Quote:
Originally Posted by Necromancer
if you dont have anything good to say about another person. It's usually better to just say nothing at all.
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I know I'm commenting to this out of context with what you were replying to, but I saw it and I wanted to posit the following:
While it may be admirable (and less of a hassle) to refrain from insulting someone based on a personal belief, how far does such a saying extend in terms of applicable criticism that ultimately serves the very important purpose of showing others that their perspectives are not the end-all of understanding, but that other people do think differently, regardless of who is actually correct?
Are we classifying "good" as an ego placation, or as a tactic employed by which an opposing opinion is formulated so that it is received well without losing its message?
I think there's a pretty important difference in the two, and a lot of people confuse "saying something good" with "saying something that the other person will agree with". And in that case, I think communication itself is being rendered useless as a function of the exchange of different ideas between individuals.
If we are only going to submit opinions that coincide with those that we come across, humanity may as well be one person in a series of mirrors.