This I Believe

NPR has revived a 1950s radio program called "This I Believe." It features brief statements from the famous and the unknown on the core values that guide their daily lives.

This is mine. The most salient thing I have learned so far:

I believe that the most destructive force in human relationships is judgment. And, for many it takes personal failure to learn to let go of that childhood urge to appraise and condemn.

If there is one topic that has lived in every one of my half-filled journal and stacks of scribbled-on bar napkins, it's stories of the hollow outrage I learned growing up.

Of snide comments. Of nasty gossip. Of rigid standards set for situations we'd never find ourselves in and others couldn't seem to get free of.

How could the woman in the front row of sunday church wear that outfit? Let me tell you about those two. Homosexuality, abortion, divorce all wrong, simply wrong.

As a nation, as communities, we talk about what divides us. Race and class and opportunity. For the most part, though, the divisions aren't the facts themselves - that he is black and I am white - but that we don't see others as quite as uniquely human and flawed as ourselves.

There is a song. By Everlast. One I would dedicate to you on the car stereo if we weren't limited to just words here. Three stories of unenviable situations - a homeless man begging, a woman walking into a clinic, a young man killed in street violence. And, the chorus: God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes 'Cause then you really might know what it's like to have to choose.

Judgment comes from believing that we know what is Right in the world. That there are certain Oughts. Certain Standards. We forgive ourselves our own trespasses because we are complex and flawed humans, but the further we get away from the people we know, the easier it is to define the equation in absolutes: woman + abortion = sinner; drug-user + street violence = he deserved it.

Many would say that judgment is an essential part of socialization and society. That only the establishment of those mores, those general rules and principals, enables laws and the proliferation of desired behaviors.

There is truth in that. And, truth, too, in how the big and little judgments separate us from each other, leave us with hollow outrage and block compassion.

As I grow older (not so slowly now), I watch judgment break down in my friends and family. As life gets more difficult and we make hard decisions, we lose the energy to impose our beliefs on others. Find me a divorced alcoholic who got laid off and couldn't afford to pay he credit card bill and I'll show you someone who gives more than the benefit of the doubt to his fellow man. He likely assumes that they're doing the best they can.

Imagine this. Such simple empathy to believe others were doing the best they can. And, so much the better to do it without having to fail at all our own Oughts first.

Comments

[Alexander M. Cooper III]

I imagine that if you were to scrutinize other facets of human nature you would find equal amounts of emptiness.

I wouldn't want to live in a world without judgment - how boring. Judgment sparks opinions. Opinions lead to disagreement. Disagreement is a prelude to struggle.

It's never about the reasons - it's about the fight, the experience.

I realize that my existence has no real impact on the greater world. It's no matter anyway - our universe is really just a molecule of fungus growing under a Larvak's toenail.

Stop this introspective exploration - nothing to see here.

[Alison]

I disagree with Alexander on two points:
1) I've often thought if I could rewrite the list of 7 deadly sins, I'd put judgement at the top (or maybe second, right after pride - since they're related after all).
2) Self-introspection, while sometimes damaging, is primarily healthy and necessary for growth. Without it, we'd alll still be acting & thinkling like teenagers.

[Alexander M. Cooper III]

We're not still acting and thinking like teenagers? Pick up a newspaper every once in a while! Who doesn't like to fuck and break stuff?

[Clay]

Vainglory would have to top my list of seven deadly sins.

But as far as judgement goes, none of us can say that we don't judge in some way. We do our best not to judge others, but sometimes we falter and end up judging even though we never meant to. If it invades your every day life and you choose to judge all of those that you surround yourself with then that is a problem for you. You will miss out on more than you will ever know exists.

If you want to think about the woman in the front pew then head to the Bible, look at Matthew 7:2. Not sure about anyone else, but go ahead and judge me by the standards that I judge others, I can deal with that. Will she and those like her say the same thing?

Acting like teenagers? Does that mean to say that the minority of society that we see reported about in those "unbiased recorders of news" represent our society as a whole? They report about socially hot topics meant to sell papers, news? Shock and dismay is what they push to sell those papers, not fact.

Introspection leads us to broaden our horizons and see life more clearly, so I guess there is something to see after all.

[Clay]

Holy cow, I must have been drinking or something to even bring up the Bible much less cite it. Ah well, atleast I will have a lot of company if the lady in the front pew is right.

[dugh daren]

I personally don't see anything wrong with judgement. In an existence where we *can't* know everything we have to make the best guesses we can. It is when we are absolutely certain our judgements are correct, when we those judgements of ourselves and others do not take into consideration that we just might be wrong, that Bad Things happen.

It's the *expectation* that our judgements are always right that I find a failing in people. If someone expects me to be something I am not, whose fault is that? Theirs. Yet who will burden the blame of failed expectations? Me.