123. Legitimate Criticism? How To Find Out (With A Real World Example)
Decoding Narcissism, Manipulation And Toxic Ideas, with Frederik Ribersson30 Aug 2025

123. Legitimate Criticism? How To Find Out (With A Real World Example)

How can we tell if criticism is legitimate? Let's take a comment left on this podcast to see how we can test criticism to take onboard anything worthwhile, and avoid low level thinking / toxicity masquerading as legitimate criticism.


In short:

- consider "if this is true, what else would have to be true"

- are those things true, or not?

- what is the person actually saying?

- are they attacking a person, or ideas?

- does it display the symptoms of cognitive dissonance?


In a recent episode, I described how one person hijacked a meeting of expats, turned it into a "let's crap on Sweden" event, how some people played along, others were really uncomfortable - and how she bragged about blackmailing people.


But according to one listener, I "just didn't like that she worked with immigrants".


Hm, maybe. Or maybe not.


Let's break down the logic in that criticism to discern whether:

a. it's fair

b. the person finds the behaviour I described is not toxic, but healthy (?!) and it's impossible for lawyers to be toxic.


Given my appreciation of other lawyers who are not blackmailers, my gut feeling is b. But just to be sure, let's check.


This episode is not about an ill-thought snarky comment, but rather how we can take "what appears to be legitimate criticism", and scrutinise it using logic and method. So we can identify bad faith actors and fuzzy thinking.

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