"you know he's so rude. he bluntly refused......"
" oh what do you think about her? I hate the shades she puts on. They look so low class"
these excerpts come from our daily conversations. we love to indulge in humiliation and back biting....
I have often thought why we do that. and after lots of deliberation i feel there are two main reasons:
the first is that our weaknesses compel us to point the finger at someone else so that the torch light doesn't fall on us. For instance, we might be hiding something from our friend, and just to keep her attention away from that, we end up criticizing some third person...
the second one is that we have become so tuned to be negative, so egoistic that we start underestimating others. we create such an honorable image of ourselves in our mind that whenever we see someone outshining us we cannot bear that and our insecurities culminate into utmost disrespect for others.
one thing that i realize is that YOU CAN WIN THE TRUST OF OTHERS BY PRAISING EVERYONE AROUND YOU BUT YOU WILL GAIN ONLY HATRED IF U CRITICIZE OTHERS
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7 months ago
8 comments:
Mam its a real fact.Even i experienced the same thing in my life.I now trying to praise others.Hope i will win several hearts.
I wonder if there is something like 'healthy' bitching! Is there some benefit in saying something bad about someone and get the negative pressure off one's chest? Oftentimes, we have a sense of having been wronged, and nurse bitterness about someone without giving it any outlet! The negativity keeps getting internalized, and affects our mood, our activities and our association with other people as well!! So, without subtracting anything from the benefit of focusing on the positive, is there some silver lining to catharsis: to not keeping things bottled up inside, and airing things out in front of friends? Another interesting possibility that it might open up is a friend might view and consider our bitchy comment with enough generosity, and point out new perspectives that might show us how mistaken or narrow-minded or biased we are! Either way we end up being better human beings! Any comments?
just one issue
if we get into the habit of 'backbiting', are we feeding our ego to defame others in order to prove how nice we are.....
Granted, backbiting might be a sop to our ego in an attempt to prove someone to be bad or wrong or incompetent or gauche...
a) is backbiting the same as bitching?
b) where does one draw the line between bitching and being honest, frank and straightforward?
c) when we bitch about someone else, does it really prove that we are nice? Even to ourselves, are we able to establish that we are nice? Don't most people who bitch KNOW that they are indulging in something bad, undesirable, and petty?
d) can we differentiate between the trivial, frivolous bitchy and the downright nasty, evil? :-)
Recently there was an article in The Times (Sunday I think) where the 'virtue' of bitching was extolled no end, and considered to be a new lifestyle attribute of the young and fearless generation of today that loves to shoot from the hip and is not scared of calling a spade a spade!! The older generation would of course like to be totally well-behaved and nice, and avoid unpleasantness at any cost! Does that mean you are just a trifle old fashioned?!! :-)
my Gosh
hats off to u Sir
I won't categorize backbiting as trendy for the simple reason that 'calling a spade a spade' actually implies having the courage to speak the truth. n if a person is do intrepid he'll surely not indulge in criticizing others...
Oh wow! Was that a backhanded one, Nancy?!! Now that you are hatless (after the hats are doffed I gather!), let me be fearless and indulge your persistence!
Can there be constructive criticism? Something that strives to point out mistakes, and in turn makes us better people? Honestly... :-)
Further, are we making the collective error of bundling the whole 'unjustified and unnecessary' aspect with this whole exercise of criticism? Consequently, in a subliminal way, we are convinced that if something negative is being uttered by someone, it is useless, not true, not genuine, not required, and intended to humiliate rather than to improve!
The critics criticize. It is their profession. They guide standards to an ever higher degree. They educate the uninitiated with more specialized knowledge about how good or bad a creative work might be. The critics critique. They take things threadbare. They improve our understanding of things.
Literary criticism is a subject actually taught at the post graduate level. There are art critics, movie critics and food critics. We rely on their judgment to distinguish the exalted from the mundane. Yes, we, the uninitiated, also trust our hearts too in pledging loyalties! That too is human!
So, in short, are we just trivializing criticism?
Having said that, let me not make the point of departure permanent and return to bitching! hahahahaha
At the cost of sounding irreverent, aren't those that bitch more interesting people, better observers, than those 'nice' people who focus on the positive and churn out gentle words of encouragement at the slightest pretext, and who totally run the risk of being labeled as boring?
Listen, if I am lost, please do lead me up the garden path!! :-) hahahaha
That calls for celebration... because together we have somehow managed to unearth and deliberate on almost every aspect of "Bitching", "Backbiting" and "Criticism". I am extremely thankful to you for showing me the various angles of these concepts and I am sure you still have a lot to add on...
I really won't counter you on the issue of the existence or importance of critics. I was talking about people other than professional critics who indulge in criticism not to better the standards, but to prove how good they themselves are..
And as I remarked, you have actually gone a step ahead and brought forth another aspect of the issue
Great job.. Keep going...
Ma'am, the last line you wrote ,in my view, is very true in the whole world. Really if you praise anyone he/she may remember you but if you criticize anyone if will not forget.
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