Judgement

So, recently I've been seeing a lot of posts on why we shouldn't judge people. Generally these come with a number of case studies which make Occham spin in his grave so hard we could generate electricity. Instead of arguing about those (which I've done, repeatedly), I will instead suggest that judging people is necessary for society.

So, firstly, in order to ensure there's no misunderstanding, we're not talking about legal judgement. We're talking about people looking down upon a person or set of people based on a particular trait, by linking that trait to a negative label. So for example a teenage mother would be promiscuous, or whatever.

Now I'll explain my point. It is my opinion/observation, that judging people is an integral part of how society ensures its values remain static. Because the judged set are treated negatively, they will attempt to move out of that set. This can be a good way of keeping certain things down.

Does it work? Lets me an example which I hope will show that when something becomes more accepted (aka less judged) things will increase.

50-100 years ago, if you happened to be female and happened to become pregnant before you were married, you would be judged eight ways to Sunday (what a silly expression). The main policy over here in Malta was to either get married real quick, or to disappear to Gozo and give birth in a place where nobody knew you. My grandmother knew a woman who used to carry around a pillow under her dresses because her daughter had gotten pregnant and they wanted to pretend the future baby would be the mother's.

Nowadays, we have cheap access to contraceptives, more effective contraception and sex education in school. And yet the amount of kiddies born out of wedlock is increasing, to very large amounts.

I believe its because having kiddies out of wedlock is no longer shameful. In fact a certain tv show on a particular crappy channel which should have stuck to music, seems to glorify it.

Same thing for other things, more accepted they are, the more common they are - even though they are bad for society. See also: Divorce Party.

So I think allowing everyone to do whatever they want without judging them, is a good way to loosen society to a number of individuals pulling their own ropes.


Now I'm not suggesting we judge people for things they can't change or things they're not in control of. There's no point in judging people over the colour of their skin, or background. But there is a point in judging people who cross the line socially.


Discuss. I'm quite interested to hear what my local anthropologist thinks.


Llama