Daily Times

According to Doctor (PhD) Gregg Henriques, a professor of psychology at James Madison University, USA, “Someone is being judgmental when their judgments are power-driven, unempathetic, based on their own idiosyncratic values or tastes, overly based on other people’s character, and are closed, shallow, and pessimistic, and ultimately have the consequence of making the other person feel problematically diminished.”

Although human beings are born and raised under diverse environments, basic morals remain similar. These include honesty, truthfulness, affection, respect, obedience and compassion which are universally preached by all types of ideologies, both worldly and Godly. Despite the concept of sacrificing a living thing prevalent in many religions, none endorse murder, theft, burglary, destruction or genocide. Irrespective of the belief in God or denial of His existence, evil is denounced by the majority while virtue is profoundly appreciated. To put it in a nutshell, there can be differences in appearance and approach to life but underlying goodness cannot be dissimilar.

Marilyn Monroe allegedly proposed to Albert Einstein thinking that their offspring would have her beauty and his intelligence, but Einstein was quick to turn down her request on the ground that what if it were the other way round and they inherited his looks and her brains. Nothing is predictable! Our judgments can be flawed

In this scenario, the best way out is to look upon diversity with objectivity rather than through a myopic view point whereby everybody other than ourselvesis seen with a tainted eye. Such an attitude gives birth to what we understand as ‘being judgmental’ and the fact is that most of the time we are judgmental much to the dismay of those who fall victim to our bad habit.There is quite a difference between judging someone, which we are doing all the time especially with reference to his/her behavior with us, and being judgmental which is passing a moral opinion. Consider these situations:a staunch believer in God views the atheist as sacrilegious;an atheist thinks a believer is illogical; a fashionable person looks with disdain upon a modestly dressed person and vice versa. A person caring for the elderly finds a disobedient son’s behavior with his own parents disgusting. Aa slim smart girl views an obese lady with contempt; a prudent man shakes his head at the extravagance during the wedding of his friend’s son. A straight person sneers at the actions of his gay colleague; an academician scorns the ignorant.Some may consider a shy and quiet person as arrogant. A miserly woman may think of her shopaholic friend as imprudent; a moralist may speak harshly about a wayward considering his lifestyle as preposterous. All these cases reflect the mindset of each person judging and forming opinions about others and amazingly, we all consider ourselves saints while complaining about others judging us.

For a moment we must pause and take a look within our own souls to understand exactly who we are. It is very easy to comment upon others but extremely difficult to walk in their shoes for a few feet. Each person is a prisoner of his circumstances and it takes immense willpower to escape from this prison, the walls of which appear invisible but are highly impregnable. The stream of thought that develops in a human mind is the product of its unique state of affairs. All along this corridor of life where there are brief recesses of serenity, he comes across hidden surprises that pop up from nowhere, struggles with obstacles that keep hindering his way, grapples adversaries who make his existence miserable, manages crises that spring from either his own acts or those of his near and dear ones and these things together with the people in his life make him who we see as such.

During the period of colonialism, one of the strategies employed by the subjugators was to pass harsh judgments about the subjects’ way of life, culture, language, civilization and ideology rendering them inferior and detestable to the extent that they were easily overpowered by a handful despite being in majority. Such is the lethal consequence of being judgmental that entire nations having rich heritages are forced into submission and sometimes, oblivion.

There are many who are apparently born with what we popularly call a silver spoon. At the same time there are even many more who open their eyes in utter poverty. Again, a person can be both intelligent and talented whereas another could have low intelligence quotient or suffering from dyslexia or mental retardation. Obviously, there would be great variance in their mental outlook. A case in point is the unconfirmed incident where Marilyn Monroe allegedly proposed to Albert Einstein thinking that their offspring would have her beauty and his intelligence but Einstein was quick to turn down her request on the ground that what if it were the other way round and they inherited his looks and her brains.Nothing is predictable! Our judgments can be flawed.

Most of the time we are overwhelmed by appearances which in many cases can be deceptive, yet there is a tendency to believe in the jargon “first impression is the last impression” that is again quite misleading. For example in our society a woman fully clad from head to toe is seen with more respect compared to one whose style is bolder but what if the bold one rushes to tear her scarf to stop the bleeding wound of a child in a road accident while the respectful one just looks on? Anyone passing an adverse judgment for the bold one prior to the incident should in reality be ashamed. Similarly, we are quick to infer immorality when we find a person in a brothel without verifying the purpose of his visit. As long as this judgment is confined to one’s mind, it may not be as damaging as its propagation to others. This means that being judgmental is not as harmful as its circulation in the society. Another emerging crucial point is that where we form a specific opinion about someone, discretion demands that we remain quiet lest we humiliate not only the person in question but also ourselves. In all fairness, before we open our mouths to pass a callous comment about anyone, a few seconds of contemplation could help to avoid serious mistakes having long term implications.

The writer, lawyer and author, is an Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

Published in Daily Times, August 19^th 2018.