Is Criticism an act of love? | Behind the Books

A few weeks ago I was listening to an episode of 'The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart' and he had someone on who questioned the idea of being critical as an act of love. They were talking about America, and Jon said something to the tune of "I do love America, and that's why I'm critical of her. I want her to be that best that we all want her to be." And the guest, I can't remember her name, said "Oh my God, are you like that in a marriage? Are you always trying to get your partner to be better? How awful! We'd be divorced in a minute!"

And there was this pause on the podcast. And Jon didn't say anything. But in that moment I felt that, across space and time, he and I were looking at each other and saying with our eyes "yes, I am like that in my marriage, and I love that about my marriage."

Because to me, critical analysis is a big part of love language. Thinking about how we act. Trying to be better. Trying to better myself and inviting my partner in helping me parse out the parts of me that need to be better.

And then today, a YouTuber I follow (Steve Shives) posted a video about The Last Jedi, a movie from seven years ago, talking about how people viewed the critical take of Star Wars from within Star Wars as one of the worst things they could imagine. And it made me recall a conversation I'd had earlier in the year with Sal from Comicpop on the subject of the film, and how he'd said, specifically, that he didn't like it because it was critical of Star Wars FROM WITHIN Star Wars.

I had said that, that was why I'd loved it! To me, that is what a sequel *should* be. If movie one says "thing X is good," movie two should say "thing X is bad," in order to fully discuss the issue. If you make a police procedural in which the rule of law saves the day, the sequel should have the protagonist have to go outside the law to save it. That back and forth, to me, is what keeps things fresh.

But it's made me think, on this cold winter's morning: is that one of the real things that divides us, as people? Are there some of us for which criticism is an act of love, and some of us from which criticism is an act of violence upon a thing?

I'm genuinely interested. Sound off.