You should always judge people
Yes judging people is good, we should all practice it…but you’re doing it wrong.
When I say we should Judge people, I don’t mean make an automatic biased assessment of someone based on their appearance, their actions in the moment, what they say, or who they associate with. This isn’t judging.
What does a Judge in a court of law do? They listen to the facts, they seek to remove emotion from the debate, they look for mitigating circumstances, and then, and only then, do they make a decision on the right or wrong of the situation.
What we do on a daily basis is not judging people…we simply put people into boxes that we have created in our minds, to sort out what our subconscious has developed to believe is bad for us and what is good for us, what is a threat to us and what is not. It is an emotive based decision that has been developed through the lifetime of our experiences.
But can you separate yourself from your subconscious bias? Can you recognise your immediate reactions to a person or situation as being based on your own view of the world, and not on the facts behind the incident or person? If you can recognise this, if you can stop and take away the emotion from a decision, and start to look for reasons why that person thinks the way they do or acts the way they do, then you are starting to Judge properly.
If you can do this, it allows reason and empathy to enter the judgement, and allows us to apply the presumption of innocence. There is far too little of this in the world today.
