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Today, TV channels often choose programs in a “judicial” format, in which the characters and guests accuse or criticize each other. Why are we attracted to these kinds of TV shows?
Starting with the folklore “the law that the drawbar: where you turned, it went there” and up to Griboyedov’s “And who are the judges?” The topic of justice in our country has always touched a nerve. The format of the trial was picked up by television – and judicial passions became truly nationwide. The ratings of such programs are very high: according to Gallup Media, on average, they are watched by about 20% of the viewers who turned on the TV at the time of the broadcast.
Such popularity could not go unnoticed by the creators of other programs: judges, defenders, prosecutors (in a more or less recognizable form) appeared in many programs – for example, where they discuss the appearance, style and ability to dress the characters. We also put on the robe of judges: for example, in many shows, the performances of the participants are judged not only by a professional jury – the decisive word remains with the viewers.
Judgment is one of the archaic types of social interaction, explains psychoanalyst Norbert Chatillon. In fact, our whole emotional life is built on it: in infancy, we cry and get angry because the diaper is wet or the milk in the bottle is hot … and so we make our first judgments. And further, at any age, they will invariably help us comprehend the world around us: decide who to vote for in elections, who to turn to in difficult times, or which movie to watch on the weekend.
But if judgment is necessary as a process that allows us to determine our opinion, then judgment as an assessment – for example, of another person – too often degenerates into condemnation. Judging and condemning another is too easy a way to feel superior to him. So why are we so willing, at least at the screens, to join the trial? What does this desire mean? We asked the experts to answer.
Knowing yourself
We are so arranged that we perceive any value judgments about ourselves with spiritual trepidation. In any case, this is a natural first reaction. Then we can reflect on whether we ourselves agree with the assessment from the outside, whether it is fair. But this human vulnerability is familiar to everyone. And this makes the heroes of the programs of the “judicial” format understandable and close to us. When the hero is open to the views of the judges, when he presents something of his own to the court – his own, suffered, personal, then he is fully human and understandable to us in his openness.
So, when directors, actors come to the studio to discuss a film that they have been working on for a long time, I think they feel the same as if they were discussing their child. The only difference is that the product of creativity is created in order to impress others.
The heroes of “Fashionable Sentence” appear before “judges”, who evaluate the style of clothing that is not suitable for them, and in a situation where there is already someone who does not like this style.
When there are disputes between parents and children, neighbors, friends on other TV shows, even if the plots are played by artists, we are more touched by recognizable situations that happened to us.
What the super ego said
We are motivated to judge people and their actions by the Super-ego, or Super-I – that part of the personality that Freud called the receptacle of our moral consciousness, our conscience.
The superego appears at the end of the oedipal period, by the age of five, and embodies parental and social prohibitions. However, here is a paradox: according to child psychoanalysts, the less the parents take care of the child, the more they allow him, the more strict his Superego turns out to be. This psychological strategy allows him to compensate for the lack of reliable reference points.
The most categorical, overly guilt-prone, negative self-esteem people usually grow up where they were allowed to grow like grass in a field. They are harsh on themselves and very demanding of others, striving to reach the heights of an unattainable moral ideal.
The impulsive nature of the superego makes it gluttonous to the point of bulimia: it demands more all the time—more perfection, more sacrifice. “You have to be good,” it says. And the more we obey this order, trying to be impeccable, the less we feel ourselves as such.
In search of a wise judge
We are so constituted that always, unless we need mercy, we ourselves are interested in a fair and reasoned judgment about ourselves. We need mirrors to better understand who we are or who we have become. For this, there are other people, but among them there are insultingly few wise judges.
If we look at our lives, now and then, as children, we can ask ourselves: “Have I met anyone whose assessments of me were actually fair – not condescendingly high and not depreciatingly low, but such that I could rely on them in a difficult situation and understand something about themselves? Do I have such interlocutors today? This question can cause sadness or confusion for many. How few are those who are able to tell us about our shortcomings sincerely, without irritation and arrogance, so as not to hurt.
Thus, we are faced with a huge shortage of criticism, which would be: fair and reasoned on the one hand and would be presented in a form acceptable to us on the other. In our country for many decades it was not accepted, or rather, it was unsafe to show oneself and one’s own. We have come up with thousands of ways to show ourselves without really showing ourselves, with one goal – to protect ourselves from indiscriminate, blind and destroying our “I” criticism. This lack of good judges and the need for respect and fairness have made the programs we are talking about in demand by us viewers.
open yourself
We are arranged in such a way that in the eyes of the judge, if this judge is truly wise, we are looking for an answer not only to the question: “What am I in something or somewhere?”, But also to a deeper one, which implies: “Who am I? » No matter what we are discussing – taste in clothes, professional achievements or family conflicts, it all comes down to one thing: a person needs to be understood by another person in order to better understand himself. This is the vital importance of criticism, it makes critics very necessary for us people, if, of course, they can convey their opinion about us so that we can “swallow” it.
Today, in a society where for so long we saw justice only in the movies, a generation has grown up that is no longer afraid to show their Own.
Become yourself
We are arranged in such a way that if we don’t show ourselves, if we don’t defend our own in the face of well-wishers or ill-wishers, if we don’t learn to demand what we rightly deserve, we will never form as a person. Everyone intuitively feels this, so we want to learn this and learn it all our lives, or rather, from the age of three, when we first begin to say “no!” with pleasure.
