A criticism of complaints and a discussion of whether they are justifiable

To everyone who considers me to be some liberal guy who has way too much pent-up anger about recent issues and complains about them constantly, I apologize. Through reflection, I’ve realized all my pieces so far have been critiques. They’ll probably stay that way. My first guest piece was a critique, and my last regular piece may be as well. I consider critiques to be an opposing opinion that the critiqued could learn something from — and by no means am I exempt from this. So please, if you believe I could be doing anything different which would be beneficial in any manner, then comment on my piece, send me a message of any kind, etc. I will fully accept any criticism and try to learn.

What I want to talk about today is, ironically enough, complaints. Not of the insignificant kind — pain, daily annoyances or anything you don’t like about your roommate — but the kind which determine our mettle as students: complaints about academic rigor.

Before you rip up the Opinions section because I sound like your nagging high-school teacher or UF President Kent Fuchs, hear me out. It took me about three hours to write this, and it takes five minutes of your time to read it — that isn’t so bad, right?

First, we need to be clear on a few terms: academic rigor, criticism and complaints to be precise.

Academic rigor is analogous to getting to that new public relations: It’s a persistent, consistent practice which pushes us beyond our limits so we may all individually perform better, without being uncharacteristically overwhelmed in the process.

Criticism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, or OED, is “the action of criticizing, or passing judgment on the qualities or merits of anything.” I would warrant that claiming for one to pass judgment on anything, one needs to be understanding of the subject being criticized.

Complaint, as defined by the OED, is “the action of complaining; the utterance of grief, lamentation, grieving.” It seems complaints serve a purpose of relieving someone of something negative. Comparing complaints to criticism shows complaints have no purpose to improve that which is being complained about.

Now that we’re clear on our terms, my ambiguous column will provide context. The other day in class, someone stood up and stated (before the professor was in the class), “Does anyone else not know what is going on in this class?” A few head turns prompted this student to continue on, “I opened up my book for the first time last night, read one page, and then I saw how much we had to read and shut the book. Like, what is this dude (the professor) on?”

The assignment was a bit lengthy for the first day, and it seemed some others agreed with this student. But, what I noticed first was this student did what all complainers do: nothing about his or her problem. This student created the problem he or she was complaining about. His or her problem wasn’t a difficult reading; it was laziness and neglect which led him or her to feel overwhelmed by the assignment. The student’s frustration wasn’t a seemingly justified critique of excessive academic rigor either — it was a weak complaint.

I’m sure we all live busy and exhausting lives as UF students, so it’s no excuse to claim bad time management. We always have something we could sacrifice to prioritize another thing. If this student didn’t have time, then this course simply wasn’t his or her priority. If that’s the case, then why complain in the first place? If you want to blame someone, then blame yourself. If you want the problem to be fixed, then fix it yourself.

On a final note, it’s okay to criticize something as too difficult or outright ridiculous if, and only if, you’ve put in the time to try. If you haven’t dedicated time to whatever you’re talking about, then don’t waste your breath.

James Hardison is a UF English sophomore. His column appears on Tuesdays.