One of the aspects of today’s society is that we now have more means to observe each other. The Internet and social networks have made it very easy to find out about each person and to meet one-way pieces of people we’ve never even talked to.

Most people have learned to adapt to this change by trying to use it to their advantage: that is, by seeing it as an opportunity to reach out to more people, expand friendships or seek out employment and business options. Regardless of whether we want to make use of these kinds of tools, the option is there, and in any case, we are not looking to harm anyone: we are just looking to improve ourselves in some way through the way we relate to others.

However, there are those who see social relations from the opposite perspective. Instead of taking advantage of the many ways to connect with others that the present offers, they prefer to spend much of their free time expressing negative attitudes about the people around them. These are the people who constantly and systematically judge and criticise others. In this article we will talk about why they act in this way and how we can learn from them about how not to focus on our personal relationships.

Such are the people who judge others

Let’s start with the basics: how do we recognize in our daily lives people who are always criticizing others? Among the characteristics and habits that define them, the most typical are the following (they do not occur all at once in all cases, of course)

1. They want to seduce others through criticism

It may sound contradictory, but the habit of always judging others can serve to establish informal links between people . Links that are similar to friendship.

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How does this happen? On the one hand, always going against others but at the same time dealing with one person gives the idea that that person is better than the vast majority. By omission, the fact that someone who always criticizes others tolerates our presence and even seems to enjoy it can make us feel good.

On the other hand, the fact that sense is judged by someone close to us, added to the above, makes that we believe that this person who always criticizes can help us to detect our weaknesses , which will make it easier to overcome them. The reasoning is as follows: others do not have the opportunity to have someone close to them who is correcting them, but we do, so we must be privileged.

One thing that indicates that this is a subtle form of manipulation is the fact that although vexatious comments or attempts at ridicule are common (which is supposed to help us recognize our own failings), it is unimaginable that the person throwing those daggers at us would also help us overcome those supposed imperfections.

2. are unable to focus a discussion on the arguments

When it comes to constructive discussion about a topic, people who are used to judging tend to direct their comments towards the negative characteristics that the opposite person supposedly presents: the ad hominem fallacy is their undoing, even if they were originally defending the right option.

3. They use any excuse to ridicule

A risky style, an action that deviates slightly from social conventions or an opinion that simply does not coincide with one’s own are reasons for mockery or for being used to “read the mind” of that person and attribute to him or her all kinds of imperfections of intelligence or personality.

These comments can be more or less clever depending on the case, but what is clear is that they are irrelevant and talk about very unrelevant characteristics or facts.

4. In social networks, little subtlety in criticism

On the Internet, people who regularly judge others feel that they have the extra protection of anonymity , so they take advantage of this to give free rein to their cruelty. This means that they leave all sorts of derogatory comments, in full view of everyone, knowing that the negative impact of this kind of publication is more noticeable: everyone can know who is the target of criticism, but it is not very clear who is issuing it.

Moreover, since the Internet is often a place where avoiding a rational discussion or debate does not have a high cost (unlike a face-to-face dialogue, where it is always clear who wants to stop intervening) these criticisms are simple and unsophisticated, since they do not have to give rise to an exchange of opinions. They are little more than insults that are extended through several words placed in a sentence.

Why are they so critical?

There are many reasons that can lead a person to constantly criticize others, but several of them are especially frequent. The main one is that judging another in a superficial way is an easy and simple way to feel superior to someone and, by comparison, feel better about yourself.

When one of these people formulates a thought aimed at sinking another person (either by uttering it aloud or by keeping it to himself), he is actually trying to temporarily escape the ruin that is his own self-esteem.

The most negative thing about these people is not what happens when they think in negative or demeaning terms about someone else, since these kinds of ideas are so simple and unelaborated that no one has to take them seriously. The most negative thing is what is happening during the rest of the time in their own mind, that is, the reign of a resentment that totally submits to self-esteem .

Just as those who obsessively think about an idea that causes them anxiety try desperately to find distractions such as food binges, drug use, or even skin cuts, there are those who try to rescue their self-image for a brief moment by creating the fiction that they are far above someone else.

That is why, in an age where the struggle of egos is the order of the day, it is important not to take as normal those outbursts of contempt for others with which some people try to make themselves known to others and to themselves. Whoever needs to throw dart at others to stay afloat is clearly showing that he has nothing to offer and that he can only ask for help.