I never cease to be amazed by Carnegie’s uncanny understanding of human nature. Clear evidence of this is to be found in the very first chapter – “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive” - where he explores the counterproductive logic of harsh criticism.
To drive this point home, he uses a number of well-known cases, at least to the average 1950s contemporary, when the book was written, of widely condemned behaviour by a number of people. This includes a notorious and murderous bandit called “Two Gun” Crowley who would “kill at the drop of a feather”, the infamous gang leader of yore Al Capone and a shamelessly corrupt politician Elk Hill, among others.
What is astounding to me is not that there are people who do horrible things out there like Crowley, Elk Fall, Al Capone and, I’m sure, many of our own heartfelt examples, but that their misdemeanours are obvious to everyone else but themselves!
Carnegie quotes Warden Lawes of the Sing Sing prison who observes:
“Few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can’t tell you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their anti-social acts even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining that they should never have been imprisoned at all”
What sociopaths! We appropriately bewail. Yet scripture seems to make the shocking suggestion that we are all cut from the same cloth.
As Jeremiah rhetorically inquires, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?"[i] And that seems to exclude none of those who possess one.
Clearly the prime victim of the heart's deceitfulness is ironically ourselves. Deceivers are usually the first to be deceived by their deceptions. It was George Costanza, one of Seinfeld’s inimitable characters, who once let us in on the deep secrets of the dark art of lying captured in this absurd yet revealing statement: “It’s not a lie if you believe it“.
So it seems, from Carnegie's examples and some very high profile contemporary examples of our own times, the heinousness of the faults has no ameliorating bearing on the powers of the heart to deceive. Instead, to the contrary, the greater or more obvious the sins, the greater the summoned powers of deception.
This highlights the disturbing reality that our earthly sojourn is endlessly staged before the ubiquitous spectre of self-deception. Meaning that many of us are staggering obliviously towards the abyss, which is where self-deception leads. And the ominous thing about it is that its host is usually the last to know about it.
Carnegie's recommended and counterintuitive response is where his genius resides. Instead of bludgeoning the errant into their senses by criticizing, complaining, threatening and condemning, as we are inclined to do despite the pitiful evidence of success we can show for that approach, he advises pausing and considering not merely the futility of that course of action but its far-reaching potential destructiveness.
He argues: "if you want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism - no matter how certain we are that it is justified".
There is a cautionary here for both the fault-finder and the faulted one, roles that we constantly play interchangeably, most of the time simultaneously. Precisely as we are usually in no greater danger of blindness to our own faults than when we are preoccupied with those of others.
Perhaps this is why the Lord Jesus warned:
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.[ii]
It seems the critic must surrender or at least blunt his weapons whilst the faulted ones, that is all of us, must contemplate the difficult truth that we are potentially walking about with damning faults that are obvious to everyone else but ourselves.
[i] Jeremiah 17:9
[ii] Matthew 7:3-5
Iqaqa aliziva kunuka. That is a Xhosa idiom/proverb which says that, as far as the skunk is concerned, it smells perfectly fine.
ReplyDeleteCriticism, it seems, can be constructive or destructive... I am not sure how one differentiates one from the other. Perhaps it depends on the relation that exists between the two, or perhaps it depends on the level of emotional maturity in the recipient, perhaps still it may depend on the manner (wording, timing and context) of delivery by the critic.
There are times also where a person may resist the criticism at the time of receiving it, but later come to reconsider and actually make changes to how they think and do things.
At the same time, how does one differentiate between correction and criticism?
There is a school of thought that says that we should encourage and affirm that which we want to see more of and ignore that which we would otherwise criticize. I. This way, the intention is that we feed (by affirmation) that which we see as good and so starve to the point of atrophy that which we would see discontinued in the other. That is a topic for another day especially when we consider that we ourselves are blind to our own faults... We might just be the blind trying to lead the blind.
I like the points you make and I agree with all of them. I also like the masterful way forward offered by the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians:
ReplyDelete"Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ."
So, it seems hearing the truth, even difficult truths, about our many blinds spots is indispensable for our growth. This again highlights the essentiality of community to the human experience. But the critical caveat according to this scripture is that it must be done in love, as you rightly suggest. My experience is that this can make an eternity of difference and I'm sure all of us can attest to this.
Naturally, I cannot think of a better portrayal of this balance than this episode in the ministry of Jesus. Notice that both Jesus and the Pharisees speak the truth but the difference between how and why it is spoken cannot be more chasmic:
"But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”