Judging is defined as forming an opinion, or drawing a conclusion, about someone or something with limited knowledge and using your own perspective on the matter. When considering judgement in this way, I find that it happens a lot more than we realize. Essentially everything we consider and do is in this manner. We use both the knowledge we have and the bias we own to make our decisions and judgments on a situation.
Hence why for the most part I am okay with judging. It is something we are programmed to do, there is no denying that. It is an evolutionary trait we have developed to prepare for quick decision making and necessary assessments of possible danger. What I am not okay with is when we use this skill on other people and assume we know their situation. When we compare what they are going through to our own experiences, and assume we experienced the same thing but magically prevailed. Call me crazy, but I don’t believe in magic.
Here’s the one thing we tend to forget when thinking of others, they aren’t you. You, me, the guy in your tenth-grade math class, your crazy neighbor, your parents, and whoever else you can think of, all have one commonality. That commonality is that we lack any absolute commonality with one another. Let me explain.
Subjectivity is something influenced by feelings, tastes, and opinions. When thinking in this sense, our world is subjective because everything, and I mean everything, is subjective. A simple example of this is shown when you hold your phone in your hand. As you pick up your phone, you cannot know for sure whether it is you raising the phone or if it is instead levitating up as your hand moves up. One could argue that you “feel” the phone, but the same situation occurs. Do you feel the phone in your hands, or does a sensation rush into your hand as you think you are holding the phone? Any one of our senses could be rearranged in this manner, inconveniencing us into not know which reality is true.
Here’s a more concrete example: everything is subjective because there is a constant filter that we take the world in from. As in with every sense you have, there is a filter from that thing you are experiencing and whatever you define as yourself experiencing it. In between you and the thing you experience is the lens that transfers this information. And that lens, of course, is biased and subject to the emotions and expectations that you have of yourself and the world around you. Therefore, nothing is a direct intake without some type of internal influence when interpreting.
It should be noted that although this concept is commonly accepted among modern philosophers, one should not get stuck on this way of thinking. However, there is an important thing to notice with this realization. With the understanding of our world being subjective, comes the understanding that how we all interpret this world could be completely different depending on the person. An example of this, that most of us have all heard, is that your blue could be my red, and vise versa. The colors that I have defined in my head could be entirely different than yours. This is idea, of individual realities, is reinforced with Cogito’s quote, “I think, therefore I am”.
Since we are not in each other’s heads, it is impossible to tell how someone other than yourself experiences something. We can relate with one another, but we can not truly know what it feels like to be that person. And that is why the one thing we all have in common leads to the very thing we all have uniquely. We all live in a subjective world, but that subjective world makes us experience our unique thoughts and emotions.
This is why judging is so terrible. When we judge we assume we know what it means to be that person and to be honest with you, there is no way we do. Two people’s external surroundings could be identical and it still wouldn’t matter because their internal ones could be infinitely different.
This is where I feel most of the issue in judgement is. People compare themselves to others who turned out worse than them, yet grew up in the same environment. They see these people and sometimes guiltily smile. Many of us only see as far as the external world and assume the rest is the same. The thing is that it isn’t, and arguably if it was you would do the same exact thing. So unless you wanna disagree with the fact that we are the product of nature and nurture, we need to start considering both parts of people.
Therefore, we need to stop judging others. We need to because we are in no position to. We need to acknowledge the fact that someone addicted to cocaine and heroin, spending the next 15 years in the hole from dealing is no worse than you or me. We all live in an uncertain world. One with no bearing on how anyone thinks other than ourselves. Let’s stop pretending like we are magically better than anyone else. We need to accept the fact that nobody, nobody, deserves to be judged. And that nobody should have the liberty to use minimal, biased “facts” and throw them onto anyone but themselves.