Some people are of the mistaken belief that if you like something you will never—must never—say anything negative about it.
That, my friends, is not how the world works, not how it is supposed to work. You can not just like, but love, something, and still see the faults in it, and if your affection is deep and true, you’re bound to point those faults out so that the thing you love can be made even better.
It doesn’t matter if the thing you love is a restaurant, a person, or a country, you have to accept that nothing is perfect, and everything can be improved.
You encounter pushback on this especially when talking about countries. Criticism is viewed by many as disloyalty. As a diplomat, for example, a profession I practiced for 30 years, there are those who feel that you should never say anything negative about your own country.
There’s one thing wrong with this approach, however. As a diplomat you’re often called upon to address negative issues with the government of country you’re assigned to. Now, these people are not dummies. They know as much, if not more about your country as you do, and are likely to call you on it.
When I was a diplomat and had to talk to foreign ministry officials about touchy issues like human rights and elections, I often began with ‘Before you say anything, I know we have our own problems in the US, with race relations, sexism, and political corruption. But we are open about these problems, work, albeit slowly sometimes, to correct them, and have built institutions to which people can go to get redress for their grievances. Opening the conversation in this way takes the wind out of their sails, and you can often have a productive dialogue.
Pointing out the faults in a person is a tougher issue, but still not impossible. The key is to learn how to disagree without being disagreeable. For example, if you have a friend or significant other who has an annoying habit, chewing with mouth open for example, it’s not a good idea to be too harsh or judgmental when bringing it up. Maybe mentioning that the noise from open mouth chewing is disruptive to other diners, or some other way that doesn’t imply a negative judgment against the individual would be the way. Assuring the individual that this is not a value judgment, but an observation is essential, and that mentioning it in no way implies that you like the person any less.
What we like we want to make the best we can, and this means acknowledging the imperfections. It’s no easy thing to do, but then if it was, I wouldn’t be writing this. Don’t sit back and let a bad situation endure. Pull up your socks and fix it. – NWI
