These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 6: Criticizing.

Criticizing Challenges

• The challenge of renewal does not lie only in criticism in addressing a topic that no one has touched on before. It’s also in presenting what was said before from different approaches in originality.

• One of the most prominent skills in criticism is to convince the person you criticize to accept your point of view, even when it is harsh. The skill lies not only in a polite way of saying but mainly in the ingenuity of the content of the criticism in terms of its persuasiveness.

• No matter how confident you are in the depth of a relationship between you and someone you like to criticize on a personal level, you must wait for the most appropriate time to criticize. If you see that the person knows exactly what they must do, then there is no need to criticize. The issue is not just a discharge of responsibility by performing a moral duty toward a person to whom you are close. Your moral duty may sometimes lie in your silence and monitoring while you are next to the person so you can provide assistance in another way, beyond criticism, that the person may need later.

• After you repeatedly criticize a person close to you, and that person then falls into the same predicament, it does not make sense to just criticize them again as a reminder, rebuke, or reprimand. It might be more appropriate to listen to the person carefully so that you understand the nature of the problem. Then you can criticize specifically so the person can avoid falling into the same predicament.

• It’s beneficial to say the same thing to people every time and influence them, but that is evidence of being a preacher more than a critic.

• The critic’s challenge in front of a creative work does not lie in monitoring all its positives and negatives according to what they see but rather in presenting what they deem worthy of commenting, even if it is a single point, from entries that have not been touched before.

• Art critics get into a dilemma when their works are limited to commenting on artwork by creative artists in any field. Creative critics open new horizons of creativity for artists through inspiring art theories; they are not satisfied with waiting for artists’ works to comment on.

• The challenge in any process of criticism lies not only in the way the criticism of the idea is presented but also—and perhaps to a greater extent—whether to respond with acceptance or opposition to other relevant critical opinions.

• The number of supporters is a measure of the critic’s influence, but the value of the original criticism may sometimes be evident by the number of opponents. Moreover, the recognition of the genuine criticism may be delayed for a long time until its value is realized.

• Criticism of criticism is one of the most prominent indications that there is no final opinion in criticism. Every critical work can, in turn, be subject to criticism and so on to infinity.