The way we stand up for our own is essentially what makes us who we are. Someone seems to be trying to retreat, to agree with the unimportant, in order to return to the main thing later, bends, but does not break. Someone, on the contrary, is straightforward, but not hard, but rather fragile. Someone is aggressive, reminiscent of a cockerel, pouncing on an obstacle with its chest. It is enough for him to say “Don’t do that!” to do just that. Someone in a situation of threat climbs onto a pedestal and sets out his arguments from top to bottom, and sometimes he does not condescend to arguments – he simply looks contemptuously and bewilderedly at the one who dared to criticize him.
Usually in childhood, a person chooses those who are closer (parents, older brothers and sisters, adults) as teachers in this matter. Those unfair critics whom we loved have eaten into us and are always present inside. All psychotherapists who deal with the consequences of having these inner prosecutors in us know this. But an adult has the opportunity to relearn if he is convinced that the style he has learned does not suit him. Then he looks at the samples that are offered to him, for example, television, or goes to a psychotherapist.
Mark Twain said: “Truth must be presented as a coat is served. Instead of throwing it like a wet towel in the face. On television, as in psychotherapy, in order for criticism to work (and isn’t this kind of broadcast for this?), it must be presented in such a way that a person can somehow get along with it. And get a chance to live better.
“It is important to help people without criticizing them”
Evelina Khromchenko, journalist, host of the Fashion Sentence program
“My role was supposed to be the role of an evil cop, and it scared me a lot: I don’t like it when people are humiliated, I categorically do not accept open criticism of someone’s appearance. I was looking for a way in which I could help people without offending them – for me this is the most important thing.
The beauty of this program is that it breaks stereotypes… Here a person is given a chance to look at himself from the outside with the help of professionals and the advice that these professionals give – not only in word but also in deed. This is a very rare opportunity. It’s great! People on the other side of the screen recognize, identify themselves and understand: this is what I can do with myself! The hero of the program could, so I can too!”
The opinion of the psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova:
“Only the co-host of Fashion Sentence addresses the identity of the “defendant”. And he does this in the only possible way: without suspecting anything bad about a person, sympathizing with him, and sometimes openly admiring him. Only such a loving look makes it possible to deeply understand the authentic (real) in a person.
Evelina Khromtchenko is smart, professional and precise in her words, she demonstrates such respect for the characters she evaluates, such delicacy that, in my opinion, corresponds to the highest criteria of intelligence. If criticism is presented this way, then it teaches you to be more attentive to yourself and no longer be afraid to show yourself in your imperfection to people or ask for advice from a professional in order to become better and live happier.
“To judge another is to judge oneself”
To criticize often means to attribute to another person those qualities that we do not dare to recognize in ourselves, explains psychoanalyst Norbert Châtillon. This is one way to protect ourselves from what worries us.
Psychologies: How does the desire to judge arise in us?
Norbert Chathion: Initially, to pass judgment on someone means only to distinguish between the other and myself, to determine who I am and who he is. In essence, judging and evaluating is as natural to us as, for example, breathing. But if, instead of ascertaining dissimilarity, we distort and belittle the personality of the other, then we distort evaluation as a vital function of the psyche.
Why is difference or similarity with another person so exciting to us?
We all inevitably face what Jung called our “shadow” and what we find difficult to recognize in ourselves: our cowardice, aggression, mental wounds, weaknesses, anxiety, fears. We can also talk about those positive traits that (for reasons worthy of separate analysis) we refuse to consider our own.
It is this shadow part that makes us, using the psychological mechanism of projection, attribute virtues or flaws to another that we do not admit to ourselves. It is not so easy to come to terms with the fact that we do not have, for example, the same social status or the same kindness as our acquaintance. It’s hard to admit to ourselves that we, too, could behave like that rude person we see on the screen. It is much easier to judge, and even pass sentence, when we have been given such power.
And yet, who are we judging?
First of all yourself! To judge another is to judge oneself. Because this judgment says more about us than about the other. Remember the Gospel: “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not feel the beam in your eye?” (Luke 6:41). This quote has a completely psychological meaning: we see a speck in the eye of our neighbor, and this allows us to get away from thinking about our own log, denying our shadow part and postponing for later what needs to be reconsidered.
The assessment “so-and-so drinks too much” relieves reflection on one’s own addiction, for example, on nicotine or a computer. The condemnation of “so-and-so clearly does not strain at work” allows you to justify the fact that you yourself work more than would be reasonable.
This is a very simple identification mechanism: the other is acting or thinking “badly”; he is not like me; it means I’m good. And similarly: the other acts or thinks “good”; I am just like him; it means that I act or think “good”. This gives an extremely beneficial effect. Of course, in the short term.
Why do some feel the need to criticize more than others?
We all need to constantly prove that we exist. But some – due to a lack of self-confidence, independence, awareness of themselves as a creature, both similar and unlike another – choose struggle against the other as a way of existence. This is a fierce battle to assert their identity, which is difficult for them to find otherwise.
It turns out that those who do not judge are more confident in themselves?
Each of us judges – from the first infantile cry to the last breath. In my opinion, there are no such people who would not judge. But there are those who shy away from making a judgment – for fear of making a mistake or being judged themselves, for fear that others will stop loving him, or seeking to avoid conflict at all costs. The one who avoids his own judgments is really like the one who judges everything: they have the same difficulty in accepting that the judgment is just a fact and nothing more.