On Judging Others

The more I think about this injunction that we must not judge others, the sillier it seems. We judge people all the time. Moreover, why is the judgment of others always thought of in a negative sense? They are also favorable judgments. They are many different kinds of judgment.There are moral judgments: "This man beat his wife. This is a bad man." "This man helped me a lot. This is a good man."There are aesthetic judgments: "This woman is beautiful." "God,he looks terrible after his illness."There are practical judgments: employers judge employees; teachers judge students.There are judgments about behavior that have to do with social mores: "This man is rude. I don't like this man." "This woman is very polite. I like her."The injunction not to judge others is a simple-minded notion. This is not the way life works.

In ordinary conversation, it means an opinion about somebody. If somebody says, as people often do, "I try not to be judgmental about people," this does not mean,"I try not to assign punishment." It means that the person tries not to have negative opinions about people. That sounds nice, but it leads to hypocrisy. Judgments are inevitable. The world runs by judgments. When I say that life works this way, I'm not saying that it's really too bad, but that's life. I'm saying that it is impossible for life to work any other way.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Here's the odd thing about this little slogan, "I don't judge others."It's really got nothing to do with Christianity. It's a part of the simpleminded morality we can call "political correctness."

The term "politically correct" was originally a joke among liberals having to do mostly with race, gender, and groups of various sorts that might be discriminated against, such as people in wheelchairs. So the liberals had to be real careful not to offend anybody, such as calling a disabled person a "cripple" or something of that sort. The joke consisted of taking this agenda to the extreme. Through the years, the term "political correctness" came to stand for this agenda of not discriminating against anybody. In other words, we must not judge, for if we do we might offend somebody or some group.Another slogan of political correctness is being "inclusive." Exclusivity is evil; inclusiveness is good.Traditional Christianity, for example, is exclusive and therefore evil by politically correct standards.
New Age Christianity, such as Jar's religion, is inclusive and therefore good by politically correct standards.Political correctness is a pretense.

It's common and moreover it is said, I think, automatically, unthinkingly. It's ingrained within American culture. I don't know about European culture.

It's not a joke. The term "politically correct" was originally a joke.

It's so much a part of our culture that we hardly notice it. I can give you a very good example from this forum. On one thread I was talking about an experience I had when I visited the VA hospital. I was walking around and saw some old men out in a little park where one is allowed to smoke. They were obviously old vets--many missing limbs. My comment on this forum was, "My heart went out to them."What I got in return was a barrage of accusations that I was "dehumanizing" these old men because I felt sorry for them.Political correctness.

No, it's a moral system. Your illogical religion is built upon its ideas.

I'm not sure, but I think you may be right about that. But the ubiquity of the "judge not" idea is not in American culture due to Christianity.

There's a part of me that agrees with you completely. It's that boasting side of American culture.Why do we call it the "World Series"? It should be called "The Pro baseball championship series of the USA" or something. It's not a world wide event.

Calling it the World Series is very unpolitically correct. My objection to it could be called political correctness, I suppose.It's not ALL bad.

No, go ahead. If you want to talk about boasting Americans, I agree completely. It makes me want to puke.

I've been trying, but I couldn't get "search" to work. It's in the thread called "The Boasts of Atheists."

It was misintepreted because of their knee-jerk politically correct reaction.One must not feel sympathy for anybody because that means you are judging them--a rule of politically correct morality that stifles naturally good sympathetic feelings.

Very well expressed.