Exactly. It's one thing to be critical. It's another to ridicule. Being critical is rational and objective. Ridiculing is a form of contempt, an emotion. When

Exactly. It's one thing to be critical. It's another to ridicule. Being critical is rational and objective. Ridiculing is a form of contempt, an emotion. When you ridicule, you are not taking apart what you criticize, you are trying to take apart the other person. Those skilled at this will often do it in such a way to make it sound as if they are being rational, objective, and focus only the work, when in fact, they are projecting emotions of contempt and cutting someone apart. The way our society is structured, you can "get away" with something like that because there's a fallacy ... that what you can somehow separate the criticism and feedback you give from the feelings that you experience (or suppress). Well. You can't. Emotions arise and pass: they are real, they are experienced, and they affect behavior.