Is it Possible to be critical in a healthy way?

Health is one of those things that is relative. Greek philosophers used the athletes at the gymnasium to make this point. Socrates asked if it would be good for a large athlete to eat the same amount as a small person who is not an athlete, or if the opposite would be appropriate.

The answer is complicated. If a small persons goal is to become larger, then a larger amount of food would be appropriate. If the athlete wishes to maintain their size and ability, larger amounts of food with continued training would be appropriate. The point was to say that what is true is relative and is largely determined by one’s goals for themselves as well as their interpretation of virtue. Or, to put it another way, what is right often depends on what you desire.

St. Augustine wrote about desires acting as an indication as to what we believe is good. The assumption is that most people want what they believe to be good. Even the times that I chose to do something that would make it harder for me to do the things I wanted to do, I was still acting out of a belief that what I wanted in the moment was the most good for myself - maybe even the most necessary.

Because of this, I think of desires in at least two contexts: the general and the particular.

These are some general desires of mine: I want to be a kind parent and partner, I want to live a simplistic and intentional lifestyle, I want my photography work to inspire others to view themselves with lovingly critical eyes and I want to have space in my life to do things that I believe are important.

Specifically, this means that I make certain decisions to support those desires. However, sometimes I’m really tired or in a lot of pain and I might reply harshly to Liz or the kids when they’re talking to me. Sometimes, my really specific desires override those general ones for my life. The point is, I define what is right for me based off of what I want for myself, and reminding myself of my intentions - my general desires - is a skill that anyone can develop.

There might be some arguments that point to universal ways of living that would say that it is better to be kind than it is to be mean, or it is better to give than it is to be selfish. This might be true, but we have to believe this in order for it to matter to us in the first place. It would be nice and neat if we could say there is one right way to live and all other ways are degrees of wrong, but it’s just not that simple. What is right and true is relative to our desires as well as our commitments to our desires.

The way in which we commit to our desires is through belief. How much we believe in the possibility or potential of our desires is what gives them life.

What desires are you committing to? Are they taking you further from your intentions for yourself, or are they aligning with your intentions for yourself?

What is Criticism and Does it Have Anything to do with Critical Theory?

I’ve been told I’m too critical for most of my life. Mostly by religious leaders in when I would point out inconsistencies in their doctrine.

Criticism is generally considered to be bad or negative, and those who are critical are often said to possess a negative personal attribute or characteristic.

There’s something to be said of that, and when I hear criticism for the sake of complaining or “venting,” I’m often left wondering what the criticism actually was.

To me, a criticism exists at the point that our specific desires - you know, the day-to-day ones that cause us to make decisions - start to take us away from our general desires. Everything we do is habit, so if my desire is to be a kinder person, but every chance I get I’m unkind, I’ll build a habit of unkindness.

Where this meets philosophical critical theory is where we are able to abstract actual, or near actual universal truths by which we can be guided. What we abstract from our own experiences as well as from the experiences of others via their testimony about their lives can help us to understand ourselves within a greater context - it helps to take us out of our own minds and places us within the interconnected web of all existence.

Side note: if we introduce some interpretations of quantum mechanics into this discussion, it can get really interesting in terms of the physical interconnected nature of the universe.

The more we begin to understand this, the more we begin to realize that the diversity of desires and the diversity of interpretations of what is right is what makes life so wonderful and is what makes humanity so beautiful. If we were all the same, we’d all think the same, make the same things and life would be boring. Sure, there might be less hate, but there would also be less art, less culture, less connection and less depth to the experiences of beauty in our life.

The ultimate outcome of this self reflection and self-criticism is one that allows us to be more empathetic to the experiences of others and can lead us to think about our relationship to others in terms of Justice.

What if being self-critical can lead to a more Just society?

I believe that it is better to live what many philosophers refer to as the examined life.

Reality exists in two ways…. or, billions of ways, which puts it into flux.

The first way that reality exists is outside of observation - it’s just there. (Note: if one believes in a divine being or mind, then all of reality might always have an observer).

Moons orbit planets that are spinning around stars that are circling black holes while planets - at least one planet anyway - produce a plethora of growth, some of which is conscious and able to recognize itself.

So, there’s all that that we can imagine from a universal or god’s perspective.

The second way that reality exists is in our minds. There’s all of the conscious interpreting minds in and of that reality. For the sake of discussion, let’s limit this even more to human minds and human interpretations since those are the ones we’re most familiar with. We each construct a reality, so for ever person, there exists a slightly different reality - one from which they are the observer.

When we are going about our lives and we are doing what we believe to be right, or good, or acceptable at the very least it can create an actual dissonance when our views of what are right and good are challenged. Reality is in flux when we speak of it in the second, more personal, way.

When I was younger I made a joke that I thought was really funny. However, when someone pointed out to me that the joke was only funny at the expense of someone else’s culture and that I was being racist in telling that joke, the reality that I thought was so solid, set and unchangeable instantly went into flux. What I defined as acceptable, someone else defined as unacceptable.

Christians use a term repentance that I quite like it in this context. When I was told that I was being racist with my jokes, the choice that I was faced with was to either defend my current version of reality that would allow such nonsense, or I could allow my interpretation of reality to be adjusted by the convictions of someone else. My reality went from concrete to soft sand. My reality went into flux.

The story of who I was began to change and I had to make a choice to either repent and revise my beliefs about reality, or to stick to them and defend a version of myself that I didn’t want to be and only existed because I had been ignorant to certain truths up until that point. Then, illumination begins to come: I started to realize all of the allowances for racist behavior from those I grew up with and even learned from at church. I remembered certain events from when I was really young of being singled out and attacked because of my race. I began to see how the systems that I grew up in support racism as an acceptable and productive view, which ultimately brought me to an even larger decision: to be part of the problem, or to be part of the solution.

Healthy self-criticism looks more like reflecting on your own experiences in light of the testimony of others. Healthy self-criticism thrives in a culture of clear communication made up of those who are willing to be wrong and care more about general equity and Justice than they do about being right about what they currently believe.

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