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“When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.” (Wayne Dyer)
Some people run around saying things like “don’t you judge me!” But I think they’re wrong to say such things. By that I mean I think we do have the right or privilege to judge others. I’m going to explain why you’re in the clear to judge those around you.
On a daily basis we deal with a wide assortment of people. The various people we encounter act certain ways; how they act is up to them. They sometimes do stupid, distasteful, wrong, bad, or unacceptable things. When such things happen to us, or even if we witness their occurrence, we have a judgmental reaction – which isn’t a bad thing. This natural reaction is simply an evaluation of the situation based on our own standards; we compare what happened to what we think should have happened. If you catch Jimmy making out with Suzy, when you know that Kathy believes her and Jimmy are in a monogamous relationship, you have a reaction which consists of an evaluation of how the situation measures up to your standards; you asses whether or not his behaviour meets your threshold of acceptable behaviour. Your reaction also consist of a reassessment of Jimmy and how you view the relationship you have with him.
So when you encounter these situations and generate your reactions, what are you to do? Express your reaction?? Or bite your tongue?? While it’s fine for you choose to bite your tongue, you needn’t feel obligated to do so. That is, you have the right or privilege to express your assessment of the situation. So when you say something like “Jimmy, you jerk, you shouldn’t be making out with Suzy!” all you’re doing is saying “According to my understanding of the situation, the course of action Jimmy elected to take is at odds with my personal standards of acceptable behaviour for that situation. As such I now regard my relationship with Jimmy differently.” Notice that when you judge someone you aren’t so much saying something about him, but, rather, something about yourself (and how you view your relationship with him). When you boil it down, you're really just making a claim about yourself: a claim about what you consider to be acceptable behaviour. When you judge Jimmy you’re expressing: (a) the fact that your personal stanadards dictate that someone in a position like his should have acted differently that the behaviour deemed acceptable by Jimmy and, (b) you consider your relationship with Jimmy to be altered in some way as a result of (a). To say that you shouldn’t express such things about yourself is to say that you shouldn’t describe your own views about what you consider to be acceptable behaviour. And to say people should be allowed to express such things about themselves is just silly.
What you and Jimmy (or whoever) do next is up to both of you. He needn’t give any weight to what you expressed if he doesn’t want to (since he has his own standards of acceptable behaviour). Nor does he need to be concerned with how you view your relationship with him. (But, if he values your relationship, he probably should be concerned with your judgment.) So, ultimately, it’s not a bad thing when you “judge” someone since, when you do so, you’re simply making a descriptive claim about yourself and your relationship to those in it.
Lastly, there will be some situations where you might be best off biting your tongue and not sharing your views. But such situations are rare and the reasons for biting your tongue will be prudential ones. But, even then, you’re still allowed to make descriptive espressions about your views. (Again, that’s all you’re really doing when you judge people.) I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.
2 comments:
I agree. To not say something to Jimmy would not suggest that you don't have an opinion on Jimmy and Kathy, or on affairs in general. it suggests that you condone his actions.
I suppose your example was a pretty easy case though. It is easy to make the case for 'judging' when there is an identifiable third party who will be affected in some way (in this case, Kathy would be an emotional wreck). I'd be really keen to get your opinion on whether its ok to judge someone if the only thing thats going to be affected is your sense of moral values.
Say for example, Joe is best friends with Ben. Joe tells Ben he wants to become Joan, and undergo a sex change. Joe/Joan's family is all sweet with this. In this case, it is OK for Ben to tell Joe he will think less of him if he goes through with it?
Really interesting point and question Alex.
It seems as if your view is even stronger than mine; insofar as, by not saying something to Jimmy, you're giving tacit approval of his actions (or affairs in general). And so to avoid being characterized you have an OBLIGATION to express your judgment (i.e. disapproval). I'm sympathetic to your view, but I worry that it might force us into positions we don't want to be in...
But let's look at your Joe/Joan case: Your stronger view would seem to push you to express yourself. Instead, I'll give my view as (and this will be disappointing for you) it depends. It depends on the nature of their relationship. Ben should express is judgment UNLESS he values his relationship with Joe/Joan more than being misidentified as someone who condones sex change operations (or whatever). Ben may have prudential reasons to bite his tongue here. (Maybe that's compatible with your view as well.)
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