How to Criticize Comrades | Constructive Crit and Self-Crit

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0:00 Introduction
1:09 Why Criticise?
3:57 Unity and Struggle
6:31 Form and Content
9:04 Giving Criticism
14:54 Receiving Criticism
18:49 Conclusions
21:33 Further Reading
22:15 Credits

[Marxism_Today]

Apparently it’s not normal for youtube videos to take 10 hours to render (it takes others about 10 minutes), so I’m going to build a computer capable of editing faster and using things like After Effects to make fancy animations like you saw at the beginning of the Che Guevara video.
But it’ll be expensive, so if you’re able to, then please consider sending a one-off tip on Ko-Fi to go towards this. Go raibh míle maith agat!

[noobunion]

I'm sure many of us already self-criticise
But none of it is constructive
"I can't believe im lactose intolerant"
"I'm so dumb, how could I ever become lactose intolerant"
"My parents would be ashamed to have a lactose intolerant son"
Anyway love the video!

[AvatarBowler]

I swear, the “fuck you fuck you fuck you” was pure gold. It reminds me of this old joke about high school valedictorian speeches where they’d say “fuck you fuck you you’re cool fuck you too, I’m out”. 😂

[Postcob]

This is excellent. Lots of people need to learn how to be productively assertive. The ruling class has little interest in imparting these lessons on the masses. They'd prefer the people be meek following for the most part.

[ChipsNsalsita]

I was raised to be the opposite of this. Hold your tongue. Being silent is being safe... I'm better at criticisizing now, but it's an uphill struggle. I'm gonna check out the book. Thanks for your work🚩

[SpartanJoe]

That thinking unironically helped me in both life and fixing my ideology.

[JW-bxss]

Legendary, I'm going to borrow heavily from this in my future cadre education

[ChiliForEveryone]

I can't believe marxism already covers "how to do constructive criticism/self criticism", something the bourgeois society is beginning to preach (not in the way that threatens capital of course)

And I love that the marxist definition is based on "social/individual change", not like the bourgeois criticism that is often essentialist (you ain't good enuff/you ain't deserved to be loved/you are a mistake to this world)

Edit: when you say "form is secondary but still important" I think it's from our bourgeois upbringing that centers the individual in every interaction. In my unrefined arguments of youtube comment, it made every criticism of the individual is an attack to the individual itself, the attack of said individual's existence in a capitalist environment

[rhumal]

great vid! being able to give and receive constructive criticism is so important, not just in political activity but for most any sort of relationships between people

[TheReeohh]

Wow this video is very well done and very easy to follow along. So much so that I'm probably going to be able to share it with non Marxists because it's an essential skill for everyone to just overcome their aversion to criticism.

Side note I'd really like to see you on the deprogram! JT make it happen!!

[chrisgaming]

I think an interesting video topic could be the scientific advancements made in socialist countries

[adamconover]

Your verbage regarding criticism from class enemies is so helpful. Almost all bad faith discussions of class in America can be attributed to an attempt at solidarity with someone who is a class traitor.

[vhlmqot]

I would like to state that educational content pairing theory and practice with a detailed explanation of the mechanics of the given practice is an incredibly help resource. Thank you

[PeaceLandBeer]

I would love to see a follow-up to this with a real-world example of constructive criticism of a comrade guest, breaking down each step and explaining it, and show the guest's side, receiving and interpreting the criticism.

Or vice-versa.

[MarxyMarxAndTheFunkyBunch]

Marxist Paul deserves so much more attention.

[Demios]

One major difficulty I've been having in trying to create a culture of healthy crit/self-crit is that a lot of the western left (at least in the spaces me and mine have encountered) have largely abandoned the idea that changed behavior matters; which to be blunt makes crit/self-crit useless since the entire point is to change behavior and belief.

These pockets of the western left over-corrected from the "let it slide" mentality you correctly call out and have embraced the idea that mistakes are permanent (which is cop mentality).

I'm trying to create a counter-culture to disrupt that, but the sheer gravity of the influence of both these sides makes it tough.

[captain-chair]

For me, I was surprised by just how much I do many of these things, and a lot of it seems like I could place it on autism. Because SO MANY people just don't understand that I am not trying to criticise the point and not them, and I am almost never hostile, my attitude is to learn or teach, never to attack.

Am I perfect? Of course not, I sometimes can get unreasonably frustrated and I can snap, but these are so few and far between. If we are talking about online discussion I have the most fucking ridiculous example, and given the fact I am an ADHD August you can imagine how I got hostile...

It was a Reddit poll asking if the R-Slur is a slur... Of which the majority of respondents said... No.

I kept my head cool for a few dozen responses but after they all started of tag teaming me I grew more frustrated and snapped on a dude who then preceded to say that my anger is them winning the argument.

I think I quite literally died on that hill because that was a lazy day where I didn't do anything so I was stuck in my bed the whole day trying to convince people that the r-word is a slur... Without being hostile. On Reddit.

If that isn't patience, I don't know what bloody hell is. But yeah, my story is mostly about how many Neurodivergent people might already think the way I do... However worth noting, if they don't share this mindset it's likely they are struggle struggle struggle, because when we are growing up we can choose to be people who concede to fight, flight, or freeze, and depending on that we will have our perceptions of criticism determined by how we react. I am use to dismantling points not people, because dismantling people makes them hostile and useless, but getting at the point at hand itself makes them have to be respectful as well unless they wish to be an asshole. However notably bullies aren't affected by either approach and my just get a kick out of it because they know I will try and reason with their bullshit.

Idk, I just find it amusing I can now have a Marxist analysis of my own personality. :P

[mauzekoni]

You are incredibly helpful in understanding and therefore properly spreading Marxist theory.
Thank you so much!

Greetings from Germany!

[jackreed]

Love this video! Reminds me of Non-violent communication. 1: Observation 2: Feelings 3: Unmet needs behind feelings 4: Request to meet need

[bartvisscher]

thank you for this video and the book recommendation from Vicki Legion, i became fascinated with this topic from reading Paulo Freire’s book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”