, if you will, compare Rep. Cheney’s style of criticizing Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. military forces to each of the five levels of maturity to see if one of them best matches her style. After doing so, feel free to rate how she did on a scale of 1 to 5, the higher the number the more mature you think her criticism was. After you do this, compare your rating with mine.
My Rating of the First Incident
I can’t see if Rep. Cheney was crying when she tweeted her criticism, but according to this rating system it doesn’t really matter because she made it clear what her criticism was about. Since she did not physically attack Biden, nor is there any indication that she destroyed any property while she wrote the tweet, there is insufficient reason to say her criticism matches Level 1.
Level 2 begins, “The criticizer does not explain what the offending behavior is. Since Rep. Cheney is pretty clear what she objects to—Biden’s military withdrawal– I think her criticism is a poor match with level 2, so I’ll move on to see if her tweet better matches level 3.
Level 3 states in part, “The criticizer clearly states the criticism with enough detail so the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance.” I think this part of level 3 matches Rep. Cheney’s criticism. That is, she makes it clear that she did not want him to remove the U.S. military forces. If President Biden, as commander in chief of the U.S. military, wanted to accept her advice, it was within his power to do so.
The second part of the level 3 descriptor indicates that to get a 3 rating we would have had to observe that her advice was coupled with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm. I’m not seeing anything in her criticism that matches any of these descriptors. Of course, in a tweet two of the descriptors of level 3–glaring and shouting–can’t be observed, but in this rating system if we don’t observe the behavior we don’t penalize the person by lowering someone’s rating.
Now, I understand that some people looking at level 3 and seeing the descriptor “insult” might think that simply because Rep. Cheney negatively criticized Biden this in itself is an insult. For the purpose of this rating system, that is not the case. She would have had to call Biden some insulting name or directed an insulting gesture at him for one of her acts to count as an attempt to insult him. Therefore, I’ve decided her criticism does not sufficiently match the level 3 description.
How about level 4? Are its descriptors a good match for this incident of negative criticism? I think so. The match is particularly helped by the absence of insults. As for the condition in level 4 that describes how to act if the criticized person becomes defensive, in this incident we are not provided with any evidence that Biden did become defensive, so the condition of defensiveness is irrelevant.
What about level 5. To get that rating, I would have to see some evidence that Rep. Cheney prior to formulating it had considered the person who is the target of the criticism, and the situation that he or she is in. Perhaps she did, but in my opinion, if she had done so, she would not have criticized Biden at all. Here’s why.
Rep. Cheney well knew at the time she provided the criticism Biden had heard each of her arguments about keeping U.S. military forces in Afghanistan numerous times over the course of many years. Given what Biden was dealing with during the interval of time she criticized him, I personally think it was not the proper time to be repeating old arguments. The situation involved Biden having already decided that the U.S. forces are to be withdrawn, the U.S. had one airbase that could be used to get U.S. and allied personnel and equipment out of harm’s way, the base was surrounded by enemies with guns, and there was a terrible risk of suicide bombers killing people. The immediate focus should have been, in my opinion, on carrying out the mission as safely as possible. Rep. Cheney, in my opinion, would have acted in a more mature manner if she realized that there will be plenty of time after the mission is completed to argue over the wisdom of withdrawal. To wait until then would have been a better course of action. She, certainly has a right to express her opinion at any point in time, but I am going to withhold giving her the highest rating of a 5, because her criticism didn’t consider the current situation to my personal satisfaction. Thus, I think she deserves a rating of 4.
The Second Incident
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, on August 16, 2021, which was squarely in the middle of the withdrawal process, called the events unfolding in Afghanistan “the worst foreign policy disaster in decades.” He went on from there to say:
President Biden’s poor judgment produced the worst possible outcome in Afghanistan in only a matter of weeks. He has done long-term damage to America’s credibility and our capabilities. The American people, and especially our troops who have sacrificed so much, deserve more than this catastrophic leadership and empty words.
Now, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with McCarthy, utilizing the rating system, what level best matches his criticism?
My Rating of the Second Incident
I think McCarthy’s criticism best matches level 2 of this rating system. It does so largely because it fails to provide any specifics about what Biden could do differently that would have been an improvement. The criticism is basically McCarthy expressing dislike of what Biden was doing coupled with vague insults (“poor judgment,” “catastrophic leadership”).
