There is a popular notion that judging is bad. We have the biblical warning, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." We have Buddha saying, "Make no comparisons" which is what a judgment is. Therapists and self-help afficionados regularly coach us not to judge, not to make others wrong, but rather to listen and be present non-defensively. There's some real merit to this but before we get to that, I think we need to untangle
a few things.
The human brain is wired to make comparisons and judgments, to know what is good water to drink and what bad; to know what is a good plant to eat and what bad, to know which animals can be approached without fear and which we should stay away from. It is also wired to use this capacity when interacting with other humans. First, who am I safe with? Who will nurture me and love me? Later, who is a good friend I can count on to be a good playmate. Still later, who is a good person to work with or for; who is someone I can trust with my effort, my money, my heart? All of these require that we hone our capacity to make good reality-based judgments. We are learning creatures, so we build on past experience. This doesn't always guide us to the best decision, but then, if we make a mistake, we have another opportunity to learn. So there is a critical, life-saving and life building capacity to the ability to judge well, to be good at comparing. Frankly, in my role as a consultant for individuals and organizations, I get paid for my clarity about the best options, and for my ability to grow that same acumen in others. Having good judgment about who to hire, what to pay them, how to put them in a situation where they can do the best for the company...not to mention having good judgment about how to bring a product or service to market, how to maintain a competitive advantage--all these are very important functions. As a mother or father, it's critical to have good judgment in discerning what food is actually nutritious, what schools are good, what teachers in those schools are the best, to what degree your children should be exposed to TV and other technologies...and so on, more important decisions where good judgment is called for.
So let's not paint with too broad a brush and give judgment per se a bad name. It's part of our survival and thrival repertoire. It can also really get in the way of a relationship, especially a love relationship. Maintaining a deep, empathetic connection with your partner is simply far more important than making judgments about him or her. I'm specifically thinking of how people tend to make their partners wrong or feel less than. What's the upside to that? Oh, yes, if you're wrong, I'm right and I get to feel good. I do? I love you. You feel bad that I made you wrong and now I feel good? Somehow, that just doesn't pencil as a strategy for intimacy, does it? So when we say, "Judge not..." we are talking about the realm of human experience. We are saying that judgment separates us from others, rather than uniting us. We are saying that if I dismiss my partner's needs as childish instead of hearing the child within those needs and ministering to him or her, if I do that, I am stepping back, not forward towards my partner. I am being cold, not warm. The same applies in many other situations. I see a homeless person on the street. If I think, "Oh, that fellow is a useless, disgusting, a drunk" I have forgotten one of the cardinal rules of life: there but for the grace of God or circumstance go I." Malcolm Gladwell has pretty well put to rest the idea that there is really any such thing as "a self-made man" or woman in his book Outliers. Those of us who have good lives have them only partially because of our own efforts and to a large degree because of good fortune and opportunity. When we start thinking it's really all about us, we are descending into narcissism. It is quite possible to disagree with your partner without making him or her feel stupid. In fact, it's possible to mentally note that you disagree and then move into curiosity about why your partner sees it the way he or she does.
It's possible make a judgment to avoid another human being without erasing his or her humanity. It is possible to be temporarily angry at someone without doing same. It is possible to disagree with the politics of someone without demonizing him It is possible to think that your kid's teacher isn't very good at teaching without robbing her of her humanity.
There is a large middle ground here where judgment and empathy not only can co-exist but should and do when we are secure in our own selfhood. Sadly, this territory has been abandoned by many of our public figures. When we label or judge or one-dimensionalize another, we legitimize the whole activity of labelling, judging and one-dimensionalizing a human being...and that includes others doing it to us. A vicious cycle that turns others (and ourselves) into objects, like a donkey on whom we want to pin a tail just to feel better. If we compulsively go around doing that, labeling and judging others, flattening their humanity into a cardboard cut-out, it speaks much more loudly about something missing in us than it does the reality of others. It puts up an arrow the size of a billboard pointing to our past and asking, "What happened to you? What happened to your ability to walk in another person's shoes?" The obvious task, then, is to take responsibility for something being lost or denied within us...meaning, get into therapy. There are plenty of good therapists out there who specialize in this kind of emotional recovery. We certainly focus on that in our Imago work, but so do many others, including those who have been trained by Terrence Real in Boston and Sue Johnson in Ottawa, and the Janov's in LA. I'm sure there are others I"m not familiar with.
The point is to embrace the fact that if you are a chronically judgmental person, you are separating yourself from others. It's a self-reinforcing downward spiral. You judge them. That makes you feel separate and alone. In turn, to cope with that feeling, you make them wrong or less than you. This denies you much of the richness of life available through deep connection and vulnerability. It is a primary impulse in humans to attach to each other; detachment is a secondary adaptation to a painful experience. So, clearly, if you're constantly labeling and detaching from others or simply diminishing them (there are always degrees along a continuum with this sort of behavior), there is a reason. Something, perhaps many things happened as you grew up and moved into adulthood. Those reasons can be discovered through gentle emotional archaeology...and ultimately healed. We know too much today about how human beings function to just settle for being a frustrated person who tries to convince himself he or she is right and most of the rest of the world is wrong.
The bottom line on judgment, then, seems to be that when it serves our survival and our thriving, it's a good thing. But in our love relationships, at work, in our community if we use it in a way that is disconnected from essential human feelings, it speaks more volumes about us than the object of our judgment. In that case, the bible is quite right: judge not, lest ye be judged.
