If you have personal insecurities then one way to deal with it is to demean others so you feel more comfortable distance in your accomplishments vs theirs. So in the case of "punching down" you make people with fewer accomplishments or status even lower, making your superior accomplishments or status more remarkable; in the case of "punching up" you attempt to diminish or pull someone with superior accomplishments or status down more to your level, reducing their success relative to you.

Seems better to recognize that social status and finances are bogus measures of personal worth to begin with. Most of that is just good or bad luck, and even where there's some [lack of] personal skill involved, it's circumstantially amplified. Most people, most of the time, aren't actually that awful or wonderful. You and I are special, just like everyone else

Also, aside from all that, it is always better to bring people together by affirming commonality and similarity than to divide them by affirming difference. It's hard to see that in the divisive, polarized, regressive era we are currently stumbling through, however.

What do you mean by punching down & up? I’ve never heard these terms before. Is it a mixed martial arts thing?

I've not seen this. Maybe I'm just not reading/listening to the right commentary?

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Not a lot of encouragement in their youth. Old school punishes they will improve. Still, hear this bad psychology in today's society, so slowly we learn as a whole.

Punching down is a lot easier and less dangerous..