My personal rating of this type of criticism is a 1, the lowest possible rating, because McCarthy never acknowledges the actual role that Biden has in this withdrawal process. Biden had simply decided to back the position of the vast majority of Americans that after 20 years it was time to end the war. Once this was decided, it was up to the generals who were actually in Afghanistan, knew best what the situation was there, had the best U.S. training on how to withdraw from a war zone, had ample time to come up with a withdrawal plan, and had the responsibility to implement the plan.
If well before the withdrawal process got underway McCarthy had identified a plan that he had reason to believe would be distinctly better than anything the generals could come up with, that would have been the time for him to begin a process to promote his plan, This would involve advocating that Biden thoroughly review his proposal, and that Biden order his generals to review it. If this had happened and Biden refused, then McCarthy would have had a legitimate reason to criticize Biden, though not when the heated withdrawal process was actually underway. As I see it, McCarthy’s negative criticism, occurring in the midst of the withdrawal process, amounts to his taking unfair, unkind potshots at a political rival.
Negative criticism, it seems to me, should only be provided if it has some potential for helping the target of the criticism improve in some tangible way.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it, a little practice session utilizing the rating system. I hope it has helped to clarify for you how to formulate mature negative criticism, and when to remain silent. By improving these skills, I’m guessing it will improve the respect others have for you, and help you to avoid needlessly creating hard feelings.
Now, not all negative criticism is provided in order to help the target of the criticism improve in some way. For example, sometimes it is done as part of a game called playful teasing. In the arena of politics, from which today’s two examples were selected, candidates might angrily launch criticism at a person because they know their potential voters are angry at that same person. By candidates demonstrating they are angry at the same person, they hope these voters will experience a shared connection with them and this will increase the likelihood of getting more votes come election time. This strategy is a major cause for the awful polarization and incivility in politics. Not all candidates are willing to campaign in this way, believing that our country would be better off if all of us learned to be civil with one another.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
During an early part of my psychological services provider career, I was hired as a school psychologist in Rochester, New York. There, students were regularly referred to me because a teacher or parent had become concerned about how a student was doing at school.
When I met individually with these students, I first introduced myself, and then I’d say something like, “I was asked to meet with you to see if we can figure out how to make school better for you.” Then I’d spend a little time trying to see if we had some common interest, such as some music stars, baseball players, TV shows, etc. By connecting with students in this pleasant way, it lightened up our exchange. Next, I got down more directly to the business at hand, seeking to find out, from the student’s perspective, how school was going.
Early in my tenure in this job, this meant that I would just ask the question, “Say, by the way, how’s school going for you this year?” Typically, I would get just a very brief answer, such as, “OK,” or, “I hate school.” Naturally, I wanted to explore more deeply this issue, so I would clumsily begin to ask followup questions and too often I wouldn’t get much that was helpful. However, in time, I developed a psychological interview that really managed to be insightful in figuring out ways to improve a student’s school experience. So, today I thought I would share it with you, for I think it would be helpful, not only for other school psychologists, but for teachers and parents as well.
Well, there you have it, an outline for a psychological interview that will help to draw out important information regarding a student’s school experience. Why might this be a useful thing to do? I found, when using this approach, that students very much appreciate an adult really taking the time to see how they are doing. Moreover, discussing the results of the interview with people I respect and the parents and the educators working with the student often led to some helpful ideas for improving the student’s school experience
To take one example, I once interviewed a student we will call Bobby. He indicated that this school year was going very bad for him by circling a 1 on that question. On further questioning, Bobby indicated he found school had him sitting way too much, he had no friends, and he enjoyed and thought he was good at playing chess.
Bobby had learned to play chess when he was younger. His older brother had taught him, and they had enjoyed playing against one another, but in recent years his brother preferred playing with some guys his own age. With no one to play with, Bobby would read some books on chess, and he also watched a lot of TV. On the questionnaire, it became clear that he got no exercise other than two times per week when he had his physical education class.
To address the issue of a lack of exercise and that Bobby felt uncomfortable sitting so long at school, he and his whole family began to take an hour walk after supper twice a week, and on the weekend they would take an even longer hike. This added walking each week made it much easier for Bobby to sit for long periods during school hours, and it no doubt is supportive of a healthier lifestyle.