C 2011 Bob Kamm
a few things.
The human brain is wired to make comparisons and judgments, to know what is good water to drink and what bad; to know what is a good plant to eat and what bad, to know which animals can be approached without fear and which we should stay away from. It is also wired to use this capacity when interacting with other humans. First, who am I safe with? Who will nurture me and love me? Later, who is a good friend I can count on to be a good playmate. Still later, who is a good person to work with or for; who is someone I can trust with my effort, my money, my heart? All of these require that we hone our capacity to make good reality-based judgments. We are learning creatures, so we build on past experience. This doesn't always guide us to the best decision, but then, if we make a mistake, we have another opportunity to learn. So there is a critical, life-saving and life building capacity to the ability to judge well, to be good at comparing. Frankly, in my role as a consultant for individuals and organizations, I get paid for my clarity about the best options, and for my ability to grow that same acumen in others. Having good judgment about who to hire, what to pay them, how to put them in a situation where they can do the best for the company...not to mention having good judgment about how to bring a product or service to market, how to maintain a competitive advantage--all these are very important functions. As a mother or father, it's critical to have good judgment in discerning what food is actually nutritious, what schools are good, what teachers in those schools are the best, to what degree your children should be exposed to TV and other technologies...and so on, more important decisions where good judgment is called for.
So let's not paint with too broad a brush and give judgment per se a bad name. It's part of our survival and thrival repertoire. It can also really get in the way of a relationship, especially a love relationship. Maintaining a deep, empathetic connection with your partner is simply far more important than making judgments about him or her. I'm specifically thinking of how people tend to make their partners wrong or feel less than. What's the upside to that? Oh, yes, if you're wrong, I'm right and I get to feel good. I do? I love you. You feel bad that I made you wrong and now I feel good? Somehow, that just doesn't pencil as a strategy for intimacy, does it? So when we say, "Judge not..." we are talking about the realm of human experience. We are saying that judgment separates us from others, rather than uniting us. We are saying that if I dismiss my partner's needs as childish instead of hearing the child within those needs and ministering to him or her, if I do that, I am stepping back, not forward towards my partner. I am being cold, not warm. The same applies in many other situations. I see a homeless person on the street. If I think, "Oh, that fellow is a useless, disgusting, a drunk" I have forgotten one of the cardinal rules of life: there but for the grace of God or circumstance go I." Malcolm Gladwell has pretty well put to rest the idea that there is really any such thing as "a self-made man" or woman in his book Outliers. Those of us who have good lives have them only partially because of our own efforts and to a large degree because of good fortune and opportunity. When we start thinking it's really all about us, we are descending into narcissism. It is quite possible to disagree with your partner without making him or her feel stupid. In fact, it's possible to mentally note that you disagree and then move into curiosity about why your partner sees it the way he or she does.
It's possible make a judgment to avoid another human being without erasing his or her humanity. It is possible to be temporarily angry at someone without doing same. It is possible to disagree with the politics of someone without demonizing him It is possible to think that your kid's teacher isn't very good at teaching without robbing her of her humanity.
There is a large middle ground here where judgment and empathy not only can co-exist but should and do when we are secure in our own selfhood. Sadly, this territory has been abandoned by many of our public figures. When we label or judge or one-dimensionalize another, we legitimize the whole activity of labelling, judging and one-dimensionalizing a human being...and that includes others doing it to us. A vicious cycle that turns others (and ourselves) into objects, like a donkey on whom we want to pin a tail just to feel better. If we compulsively go around doing that, labeling and judging others, flattening their humanity into a cardboard cut-out, it speaks much more loudly about something missing in us than it does the reality of others. It puts up an arrow the size of a billboard pointing to our past and asking, "What happened to you? What happened to your ability to walk in another person's shoes?" The obvious task, then, is to take responsibility for something being lost or denied within us...meaning, get into therapy. There are plenty of good therapists out there who specialize in this kind of emotional recovery. We certainly focus on that in our Imago work, but so do many others, including those who have been trained by Terrence Real in Boston and Sue Johnson in Ottawa, and the Janov's in LA. I'm sure there are others I"m not familiar with.
The point is to embrace the fact that if you are a chronically judgmental person, you are separating yourself from others. It's a self-reinforcing downward spiral. You judge them. That makes you feel separate and alone. In turn, to cope with that feeling, you make them wrong or less than you. This denies you much of the richness of life available through deep connection and vulnerability. It is a primary impulse in humans to attach to each other; detachment is a secondary adaptation to a painful experience. So, clearly, if you're constantly labeling and detaching from others or simply diminishing them (there are always degrees along a continuum with this sort of behavior), there is a reason. Something, perhaps many things happened as you grew up and moved into adulthood. Those reasons can be discovered through gentle emotional archaeology...and ultimately healed. We know too much today about how human beings function to just settle for being a frustrated person who tries to convince himself he or she is right and most of the rest of the world is wrong.
The bottom line on judgment, then, seems to be that when it serves our survival and our thriving, it's a good thing. But in our love relationships, at work, in our community if we use it in a way that is disconnected from essential human feelings, it speaks more volumes about us than the object of our judgment. In that case, the bible is quite right: judge not, lest ye be judged.
C 2011 Bob Kamm
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