Don’t Be Judgmental! —The Case Against Judgment
But in a friendly discussion, last winter, with an articulate, earnest staff member in an altogether charming hostel in equally charming Cashel, Ireland, I listened to that very serious, yet amiable truth-seeker explain how he has been struggling to become “non-judgmental”—as if that were possible, necessary or desirable (without even addressing the question of what “being non-judgmental” means).
“Non-Judgmental”—What’s That?
You would think that with so many people professing that they are trying to be “non-judgmental”, they would have a clear idea of what they think they mean. You would also think that they would see or consider the difference between prejudicially prejudging and judging in general. But they almost never do. They seem to have judged that close analysis and further reflection and distinctions regarding judgment are not necessary.
Such careful but missing analysis is indeed warranted: Does being “non-judgmental” mean that, in addition to never judging anyone negatively, we should never judge anyone positively either?
No credit where credit is due, no expressed or implied encouragement or acknowledgement for good deeds, sacrifices, excellence of character, of neither children nor adults?
Or are we to pretend that in judging (in)actions, character or other personal traits we are not judging their performers and possessors? “I’m not judging you—just your shiftlessness, dishonesty, beer-built beer belly and physical abusiveness, including judging that last punch to my face.” Or are we somehow more than the sum of what we are and do?
The question of being positively judgmental is virtually never raised—although pressed for an answer, “non-judgmentalists” may squirm around the issue and say they are “semi-non-judgmental”: “Just never judge anyone unfavorably or negatively”—like an unusual criminal-trial judge who, as policy, will never find anyone guilty, but feels he must judge everyone not-guilty (on the strength of the evidence, which somehow still has to be respected!).
Morally and/or Otherwise Non-Judgmental?
They also usually confuse or equate being morally judgmental with all other ways of being judgmental, e.g., scientific, social, judicial, logical, technological, perceptual, volitional, mathematical, professional, artistic, cultural, instinctive, intuitive—to mention the most obvious.
(This is not to deny that among these is a common core of decisions with consequences that include acceptance or rejection of something or someone. In fact, unease with rejecting anyone for any reason seems to be a common ground for rejecting judgment.)
Ironically, non-judgmentalists seem to (morally, spiritually, psychologically, etc.) judge that it is (morally, spiritually, psychologically, etc.) wrong to be (morally. spiritually, psychologically, etc.) judgmental.
That’s not just an irony—it’s also a paradox, as a self-contradiction and a modern spinoff from the Biblical “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
As an injunction, “Judge not, lest ye be judged” apparently hypocritically applies only to us mortals, never to the Biggest Judges of All [of us[—namely, the very judgmental Gods and whatever commandments by which they judge us with no allowance for their being judged themselves.
But, facts, evidence, brake linings, crossing against the light, the safety of our water supply, standing under a tree in a lightning storm, smoking and your pilot’s training presumably can and must be judged, if we are going to survive long enough to judge again tomorrow.
Yet, somehow, it is widely believed that, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, only people (and gods—as quasi-people) shouldn’t be judged (unless by the same gods), despite clearly being a part (or creators) of the same universe, subject to (or authors of) its same laws that are often invoked in pleadings for exempting them from judgment, e.g., an insanity defense based on the effects of a Twinkie diet.
Ah!—It’s Only About People: Judge the Food, But Not the Chef
You say, “Ah! Now I get it: It’s only judgment about gods and other people—with the possible exception of criminals on trial—that should never be passed.” But why only that exception? How about job candidates, the huge guy wearing a balaclava mask and walking behind you in a dark alley, the unseen pilot of your international flight, the farmer who grew your organic or Monsanto corn?
You can judge the food, but not the chef or the farmer? Are people (or gods) exempt from our judgment because they cannot help being what they are, i.e., do not really have free will? Corn cannot help being corn. Cobras cannot help being cobras, but that doesn’t exempt them from the herpetologist’s expert judgment that they make “bad” pets for children. Ditto for GMO corn as “bad”.
That’s “judgmental”, but it’s not morally judgmental. Here “bad”, although “normative”, is not a moral epithet: It simply blends ideas like “readily uses lethal venom” and “uh-oh, watch out!”
So, if we can judge cobras and GMO corn to be dangerous, why not people? Judges, who are esteemed for their judgment, do it all the time—and are expected to do it.
So are and do you.
Reserve Judgment Outside the Courtroom?
If the non-judgmental ask, “But who made you or me (a) judge?”, the correct reply is the counter-question, “Is judgment to be important and respected only in civil, criminal and military courts? What about common sense and daily life situations that require choices and decisions involving people and the best responses to them?”
