Content Warning: childhood (and adult) bullying & abuse
I have bought exactly one item off a major, well-known, online shopping platform – and that was many, many, many years ago.
The item was OK – as advertised, what I wanted, etc., but the delivery was slow. In the feedback, that is what I stated, with a less than 100% rating. That led to a call where the seller explained why the slow delivery had happened, and what they would do to prevent it happening again.
Fair enough, but it didn’t change the reality of what had happened, and I felt uncomfortable about lying by saying everything had been fine when it hadn’t.
And at that point the call became angry, aggressive, and, frankly, abusive.
Now, it was quite likely that the slow delivery wouldn’t happen again, but my feedback was supposed to be on the basis of what I knew – and what was basically akin to a salesperson’s assurances of what would happen in the future weren’t good enough for me to lie that there had been no problems. I was happy to improve the rating, but I refused to make it excellent as that would have been a lie.
Stupidly, the caller threatened to lie to that platform about me – which, apart from being unlikely to make me rate the person more highly, was contrary to that platform’s regulations about sellers conduct (as I pointed out).
I have neither used nor recommended that seller - nor indeed similar online selling sites - ever since.
As a general principle, however, I consider that feedback is important. As an example of that, I actively sought feedback on the workshops I ran in the 80s - at a time when, where I lived, no-one else did.
So feedback can be good and thus desirable . . . but if the feedback is not honest, it is meaningless – or worse, it could be just business propaganda.
That is one of the reasons I am dubious about companies taking legal action to identify unreasonable or malicious – or allegedly unreasonable or malicious – critics. You may win the court case, but you are unlikely to get honest feedback in future as a result (because of the "chilling" impact on people's courage of their convictions). And if you happened to need some honest criticism because of a flaw in your business, that lack of honest feedback could result in you cheerfully sailing full speed off an avoidable business/commercial cliff and go bankrupt.
So . . .
- legal action to expose critics is not a solution as it shuts down all feedback;
- toadies making false feedback is not a solution – it makes all feedback suspect (and is why, when doing something like assessing companies as a potential place to work, I do not accept employee feedback about a company unless the employee has been gone for five – three at the very least – years);
- turning feedback into long detailed examinations is not a solution – it leads to less feedback.
But feedback systems are
subject to problems on both sides (including their excessive power on business success), which is why companies may have a valid concern about unrestrained feedback. Who checks the person who wants to demonstrate their "power" by organising an unjust campaign against a company?
Such people need to be aware that abusing feedback by being being a vicious IPOC is actually an abuse of power, and shows those doing indulging in that to be petty-Putins.
That aspect (problem) of this topic is obviously a personal flaw, which is why I was originally undecided about whether to post this on my spiritual or political blog (as you may have noticed, I chose my spiritual blog).
That aspect also leads into another personal flaw, one which may contribute to such flaws existing in the first place (note: this is a change of focus from companies and information to personal inadequacies).
That flaw is the parenting mistake of:
telling children to ignore or not respond to lies being told about them.
This crops up in school grounds and play sessions, where, for instance, child X may approach parent M and say “child Y is saying I am Z / did W”, with a common response being “oh ignore them”, or “don’t respond and they’ll stop”.
Now, quite apart from the fact that some children won’t stop (or may even redouble their efforts) such behaviour in the absence of a response (or will only do so after a length of non-response that is an unrealistic expectation for a child), there is the issue that being the subject of lies is, at the very least, upsetting, and possibly harmful.
In fact, being the subject of lies as an adult is clearly accepted as being harmful to the extent that legal action is permissible under some circumstance, and the victims of gaslighting, gossip, and the like may need counselling: why on earth would anyone think it was less damaging to the developing psyche of a child??!!!
Trivialising such situations can leave the child feeling abandoned and alone, utterly unsure of how to respond, and slower to trust - not only because of the abusive behaviour, but because of the lack of even allyship from a parent who should be an active support and instructor, not “just” an ally.
Secondly, failing to develop effective strategies on such matters for children contributes, IMO, to problems with adults such as:
- police blaming victims of domestic violence instead of perpetrators (currently being reported from the enquiry into Qld police and domestic violence) through police possibly thinking the complainant is someone who should be doing the “ignore them” or “don’t respond and they’ll stop” rubbish;
- IPOCs supporting despotic, delusional tyrants like the former POTU45 - which is more around those telling the lies knowing they can get away with that;
- online abuse (again, liars having learned as children that they can get away with lying) that leads to problems such as suicide.
Now, the trivialising response I criticised is partly because of a loss of perspective and forgetfulness, where adults look back and think what they experienced was not important compared to work and other life experiences - good and bad. That is nostalgic stupidity: at the time, being bullied or lied about was significant, and, in the context of emotional development, it was objectively significant - along the lines of those emotionally scarred and crippled adults claiming corporal punishment didn't hurt them.
That’s bad enough, but there is another problem, which is the social idiocy that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”.
Really? How would you feel if you were accused wrongly of being a child abuser?
Stop pretending that what others say doesn’t matter: not only sticks and stones but words can kill – look at genocides, which have all started with words that were clearly lies.
Words matter. Lies matter - in part because they're wrong and detract from the world, and in part because of the emotional damage they do. (And those who claim to be into radical honesty are, in my experience, just sadistically playing games with harming others.)
That means being able to respond effectively to lies is, sadly, an important life skill - and not only in interpersonal relationships: look at what the former POTUS45 has caused by persistently telling lies, which is something the nazis in Germany also were aware of - tell a lie often enough, and it will become wrongly accepted as truth. And that is something climate and COVID denialists are also getting away with.
Staying with the larger world scale for a moment, responding effectively to lies may require familiarity with laws and what legal systems can and cannot do (which is different in every jurisdiction), being media savvy, and what Brendan Myers refers to as “clear and present thinking” (link to his free online course at the end of this post), or what others – sometimes vaguely – often categorise as “critical thinking”.
But that last item is NOT the first item for interpersonal situations, IMO - it is probably third, with the ability to respond being first and how to look after oneself emotionally being second.
So we’re back to teaching children how to respond to false accusations.
Of course, teaching that to children can be difficult if you don’t know how to do it yourself - and that is what I consider generations of social engineering by neochristianity and elites has created, in my view. To remedy that, we, as a society, probably need to start by teaching adults these skills.
The next step after that, IMO, is to stop idealising kids – every vapid fool who unthinkingly says “I love kids” is generalising and lumping them all together in such a way that they will VERY PROBABLY MISS the valid psychological needs of the many, varied individuals who are children.
The point of the vapid ones is that, at core, all people are good: I agree that the overwhelming majority of people have a core potential of good, but they can be damaged by life experiences and, as a result, that potential buried, warped, or destroyed – and pretending such experiences are not happening (especially when they happen during childhood) ensures they will continue to happen.
We, as a society, need to change.
PS - apologies for the lower quality of writing on this. I was subjected to such abuses (and other problems) as a child, and the damage is still affecting me and my ability to write about this. Something for me to work on.
Assumptions / basis
In writing this, I have assumed, or started from, the following:
- Emotions are valid and important;
- We should, as humans, be aiming to evolve spiritually;
- Abuse of power is wrong (but so too is not using power).
Possible flaws
Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:
- There may be a general consensus and understanding amongst online users about how modern online “feedback” works, and I am completely out of touch with what everyone else considers is acceptable or even “right” . . . of course, that still doesn’t necessarily mean I am wrong . . . ;
- there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”.
