Talk:Varieties of criticism

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Okay, so the first problem I see with this page is that it contains a veritable aneurism of mostly redundant categories. It starts fine with aesthetic, logical, and factual criticisms as a good initial triplet of categories; but then it goes on to list a bunch of other "categories" that in reality, are merely just collections of A.) reasons why one would want to attempt criticism, B.) specific points that a critic might want to make, C.) specific contexts in which one might find criticism, and/or D.) conjunctions of types of criticism. Only the three initial types are actual categories to which you can class criticism. If you can find a way to criticize anything without either making A.) a subjective "aesthetic" claim, B.) an a priori logic-based claim that facts lead to X conclusion and not Y, or else C.) an actual claim about the fact of what the world is... if you can criticize without doing at least one of those three things, then my hat to you.

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The second problem I see with this page is that it makes subjective, unsubstantiated, and fundamentally unnecessary claims that 20-odd people exemplify 20-odd "categories" of criticism. On the page for the "Democratic Party (United States)," we don't list Obama as an example of a Democrat. Why, then, should we list Ann Coulter as an example of "Conservative criticism" and Paul Krugman as an example of "Liberal criticism?" Self-avowed liberalness or conservativeness aside, there is something fundamentally unfair and unnecessary about informing a person's possibly-still-forming views of a general subject through the lens of an individual, as if that individual its exemplar. Defining fascism as "whatever Hitler thought was cool," would be crude and over-simplifying; precisely because no individual can ever reach (or exemplify) perfectly any ideal defined by any terms other than the person theirself; which I assure you, is not applicable in the case of the all-too-general term "liberal criticism."

The third problem I see with this page is that it carries personal bias. Can we really say, with encyclopedic certainty, that: "Typically conservatism is associated with older people, who 'have seen it all and done it all'."? That claim does very little to explain why, after a major social upheaval such as a war or an economic depression, there is usually an upsurge in social conservatism and the accompanying criticism from the postulated socially conservative perspective. While logically, it makes sense to say that a return-to-the-good-old-days mentality requires one first to remember good old days, the notion that such people are "typically"... "older" is a blatant bias that has no place here. (Personally, I'd be far less likely to recognize as a bias the notion that it was the near-teen war-scarred soldiers who returned from the European and Pacific Theaters who were directly responsible for the social revolution that created modern American conservatism; that conservatism was created by the young and traumatized, not the old and curmudgeonly.) On this point, I could say more, but I think I'll just let these gems of bias speak for themselves.

"At its best, liberal criticism takes a "liberal" view of human beings, meaning that it is sufficiently open-minded to consider issues in a very comprehensive way, from all different angles. It allows people enough freedom to try out something new, tolerates differences of opinion, and lets people learn from their mistakes."

"At worst, liberal criticism “misses the wood for the trees” because, by focusing on individuals and individual solutions, it overlooks the “bigger picture”, or fails to understand the meaning of people's social coexistence. Liberals often cannot imagine anything beyond individuals, and therefore, when they have to describe the total situation in which individuals have to operate (social systems, macro-realities or collectivities), their perspective may become eclectic, fragmented or particularist."

"Generally, liberal critics believe that the world would be better off if everyone is a liberal; but if they are driven into a corner by the criticisms of others, i.e. if they are robbed of their freedom in some sense, they can also become very anti-liberal and despotic – at least until such time as their own liberal way of being is tolerated again."

"Liberal criticism typically does not work well, when the interests of the people concerned are mutually exclusive, and cannot be reconciled at all. Liberal criticism usually assumes that people are sufficiently flexible to be willing to discuss, negotiate or compromise about something, i.e. that people have an attitude of "give and take"."