Moreover, if getting through life without ever judging anyone were possible, what makes refraining also necessary or desirable? That’s another question that is rarely, if ever addressed by non-judgmentalists.
Imagine anyone in any position of supervisory or screening responsibility vowing to no longer be judgmental: “Well, I’d like to offer you the job, but I’m trying very hard to become a non-judgmental person.”
Or, how about, “I’d fire you for your drug use, chronic absenteeism, customer abuse and slovenliness, but I’m non-judgmental, so I can’t say you are a ‘bad’ employee or that what you are (not) doing is bad or even that if we keep you, we’ll lose customers.” [Notice here, with regard to losing customers, the secondary concept of judgment as predictive inference. Is that also to be disallowed?]
If the employee is fired not because (s)he is bad, but because what (s)he did(n’t) do was bad, e.g., skipping work, how comforting will (s)he find that? Is the employee to imagine that absenteeism got fired?
The “I’m non-judgmental” stance is riddled with not only risk, but, as suggested above, also contradictions: “I judge you to be the kind of person who will listen to my reasons for being non-judgmental.”
Ah, right, so maybe you can judge me, so long as it is not morally? Or is it that we must refrain from judging others only whenever rejecting them is a distinctly possible outcome of the judging?
The Roots of “Non-Judgmentalism”
Does this reluctance to be judgmental with others stem from fear of
- hurting their feelings—whether they deserve it or not
- being ourselves judged as bigoted, stereotyping, politically incorrect, “insensitive” or simply careless
- judging them prematurely
- attracting bad karma
- missing hidden wonderful opportunities with them
- fear of making ourselves in turn vulnerable to judgment
- moral relativism (“There is no absolute right or wrong; so who am I to judge?”)
- moral egalitarianism (“We are all morally equal”—confused with economic, social, political, legal and other forms of equality)
- lack of confidence in our own capacity for, practice with, or standards of judgment
- fear of our own aggressive or otherwise dark tendencies, which may seep out through our harsh judgments? In fact, the staffer I spoke with identified this as his third key motivation for becoming “non-judgmental”, the first being good karma, and the second being some sort of relativism.
In a staggering irony, the staff member suggested, as I’ve noted, that he should be non-judgmental (about people) because the universe and its karmic “goes-around-comes-around” law-force will judge him better for it, in his attempt to become a better person.
Notice this karmic judgment notion is broader than “Judge not, lest ye be judged”, because the latter, as a variant form of “semi-non-judgmentalism”, is silent about what happens if ye do not judge, whereas the karmic version covers both cases, including the reward-for-not judging scenario.
Unlike the Bible, karmic justice covers the case in which one is judgmental and the case when one is not, the presumption being that although being judgmental is bad, being non-judgmental is very good for one’s karma.
In fact, since, in the Final Judgment, everybody is judged, in the Big Picture, it doesn’t matter whether ye judge or not. Ye will be judged— with no “lest” clause whatsoever.
The stunning irony resides in the combination of fervent faith in being non-judgmental with equally fervent faith in karmic judgment as the justification for being non-judgmental.
The ‘Wisdom’ of Solomon
Whether or not the judgmental wisdom of equally Biblical Solomon would be acceptable to non-judgmentalists is an interesting question.
Presumably, because King Solomon merely determined which of two women was the real mother of a child each claimed as her own (by cleverly ordering the child sliced in two, which caused the real mother to beg for its life, even if it meant allowing the other woman have it), he was only judging ownership, not character. (Solomon awarded custody to the woman who reacted the way a real mother would.)
But wait, didn’t he judge human character after all? In rendering his judgment regarding child custody, Solomon psychologically, if not morally, judged that “real mothers will beg for a child’s life, even if it means letting another woman have it.”
Oooh, that’s m’bad—not only as a judgment about that woman, but also as stereotyping of all women (mothers and non-mothers alike). Oops—I forgot: I’m not supposed to judge Solomon and maybe not even his judgment.
(“South Park” fans will get the “m’bad” as a take-off on quintessentially judgmental school counselor “Mr. Mackey”‘s trademark epithet “m’kay?”—“OK?”, and be OK with my using it.)
To Judge or Not to Judge
I suspect that the trendiness or persistence of non-judgmentalism is attributable to the lasting, lingering influence of the contrary Biblical injunction “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (which apparently exempts God Himself/Herself and maybe Solomon too) propped up by modern moral relativism, moral egalitarianism, modern deterministic-forgiving criminal psychology and a timeless lack of self-confidence.
“Judge not, lest ye be judged”?
Why not, instead, “Judge, so ye can be judged”?
It can, through constructive feedback, be a terrific learning experience and a great way to become precisely the better person my hostel non-judger aspires to be.