Difference Between Criticism And Personal Attack

CRITICISM

The purpose of criticism is to establish validity, legitimacy or value of a creation, a claim or a behavior, through an argumentative analysis.
It is an intellectual approach that appeals to reason. This process opens the debate, allows answer.

PERSONAL ATTACK

The purpose of a personal attack is to disqualify someone. There is often no serious intellectual analysis, only a definitive judgment on the person. This approach calls for collective emotion relying on moral notions.
example : "you are a hater !" hate is bad - you're a bad person - a bad person is wrong - there is no interest in discussing with a bad person.
This approach aims to close the debate.



Even if a criticism may be offensive, it can't be defined as a personal attack, because its purpose is not a final judgment on the person concerned. Express an argumentated opinion about a behavior, a statement or a creation, is not qualify someone as good or bad, it's not making a radical judgment.
Even if your criticism establish that a behavior is wrong, it opens the debate and gives the opportunity for self-examination and improvement.

The criticism is built on arguments while the personal attack is often due to a lack of arguments.

To summarize, the purpose of criticism is to lead to relfexion, questioning and improvement, while the purpose of personal attack is to hurt, disqualify and censor.