Being Critical of other Writer's Work

Since the rally at the end of October held by Jon Stewart in Washington D.C., many people have been questioning their approach to criticizing their fellow citizens regarding politics. Even the host of Countdown on MSNBC has elected to remove one segment off his show, "Worst Person in the World", because of some of the things that were said at that rally. I felt immune since I don't do politics as a rule on these blogs. Still, there was food for thought at that rally.

Then today, I watched the interview of Jon Stewart by Rachel Maddow. Much of what Stewart said was repeated during that interview. The entire interview, by the way, will be available on Dr. Maddow's blog this weekend and I plan on watching it.

So what does any of the above have to do with writing? Actually quite a bit to my mind. The tie in was provided to me by W. Somerset Maugham in the book that I am re-reading, "The Summing Up" that I have mentioned before. Many critics both the ones writers encounter in print, and other forms of the media, and those we see in our daily lives such as friends and relatives can be as mean as those on Fox.

Maugham wrote that critics sometimes write criticism "to compensate themselves for humiliations they have suffered in their early youth. Criticism affords them a means of regaining their self-esteem. Because at school, unable to adapt the self to the standards of that narrow world, they has been kicked and cuffed, they will when grown up cuff and kick in their turn in order to assuage their wounded feelings."

At first, I thought that all of the criticism voiced by Stewart and others about being mean and bad spirited had nothing to do with me. When I said something in print in other places other than these blogs, I thought of myself as clever and my writing as witty. But I was wrong. I was being mean just as much as some of the people on Fox.

I agree that I don't think the folks on MSNBC are as mean spirited and play loose with the facts as those on Fox. What I do as far as a critic is concerned, I might be like Maugham states some critics do and feel that I am righting some of the wrongs that were done to me in years past. It is a fine line between criticism and just plain expression of emotional hurt which has no part in these blogs.

In one job that I had years ago, there was an employee who used to go from one fellow employee to another telling them his troubles both on the job and what was happening at home. He wanted to be taken care of by his fellow employees. He wanted sympathy. Somehow he had grown to expect it. That is not what a good writer does. We use our anger to fuel our exploration of ourselves and others but not to ask our readers to take care our our needs. We also don't use our bully pulpit, should we be be so lucky to have one, to gain vengeance on imaginary foes who for the most part don't exist. To make sure we don't fall into this, it is good to exercise mindfulness, awareness. We are all in this world together.