Thanks for your comment! You have some great points.
>In my experience in the arts, specifically music, photography, and writing, good artists are good artists because they know all of the detail and nuance of their work and they continue to be dicks to themselves. A good artist is never happy no matter what they create or what the reaction is, otherwise they would stop improving.
> are writers' groups for encouragement or improvement? You mentioned a bit of both, but to my untrained ear that sounds like a recipe for mediocrity. Being just motivated enough to produce various works of art that most people in your social group would never criticize to your face? That's not a personal goal.
Totally, that's where the "but honest" part comes in. I still have the drafts this group looked at and they are well decorated with both comments and proofreading/editorial marks. I think the distinction come in in how you communicate these things.
There's this sort of mythos around "the artist" which stems from this "artist as genius/artist as madman" figure that people tend to use as justification/an excuse for a lot of bs and bad behavior in the arts. For example, a lot of artists tend to ape other artists when they first start out. One could and should call them out on this, but it's about how you go about it. You could be a total asshole and tell them their art is worthless, it's just an imitation of X, maybe they should go home, etc. etc. Or you could express the same thing while giving them some kind of encouragement, such as "it mostly seems to pull a lot of elements from X, but I want to see more of you in the piece, perhaps take another look at aspect Y of your work, as it seems more genuine--can you amplify it, can you go deeper on it?" etc.
When I'm critiquing someone's work, I try to constantly keep in mind that my job is to basically do what you are saying the duty of a good editor is--I have to see where the person is going not where they are at, and I have to do whatever best helps them get there. For some people that might be negative reinforcement, "this is worthless, etc." but in my experience for the vast majority of people that isn't the best way. Most people do much better if you tell them what's wrong in a neutral way and help keep them eager by letting them know what's actually working in their piece. Sure, that may mean they don't have the character of a Beethoven, but most of us aren't going to be epoch-defining artists--and I think you should always try to measure an artist in the context of pushing their own oevure forward instead of holding them up to some ridiculous detached standard of "the greats" you happen to admire (which will result in cheaply imitative art anyway, and which is what this individual was doing w/ Gordon Lish).