What's hard is..

[nfotxn]

...learning to walk the fine line between being a good judge of character and being judgemental.

Comments

[cub4bear.livejournal.com]

There is no line.

[sultmhoor.livejournal.com]

Agreed...

[gusmacroy.livejournal.com]

so much emphasis on judgement, lately. Interesting...

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I know why too. Not really going to say in public. Still contemplating it.

[lfkbear.livejournal.com]

That's quite a task. I think I'll spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to do that.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

It's a delicate balance between being afraid of making a judgement at all and making judgements all the time. Sometimes inaccurate ones.

People have all sorts of sublime qualities.

[lfkbear.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right. I have no idea of what has inspired you to start exploring this topic within yourself today, but in the little bit I know about you, I'm sure that you'll find the right balance.

HUGS

[notofthisworld.livejournal.com]

What's does "being judgemental" mean again? And what's wrong with it, exactly?

I'm not sure I see anything wrong with being judgemental.

I can understand it's somewhat erroneous to make judgements when you don't know all the relevant details of a situation. I also understand that voicing your objections about people to them when it isn't likely to make a difference is just being annoying and wasting energy.

But just considering whether you think a person's actions to be good or bad? Nothing wrong with it. We do it all the time.

I know there was that "Love me, don't judge me" slogan, popular in gay circles for a while. (I think Queer Nation put it on their t-shirts one year, or something.) But "Love me, don't judge me" is one of those kinda-wacky Christian ideas -- along with loving your enemies and letting them hit your cheeks a lot. It presumes that there's a God who's going to sort everything out for us. Queer Nation were obviously just using it to throw Christian arguments back at their Religious-Right detractors.

My favourite rebuttal of that idea came in a Buffy episode. (Go, pop culture!) In the episode, there was an old, strictly religious woman who ran an orphanage. She had traumatised numerous children by being extremely strict and making them think they were sinful or evil. When Giles tells her how despicable she's been, she says "How dare you judge me?". Giles responds, "Well someone has to."

Giles was great. I kinda wish he'd return to the show.

What was I saying again?

[cub4bear.livejournal.com]

"Judgemental = bad" is one of those simple statements that's rammed into us from a young age. Unfortunately it's not true.

Being judgemental is not bad. Being unfairly judgemental is bad.