FutureChurch

Does criticising someone mean you don't like them? I grew up with this belief - that if I said something negative about someone (or their ideas or practice) it meant I didn't like them. I've often seen this with other South Africans: that (mostly) criticism is something that only happens behind someone's back and it usually equates to not liking the person either.

The gift of Americans to me is this: it's ok to criticise someone, to do it to their face and for that not to affect the relationship.

I first saw this a year before I started studying at Baptist Theological College in Joburg. There was a visiting speaker for the week (and BTC let me sit in): Michael Holt (and his apprentice Nathan Smith) from Reach Out Ministries in the States (I subsequently considered apprenticing with Michael for a year and also spent a weekend with him in his home in Asheville, North Carolina). Michael is a gifted speaker and was guiding us through a book, "How to speak to youth (and keep them awake at the same time)" by Ken Davis.

After Michael had trained us in the principles of public speaking, each of the students had to present a 5-minute talk to the rest of us. Once the talk was given, we the audience had to do something which was culturally foreign to us - and was, to be honest, uncomfortable.

We had to critique the talk...while the speaker was still in the room (!!!!!).

Michael let us through this task brilliantly - and it was a marvellous growing experience for everyone, not just people who received the critique, but also those giving it. It was there that I learnt that critique is not just saying negative things, but also affirming something - and that it's possible to do this in a good spirit, both in giving and receiving, so that both people learn something.

Thank you Michael! I'm not sure where us South Africans adopted the idea that if you like someone you need to agree with everything they say, or that if you don't agree with what someone says you don't like them. Or even that if someone doesn't agree with you, that means your future interactions with them will be awkward and one person will constantly be thinking, "But they criticised me!" (Perhaps that's why many South Africans, even today, are suspicious of "the other" and keep to their own belief/cultural/religious groups).

I bring this up because someone whom I really hope to meet (and who, I understand, is a regular reader of this blog), Ken Ironside, commented on my recent post on deconstruction (The usual misunderstanding of postmodernism and deconstruction) asking what the post does to actually help change someone's mind. I replied that it didn't - there's more to come - and he apologised for making his first interaction with me critical.

Now, I think Ken is being nice (thanks Ken!), because no apology was necessary. It's been a good thing for me to think about because I'm considering if there's a cultural norm for South Africans which is an unhealthy approach to critism: that it's bad to be criticised, that we can't learn from people who have different ideas or practices from us, and that the act of criticism damages the relationship.

This is where we can learn from Australians, who can passionately hold different views to each other and really climb in to a debate, but can remain friends afterwards.

I've come to learn this: feedback is great! I was grateful for Ken's first comment because it does what comment feedback on blogs is supposed to do: let the author know what's good and what's missing. So I'm going to continue my series on deconstruction, explaining more about what it is and isn't.

And as other people in South Africa take - and give - criticism, I hope we can all learn more about being on both sides of that. Criticism, like deconstruction, isn't a merely negative thing, and if given properly can really help the person being criticised grow. And hopefully, at the end of the day, they can sit down and have a drink together :)

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