"Judge not, lest ye be judged"
November 20th 2008 04:41
Just as a disclaimer, I know the above is a bible verse, but I am writing about it not as that but as a common saying.
As I touched upon in a previous thread, I have often been accused of being judgemental. There is a big problem with being judgmental, and that is, no-one likes being judged! So going around judging people, even if it's in your head, is not a good way to go about being liked. There is something intriguing about the judging process, though. It doesn't seem to be as simple as "don't judge". The reason is that judging is very closely related to quality - judging is the measuring or assessing of the quality of something. And by definition, all of us are attracted to whatever is quality. Now I don't want to start a big discussion about Quality - that has already been done in vast style by a much smarter man than myself, Robert Pirsig, in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I do agree with him though that quality is that which everything stems from (I think that was one of his claims).
Let me give an example, though, of how important quality is in everything we do. When we are shopping for apples, for example, we try to pick the best value and ripest apples. In other words, we are judging which ones are the best, and then making our decision based on that judgement. If we were not to judge, we would just buy whatever is available. It seems to me that everything we do, every action, involves some sort of choice, some sort of decision. And because every decision is tied to a judgement, then it follows that every action is based upon a judgement. This is what I call the Judgement Paradox - the idea that we can't act at all without making some sort of judgement. As such, anyone who says "do not judge" is a hypocrite.
So how can we avoid judging if by doing so, we are cutting ties with that which is quality?I will tell a story about this guy I know, Jake, who's a guitarist. He was at the G3 concert, which is a concert where three guitarists were playing, on after another: Steve Vai, John Petrucci and Joe Satriani. Now this guy is a massive Steve Vai fan, and loved every minute of his playing. After seeing a couple of minutes of Joe Satriani, though, Jake just walked off quietly. Now I really like this story because it shows what I think is a very wise attitude. Instead of judging Satriani or standing around complaining about his playing, he just chose not to listen to it. In a sense, he did judge Satriani because he didn't feel any quality in it, it didn't move him. But he didn't make an intellectual or moral judgement on the playing - he simply let himself be attracted to that which was quality, and ignored that which was not. I think that is the best any of us can hope to do.
I don't think that this way of going about things is without problems, however. If we appreciate what is quality and ignore what is not, then what of the people who are without quality? People who are boring, weak, lazy, tired, poor, dull, depressed... will they just be ignored? Left to live their fate of being outsiders? After all, quality is unevenly spread throughout people. Some people just have "better" qualities and access to more ways and means. And that just doesn't seem fair to me. But maybe Nietzsche is right, maybe fairness is not something we should aspire to. I will write more about this when I write part two of "don't judge a book by its cover".
As I touched upon in a previous thread, I have often been accused of being judgemental. There is a big problem with being judgmental, and that is, no-one likes being judged! So going around judging people, even if it's in your head, is not a good way to go about being liked. There is something intriguing about the judging process, though. It doesn't seem to be as simple as "don't judge". The reason is that judging is very closely related to quality - judging is the measuring or assessing of the quality of something. And by definition, all of us are attracted to whatever is quality. Now I don't want to start a big discussion about Quality - that has already been done in vast style by a much smarter man than myself, Robert Pirsig, in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I do agree with him though that quality is that which everything stems from (I think that was one of his claims).
Let me give an example, though, of how important quality is in everything we do. When we are shopping for apples, for example, we try to pick the best value and ripest apples. In other words, we are judging which ones are the best, and then making our decision based on that judgement. If we were not to judge, we would just buy whatever is available. It seems to me that everything we do, every action, involves some sort of choice, some sort of decision. And because every decision is tied to a judgement, then it follows that every action is based upon a judgement. This is what I call the Judgement Paradox - the idea that we can't act at all without making some sort of judgement. As such, anyone who says "do not judge" is a hypocrite.
So how can we avoid judging if by doing so, we are cutting ties with that which is quality?I will tell a story about this guy I know, Jake, who's a guitarist. He was at the G3 concert, which is a concert where three guitarists were playing, on after another: Steve Vai, John Petrucci and Joe Satriani. Now this guy is a massive Steve Vai fan, and loved every minute of his playing. After seeing a couple of minutes of Joe Satriani, though, Jake just walked off quietly. Now I really like this story because it shows what I think is a very wise attitude. Instead of judging Satriani or standing around complaining about his playing, he just chose not to listen to it. In a sense, he did judge Satriani because he didn't feel any quality in it, it didn't move him. But he didn't make an intellectual or moral judgement on the playing - he simply let himself be attracted to that which was quality, and ignored that which was not. I think that is the best any of us can hope to do.
I don't think that this way of going about things is without problems, however. If we appreciate what is quality and ignore what is not, then what of the people who are without quality? People who are boring, weak, lazy, tired, poor, dull, depressed... will they just be ignored? Left to live their fate of being outsiders? After all, quality is unevenly spread throughout people. Some people just have "better" qualities and access to more ways and means. And that just doesn't seem fair to me. But maybe Nietzsche is right, maybe fairness is not something we should aspire to. I will write more about this when I write part two of "don't judge a book by its cover".
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