I will always remember one time when I saw a dear friend of mine being humiliated in front of other people in a discussion. I remember the other person was angry, furious, and made him look like a stupid.

I felt bad for my friend, but more than that I felt bad for him when we discovered that he was not guilty. He, in fact, did everything perfect and the person accusing him was wrong.
I felt bad for him because I knew nobody would give him the same treatment. The “sorry, I overreacted” would come in private, while the gigantic shitstorm was public.

This is what we’re used to: Public criticism, private congratulations.
It’s easy to imagine why: When you humiliate someone in front of other people you’re the one with power. You feel powerful right?

But when you discover you’re on the wrong side of the fence, without that power what happens? You just don’t have the courage to do the same, to the same extent, in the same manner.

And honestly: It’s stupid.
It’s stupid for many reasons but above all it’s stupid because it’s a matter of protecting yourself.
We’re so obsessed of protecting our status, our power, that we focus on the opposite actions to do.

Think about it: Praising someone in public would give you a good image, and will surely avoid you losing your face in case you’re wrong.
The same goes for criticizing people in private: It’ll allow you to let them grow and understand what they did wrong, this won’t surely happen in public where we are pressed to protect our status and therefore we tend to avoid admitting our errors.

And honestly: Didnd’t we all hate being humiliated in public? I think that would be enough, it should’ve been for sure.