Philisophical ramblings about criticism

I was reading a blog a friend of mine writes where she reviews books. It got me to thinking about the concept of criticism. I've never subscribed to a philosophy that we must protect everyone's feelings, whether a artist, an author, a singer or, dare I say it, a CHILD! There is something to be learned by hearing unadorned earnest criticism of your work. As a society we have become so scrupulously concerned with sparing people's feelings that we make it a way of life to sidestep conflict and all we really are engaging in is a soft and fuzzy form of dishonesty. I would much prefer to read a reviewer, let's say, who trashes the books that deserved to be trashed and praises the ones that deserve to be praised.

We worry more about how our honesty will hurt others rather than worrying about whether our comments are genuine, well articulated and educated. The person being critiqued will benefit from your point of view as long as they are not so insecure as to not get past the fact that you didn't like it, and by extension them. And if they are so insecure as to not be able to accept earnest criticism, they don't deserve to like you anyway ;-)