Sometimes you don’t know what you are for until you know what you are against. In public, it is wise to withhold criticism, to guard your tongue. In private, as part of the creative process, you must sometimes work with the ricochet principle or the “anti-x” principle.
You don’t know what ideas you are trying to say until you know what it is you are not trying to say. You don’t know what it is you believe until you are clear about what it is that you do not believe.
And so, while one must be guarded in public as to their comments, it is sometimes useful in private to allow your passion to escape in the form of a diatribe. Ask, “What is motivating this intense response?” Ricochet off the opposite intellectual pole to understand the current one. Exploit polarity, but guard against polarization.
