Psychology presumptions

Me the judge and jury

I have not met a single soul that hasn’t made erroneous judgments about others. I have not met a single soul that has not made more erroneous judgements than valid ones. Emblazoned upon his back in the small town of the small island named Curacao were the words “Don’t judge me”. I never had the gall to ask him about it. Perhaps he has suffered what I have, what most of us have. Judgement, those judgements made without bothering to find out enough to make such judgements. We may need to work out quickly whether someone is friend or foe. For this we use visible cues and make judgments using innate evolutionary skills. These aid our survival. Other judgments aid our ego. I dare you to ask more before you criticize, before you condemn, before you utter words full of sardonicism.

Judgements are one of the many bad things we do. We are all bad. We are all selfish, spiteful, and mean to others at times. We assume, judge then without much thought, moralise. We might believe our moralising is correct and for the greater good. If we put more thought into it, if we asked more questions, we may get to see the full picture and make much better judgements. This brings together the ideas contained in the section Choice. Namely the bigger the fretwork on one side of the argument the more chance a decision falls that way. The more information you have, the better the decision will be for all concerned.

There is a first mover advantage. The person who makes the initial complaint gets heard fully. The victim of the facile complaint will be on the backfoot and not heard. We want to believe the complainant. We don’t want the effort of getting all the facts straight. We don’t want to back down when we realize that our judgement was not fair and reasonable. This stems from the way our mind operates. The complaint is the centre node. All the information radiates from it. No one likes taking that central node away as that means rearranging hundreds of links in their head. Countering false accusations based on judgments and hearsay is a tough task. When someone believes in the worst about you, you can simply ask whether they really believe the claims and leave it at that. “Do you really believe that?” Too much time is devoured and lost trying to convince people that you are innocent of feckless accusations.

How many of us need to prove ourselves before being taken seriously. Prove ourselves not a danger. Prove ourselves worthy as the rest. Whilst some of us spend an eternity proving ourselves one way or another, the others get instant respect from appraisals based on fast judgements. Our appearance, our physicality, our posture, our display of wealth and success. Our image can cast a shadow of fear or a ray of belief that we are nice. Not all will judge us by our presentation alone for they have this generosity and willingness to assume we are an equal until proven otherwise.

I didn’t feel a great deal of reverence. Nor was I looked upon with high regard, but I was made to feel liked. I was treated fairly. She looks everyone in the eyes rather than making some feel unworthy of their gaze. Two smiles in one day spoke volumes. One signalled wanting to be there, the other keenly wanting to do it. Generosity is coupled with non-judgmentalism.