Memories of the 28th Century

It is rather common to hear comments criticizing people for being "judgmental". That came to mind yesterday, and I thought about it for a while. I decided that there is nothing wrong with judging.

Consider that we have to make value decisions about people and things constantly. If we didn't, then something would kill us rather soon. Granted there are different sorts of judging, but the basic deciding factor is the same. Whether we are determining the value of an idea or of dashing into a busy street, we are deciding which will lead to longer life and greater happiness. The long life may be on Earth or the hypothetical after life, but it amounts to the same. Whether the idea we are judging is in some religious book or a new invention that may make trillions, the bottom line is deciding whether the idea is a fraud that will waste time and trouble or money or the dinkum oil that will lead to wealth in some form.

While deciding about people may not seem to be the same as figuring out whether a stock tout is onto something or whether one religion is actually true or just someone's schizophrenic delusions preserved in writing, but they are quite similar, and the results from a right or wrong decision are similar.

The judging is a life and death matter in many cases. A wrong decision means that you will decide to some stranger to Michael Flynn's Bar and end up in a shallow grave. A right decision will mean that you will spend the night with a model or an actress instead. But can you be sure that she won't lead you to Flynn's instead of her apartment?

The biggest problem involved in judging people lies in the standards used. The standards people use in judging other people usually are the same standards as one uses on oneself. Those standards may work well on one person and poorly on others, but they are standards, and they are based on experience, so they may have good results. But applying standards established for one person onto another requires some adjustment, and knowing that especially a problem for people of relatively low intelligence, because a general characteristic of humans is that they assume that no one is more intelligent than they are.

To many people there is a religious aspect to judging people. Whether they expect to be judged by Minos in Hades or by the Christian god in heaven, they leave the making of conclusions about people to the deities. That might be fine, but we don’t know what standards Minos uses; although there were a number of suggestions of standards in ancient time. Those who use the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god have a fair idea of the standards, but the standards are, and have been, open to interpretation. If we do the judging for ourselves, then we have a very good idea of the standards and the reasons for the standards, but we don't have the facilities for reward or punishment that are available to the Gods.

It is interesting that I was in the middle of this today, because I had an excellent opportunity to judge someone today. The man involved is someone I run into fairly often, but we seldom speak to each other. Today he was trying to get a necktie tied near me; I wasn't really interested in doing that, but after someone tried to help him without success I helped him on that. Sometime later I made a kidding comment to him, but he didn't understand what I meant and became belligerent. I tried to drop the matter, but he kept it going for a few minutes. My judgment was that he wasn't very bright, and that I should avoid him in the future. There were two reasons for that: first, he didn't understand my kidding comment, and second, because he wanted to become violent about it. This kind of judging happens frequently in our interactions with other people, and, if we judge correctly, then we will survive longer.

Perhaps the problem in judging people is not judging per se but the standards one uses may be problems. Condemning people for liking music that you do not like is not especially reasonable, and condemning people because of their choices in clothing is rather silly. Finding that one does not wish to associate with people of certain political stances may be more reasonable, because political stance indicates a variety of opinions in regard to social, political, and economic issues, so there might be enough data included in political opinions to apply to a person in general. Similarly, if someone is a believer in conspiracy theories, that might be adequate to show that the person has trouble thinking and understanding. But there are people who will argue for some of the conspiracy theories purely as sport.

Well, judge as you like, but others are judging you, so it may even out. I certainly will continue to judge people. My experience has been that my judgments have been proven right in almost all cases.