I believe this is true not only of the honorable men and women of our day, but also those of the past. If we choose to look for their flaws, we will find them.....and in doing so we will miss the beauty of their high ideals that can influence and inspire us.
I once heard about an experiment called "scan the red." What one does in this experiment is enter a room and only look for the red. What will the person find? More red than she knew existed, even in a familiar room. What is missed? All the other beautiful colors that are there in the room.
A quote from the speech "Citizenship in a Republic" given by Theodore Roosevelt in Paris,France on April 23, 1910 says: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiams, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while doing greatly, so that his place will never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat.
Ian Percy suggests that we live a double standard: "We judge others by their behavior. We judge ourselves by our intentions." And Benjamin Franklin said, "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain--and most fools do." It would behoove us, also, to remember that people are often doing the best they can with the knowledge they possess at a moment in time. Learning from the mistakes of others, as well as our own, would be a more productive stance to take.
This in no way means that we should never criticize. I concur with James Baldwin who said, "I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." After all, as Walter Ulbricht says, "The nature of a democracy consists in an important degree in the right of the people to criticize problems and mistakes."
Yet, even in criticizing we can be more effective if we remember the following counsel:
- "Sweep first before your own door before you sweep the doorsteps of your neighbors." (Swedish proverb)
- "Criticize the act, not the person." Mary Kay Ash
- "He has a right to criticize who has a heart to help." Abraham Lincoln
Then we have the inspiring words of Anne Frank, who even while suffering from the unthinkable, had the heart to say, "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."
Although it might be somewhat Pollyanish to believe that all people are good at heart, I do believe that the majority of people are---those from the past as well as the present. If we look for their ideals and goodness rather than focus primarily on their flaws, except to learn from them, it is my belief that our personal lives and the life of our country will be richer.
