Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged

"No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same." 

-Victor E. Frankl 

 

I shouldn't have to tell you how important it is not to pass judgment prematurely.  When a man judges someone he knows very little, it causes more strife in the world than he's aware.  Passing judgment means he has closed his mind to an understanding.  His inflexibility puts constraints on his capabilities, causing his emotions to harvest deep grudges that rot with the foulest of bitterness.  He broods on the unfairness which has affected him, often because he has been misled by a misunderstanding, hearsay, or some other source of false information. 

Likewise, premature judgments isolate victims from the community they were part of, causing unnecessary separations, which motivate revenge for whatever wrong has been done to punish the innocent.  The bitterness in the judge's own mind becomes doubled by the bitterness of the victim's being judged unfairly.  Conflict ensues, fights erupt, families become divided by the ostracizing of some poor soul, all unnecessary in the eyes of those with open minds.  

Often our judgments are tainted by our perception of things, so they are rather meaningless in the grand scheme of life.  Our worldview is highly influenced by how we were raised, what we were taught, and who shaped our lives.  The worldview we subscribe to likewise shapes our perceptions, painting any new information we learn with the bias of our own experiences.  Judgments reinforce our worldview; that's why we're comfortable with them.  They further convince us that we'd been right all along, and that like a glutton who doesn't know he is hoarding things from others less fortunate, we obstruct justice by our blind allegiances to the ideologies we serve. 

It's important that we don't cling too closely to these ideologies, lest we make it a habit of judging people we haven't yet met, simply because their worldview doesn't reflect ours.  This would open our minds to discussion, understanding, and forgiveness for people who simply live differently than us.  Intolerance is the gasoline that makes judgment go.  The less we tolerate, the more we let our judgments castigate others, for the fleeting pleasure of convincing ourselves that we were right, that brief ego boost affirming that the world would be a much better place if we were in charge. 

Even after all that, we must consider that had we been struck with the same misfortunes of someone we've judged, we might not have turned out to be the person we are today.  A man who was beaten reacts differently to people than a man who wasn't; if you'd been beaten, would you turn out the same way as him?  Possibly.  Put yourself in another's shoes before you place judgment upon him, that way you'll better understand why it is he sees things the way he does, and acts in ways that you deplore.  Without discovering such empathy, you'll stumble through life thinking you have all the answers without really knowing anything at all.