This has nothing to do with anything.

Day 3,273, 00:57 • Published in USA Netherlands • by rainy sunday

I spend a great deal of my free time reading. Quietly. Sometimes I read things that are not eRepublik articles. How absurd, I know.

Tonight I was perusing one of my favorite little bite-sized by-ways over at brainpickings and came across an entry entitled How to Disagree: Amin Maalouf on the Key to Intelligent Dissent and Effective Criticism. I found it relatively relevant to the game we all play together here. I've not included the post in it's entirety, you can google that if you find it anything of your interest.


"The key word is reciprocity. If I try to belong to my country of adoption, if I now regard it as my own country and consider it part of me and myself part of it, and if I act accordingly, then I have the right to criticize every aspect of it. Similarly, if it respects me, if it recognizes what I bring to it and regards me and my characteristics as now being part of itself, then it has the right to reject aspects of my culture that might be incompatible with its own way of life or with the spirit of its own institutions."

"The right to criticize someone else has to be won, deserved. If, in general, you treat another with hostility or contempt, your slightest adverse remark, whether justified or not, will be seen as a sign of aggression, much more likely to make him obstinate and unapproachable than to persuade him to change for the better.

Conversely, if you show someone friendship, sympathy and consideration, not merely superficially but in a manner that is sincere and felt to be so, then you may allow yourself to criticize with some hope of being heard, things about him that you regard as open to objection.

[…]

To approach someone else convincingly you must do so with open arms and head held high, and your arms can’t be open unless your head is high."

Thank you for your patronage. Please return to your fight button post-haste.