![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Today's thought.
Feb. 15th, 2006 01:20 pmI was talking to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morlock about memes yesterday morning, mostly in reaction to johari/nohari/harikiri things that have been flitting around... No, I'm not doing one, nor am I participating in anyone elses. My essential problem with something like johari is that I feel like people tend to go for pleasing, flattering answers by default, and don't tend to straight up tell the truth, either out of a need to avoid drama, conforming to the axiom of "if you can't say anything nice..." or, in the case of some people, the knowledge that the receipient of your honest opinion won't be able to take the honest criticism... and for things like that, while sure all the nice words would be complimentary and good to hear, there's a part of me that would wonder if that's honesty or a need to be nice talking.
Same with Nohari. I mean reversing the concept is a good idea, but people are definitely going to skew away from the harsher words, or just avoid doing it at all. It goes both ways, too - I would be kind of hurt if someone told me if I was vacuous, irresponsible, needy, overdramatic, cowardly, rash, callous and violent, even though all of those words can be attributed to me and I know this. (well, maybe not vacuous... though I do admit to posting about pretty much nothing quite a bit, I don't think that I myself am vacuous.) So with all of this in mind I really have to wonder how effective a meme is where opinions of yourself are solicited from outside sources... and should such a thing really be done? Nice or harsh, it's not really telling you anything you don't know already about yourself, is it?
Yeah, I know, it's just a meme and I'm thinking too much about it, but it does seem to be symptom of a greater problem of interpersonal relationships and the delicate, overly nuanced navigations of such things. How is it that most of us, if not all of us, ended up with the complete inability to take any sort of personal criticism as anything but a personal attack? Even those who recognize criticism as it actually is, I have serious trouble believing that there isn't an initial reaction of "Why would this person say such a thing to me?" followed by an immediate "They're wrong, fuck them" or "they must actually hate me oh god I'm horrible?"
Thoughts?
morlock about memes yesterday morning, mostly in reaction to johari/nohari/harikiri things that have been flitting around... No, I'm not doing one, nor am I participating in anyone elses. My essential problem with something like johari is that I feel like people tend to go for pleasing, flattering answers by default, and don't tend to straight up tell the truth, either out of a need to avoid drama, conforming to the axiom of "if you can't say anything nice..." or, in the case of some people, the knowledge that the receipient of your honest opinion won't be able to take the honest criticism... and for things like that, while sure all the nice words would be complimentary and good to hear, there's a part of me that would wonder if that's honesty or a need to be nice talking.Same with Nohari. I mean reversing the concept is a good idea, but people are definitely going to skew away from the harsher words, or just avoid doing it at all. It goes both ways, too - I would be kind of hurt if someone told me if I was vacuous, irresponsible, needy, overdramatic, cowardly, rash, callous and violent, even though all of those words can be attributed to me and I know this. (well, maybe not vacuous... though I do admit to posting about pretty much nothing quite a bit, I don't think that I myself am vacuous.) So with all of this in mind I really have to wonder how effective a meme is where opinions of yourself are solicited from outside sources... and should such a thing really be done? Nice or harsh, it's not really telling you anything you don't know already about yourself, is it?
Yeah, I know, it's just a meme and I'm thinking too much about it, but it does seem to be symptom of a greater problem of interpersonal relationships and the delicate, overly nuanced navigations of such things. How is it that most of us, if not all of us, ended up with the complete inability to take any sort of personal criticism as anything but a personal attack? Even those who recognize criticism as it actually is, I have serious trouble believing that there isn't an initial reaction of "Why would this person say such a thing to me?" followed by an immediate "They're wrong, fuck them" or "they must actually hate me oh god I'm horrible?"
Thoughts?
