why anyone would choose one big ritual like ‘Doom circles’ instead of just purposefully inculcating a culture of opennes to giving / receiving critique that is supportive and can help others?
These don’t sound mutually exclusive to me; you can have a formal ritual about something and also practice doing some of the related skills on a more regular basis.
That said, for many people, it would be emotionally challenging if they needed to be ready to receive criticism all the time. A doom circle is something where you can receive feedback at such a time when you have emotionally prepared for it, and then go back to receiving less criticism normally.
It might be better if everyone was capable of always receiving it, but it’s also good to have options for people who aren’t quite there yet. A doom circle is a thing that can be done in less than an hour, whereas skill-building is much more of a long-term project.
low-context feedback is often not helpful;
That’s true, but also: since people generally know that low-context feedback can be unhelpful, they might hold back offering any such feedback, even when it would be useful! Having an explicit context for offering the kind of critical feedback that you know might be incorrect gives people the chance to receive even the kinds of impressions that they otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to hear.
feedback is ultimately just an opinion; you should be able to take and also discard it.
Yes, in any well-run doom circle, this exact thing would be emphasized in the beginning (levin mentioned this in their comment and it was probably done in the beginning of the circles I’ve participated in, as well; I don’t remember what the exact preliminaries were, but it certainly matches my general sense of the spirit of the circle).
These don’t sound mutually exclusive to me; you can have a formal ritual about something and also practice doing some of the related skills on a more regular basis.
That said, for many people, it would be emotionally challenging if they needed to be ready to receive criticism all the time. A doom circle is something where you can receive feedback at such a time when you have emotionally prepared for it, and then go back to receiving less criticism normally.
It might be better if everyone was capable of always receiving it, but it’s also good to have options for people who aren’t quite there yet. A doom circle is a thing that can be done in less than an hour, whereas skill-building is much more of a long-term project.
That’s true, but also: since people generally know that low-context feedback can be unhelpful, they might hold back offering any such feedback, even when it would be useful! Having an explicit context for offering the kind of critical feedback that you know might be incorrect gives people the chance to receive even the kinds of impressions that they otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to hear.
Yes, in any well-run doom circle, this exact thing would be emphasized in the beginning (levin mentioned this in their comment and it was probably done in the beginning of the circles I’ve participated in, as well; I don’t remember what the exact preliminaries were, but it certainly matches my general sense of the spirit of the circle).