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... and those biased paragraphs lead directly into the fourth thing I see wrong with this article, which is that this article cites no sources, anywhere. This is an encyclopedia. Specifically an encyclopedia in which there exists every conceivable bias of every editor, ever. Citations are the only thing here of any importance whatsoever. For example therefore, while it is technically true that, "as defined" conservative criticism has nothing to do with political right and left, we still have absolutely no reason to believe that the "definition" being given in the article actually corresponds to the phrase's usage in the real world. For example, if I were to come here looking for an explanation of what *someone else* probably meant when they used the term "conservative criticism," this page is less than useless.

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Finally, the fifth thing I see wrong with this article is that it has been sitting on Wikipedia since June 9th of 2012 without a single substantial criticism made by anyone of any of the preceding four points. This page has been viewed and indeed edited by multiple people, edits reverted, the page added to some categories. Has no one thought to criticize a page meant to explain criticism? What I'm suggesting is that perhaps Wikipedia should have some sort of review procedure to prevent this sort of thing, perhaps a bot that scans articles for sources, and flags source-free, non-stub length articles so that administrators and other "higher-ups" can at least look at the page and check for bias, etc.

130.132.173.127 (talk) 06:01, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * When I made this text freely available on wikipedia, I did not do so primarily to appease arrogant academics or rheumy fascists, but for the benefit of ordinary readers and learners of all ages, who want a quick definition and overview of some of the different kinds of criticism there are - as an orientation to think about the topic. The purpose of the typology of criticisms is not to provide a complete and exhaustive classification of all kinds of possible categories of criticisms. It cannot do so. It is simply to discuss briefly some different kinds of criticism under accessible, useful headings, and show that there are many different possibilities of criticism. The text was originally included in the Criticism page but it was felt that the Criticism page was already getting too lengthy, and so a separate article was made for this section. I added examples of personalities associated with different kinds of criticism for illustrative purposes only. If I have got it wrong, or people prefer other personalities, that is fine with me, then let's change that. I take it to be a wellknown sociological and psychological observation, that older people are generally more conservative in behaviour (and often outlook) than young ones, but that is not an absolute rule, and I never claimed that in what I wrote. The interpretation of liberal criticism and its pro's and con's which I have provided, is fairly conventional and uncontroversial. It is unbiased, to the extent that the pro's and con's are clearly stated. If there is an accusation of bias, what is needed is evidence or proof of the bias, or at least a statement of what the bias would consist of. Anything else is just a libellous smear. It is true that at this stage I have not yet introduced a lot of references. This article is a only stub. In wikiland you can pilot an article. Although I wrote the text, I did not actually pilot this article as a separate article, somebody else transferred the text to a new article. It doesn't get a lot of readers so far. It can be developed more, so that it is more useful, better written and so on. If readers want to help improve it, they are welcome. But the article does not benefit from users who make only unsubstantiated negative criticism without any effort or suggestion to put things right. There are plenty of arrogant people commenting on wiki's whose only contribution is, that they want to censor other people, and destroy other people's work, because they happen to disagree with it. The point, however, is to make a constructive contribution, so that the existing article can be genuinely improved, rather than whinge with an air of self-importance. If there are no substantial suggestions for improvement, one cannot take the criticisms and comments very seriously.Jurriaan (talk) 15:07, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement, this page is almost entirely original work of questionable value. I got here by googling "constructive criticism", so it has strong SEO despite the low quality. 170.253.241.202 (talk) 06:15, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Remove uncited, original research
This article is mostly uncited, original research. The main author was blocked indefinitely in 2015 for their behavior. Out of 22 sections, there are only 5 citations. Should the uncited, original research be removed? —Jade Ten (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's an odd article. I didn't even read it, as a meager 5 citations for a very long article means it's just untrustworthy personal opinion to me. Maybe it would be good on a blog somewhere or in a book, but I can't see what it's doing here on Wikipedia without lots of references. And if the main author has even been thrown out of Wikipedia, meaning they can't follow simple rules of good and respectful behaviour, it gives me even less confidence in the content. I would be fine with deleting the article completely. But of course we can keep the referenced parts if it makes sense and the article structure still holds without the unreferenced parts. --Jhertel (talk) 17:13, 26 January 2021 (UTC)