Whatever Happened to Private Praise?
The case for words of kindness and encouragement that aren’t Tweeted, reply-all’d, or shouted out at the company party
Public praise is such an important human tradition, there’s even a fancy word for it: panegyric. When Pericles praised the dead Athenians in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars, that was a panegyric. Cardi B praising Bernie Sanders in a Tweet was also a panegyric. And when my friend Adam tagged my other friend in an Instagram story saying, “Great party! The baba ganoush was 100!” that, too, was a panegyric.
In fact, social media is littered with so many panegyrics, there’s an equally well-established ritual for executing it:
Praiser: “You’re so brave” or “Here for this” or simply “praise hands” emoji.
Praised: @Praiser Prayer Hands.
Praiser: @Praiser @Praised Hearts
I don’t want to denigrate the feel-good vibes of mutual admiration, but this public praise echoing through the hallways of our digital edifice has always felt hollow.
So allow me to publicly praise private praise.
Private praise is a letter, a note, an email with no one cc’d — and certainly no one bcc’d — that stays within the confines of…
