Month: January 2022

It has been written One must never tolerate evil, for first evil is tolerated, then embraced, then hailed as being good, and then it becomes unlawful to do what is actually good. Right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right.

We all have desires to do some kind of evil. Good people make an honest effort to overcome these desires. People who are not good, however, will give in. When they do, they often still want the world to see them as good, and they want to see themselves as good. They do not necessarily want to be held responsible for their actions. They want to continue to indulge in their desires to do evil while their evil deeds go unnoticed.

Evildoers will use various tactics to combat the voices that speak out against their bad deeds. One such tactic is to frame the person who speaks out against their bad deeds as being an antagonist or perpetrator while they are the victim.

Vilification of the person who speaks out against evil

Let us say that you and your colleagues at work are trying to put together a report on time for your boss. One of your colleagues, unfortunately, is unreliable and often disappears when you are approaching a deadline. Because of this, the report is not finished on time. This colleague of yours, named Dave, does not seem to care that others are depending on him to do his part. He even brushes you aside whenever you try to talk to him. So you discuss the issue with your boss. When Dave finds out that you “said bad things about him” to your boss, Dave accuses you of throwing him under the bus. According to Dave, you are just a mean person who likes to point the finger of blame at people whenever something goes wrong.

In the example above, Dave obviously does not care what effect his incompetent behavior has on others who depend on him. At the same time, he also does not want to take responsibility for his actions. He may even have a false sense of entitlement to do whatever he wants. Therefore, when you try to hold him responsible for his actions, he sees you as the bad guy and himself as the victim.

Bad people often want others to tolerate their bad behavior. Bad people will commend as kind and merciful those who tolerate or overlook their bad deeds. Conversely, people who speak out against their bad deeds will be called “harsh”, “difficult”, “mean” or sometimes even “crazy”. To the doer of bad deeds, the person who speaks out against the bad deeds is the enemy. The evildoer will either try to silence that person, frame that person as being the bad one or frame that person as being worthy of ridicule — anything it takes to allow the evildoer the privilege to indulge in his/her desires to do evil while maintaining his/her outward image of being good.

Sometimes the evildoer will exclaim “that is a serious accusation!” as if making an accusation is always wrong. Here, the evildoer is trying to make the other person feel bad for “pointing fingers at people”. In reality, making a serious accusation is only wrong when the accusation is false. Furthermore, making the accusation is sometimes a moral obligation. Someone has to stand up to the evil that is taking place and call attention to it so that it does not continue to do more damage. The evildoer, however, would rather have everybody believe that all serious accusations are wrong so that the evildoer can go on his/her merry way doing whatever he/she wants.

Other times the evildoer will frame the person standing up to him/her as being an abuser. The evildoer may say things like “you are hitting me below the belt” or “you are just trying to make me feel bad” or “you are hurting my feelings”. These tactics are attempts to make the other person feel guilty for speaking out against the bad behavior and revealing it for what it is.

When evildoers try to evade responsibility for their actions, their views of reality are not always accurate. As shown in the image above, when you confront a wrongdoer for his/her bad deeds, he/she may perceive that he/she is under attack by some big scary monster — you — and his/her goal is to “survive the encounter”.

Bad behaviors seen as good

There are certain wrong behaviors that large numbers of people throughout society like to do. Because such large numbers of people indulge in these behaviors, mainstream culture will, as time passes, start to view these behaviors as being okay. Examples of such behaviors include binge drinking, sexual promiscuity and taking advantage of people who are “too nice.” Not only are these behaviors seen as okay by mainstream culture, but also people can be judged for not participating in these behaviors. Hence right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right.

Binge drinking

Binge drinking is a self destructive behavior that can cause deaths and permanent injuries both to the binge drinker and to others who are the victims of the binge drinker’s actions. It is harmful to the body, particularly the brain and liver. Yet in some circles of people, the ones who do not binge drink are seen as the odd ones out. One time in college, I told a Pakistani woman that I do not binge drink. She asked me if I was afraid of it. I was kind of disgusted by this question. Is fear the only reason she can think of for why someone would refrain from binge drinking?

Sometimes wrongdoers will judge another person as being “afraid” just because the other person is not participating in their destructive behaviors. It is as if fear is the only reason binge drinkers can think of for why someone would not binge drink.

First, there are oodles of ways to have fun — fishing, dancing, sports, games, etc. Of all of the oodles of ways to have fun, why do we all have to choose binge drinking? It does not make any sense. Has it not occurred to these people that not everybody has fun in the same way?

Second, has it not occurred to these binge drinkers that the reason some people do not binge drink is that it is wrong, and often leads to bad consequences? Indeed, there is a big difference between avoiding an activity because one is fearful versus avoiding an activity because one has moral integrity or because one is just being rational. Now I can imagine the binge drinker saying “well, I think it’s a little bit of both.” Once again, the binge drinker is still attempting to justify his/her destructive behaviors by making allegations that anybody who is not a binge drinker is just “scared”.

If the other person’s reasons for not binge drinking is that it is wrong, then that would imply that the binge drinker is being immoral. If the other person’s reasons for not binge drinking are just rational reasons, such as avoiding an activity that can have bad consequences and instead choosing an activity that is not prone to leading to bad consequences, then that would imply that the binge drinker is being irrational. However, if the other person’s reason for not binge drinking is fear, then that would imply that the binge drinker is taking on risky activities that other people are not brave enough to do. Certainly the binge drinker does not want to see him/herself as immoral or irrational, but brave sounds so much better. Hence the binge drinker would like to believe that those who avoid binge drinking are doing so out of fear.

Sexual promiscuity

I am going to say something that is going to be news to many of you readers — there is nothing wrong with dying while still a virgin. After all, what bad things would happen as a result of a lifetime of celibacy? Some may say that loneliness will result. However, if sexual activity with another person protected one from loneliness, then prostitutes and one-night-standers would be among the happiest and most emotionally fulfilled groups of people. Of course we can probably agree that prostitutes and one-night-standers are not the happiest of people. The reason is that it is not sexual activity with another person that protects one from loneliness, but rather long-term meaningful relationships. Note that these relationships do not have to be romantic in nature.

According to Hollywood culture, dying while still a virgin is so horrible that it is unthinkable. Characters all over television are over-sexualized. A large portion of movies and sitcoms are very sex- and romance-centric. It is as if our romance and sex lives are supposed to define us.

The beautiful truth is that we are more than just sexual beings. We are spiritual beings. We can be loving. We can be creative, inventive, adventurous, brave. We have a sense of humor. We can transform other people’s lives in ways that do not involve sex or romance. Each and every one of us has unique talents.

Though a happy romantic relationship does make life better, a bad one tends to be worse than no relationship at all. Furthermore, even though intercourse is a necessary step in procreation, not everyone is interested in procreating.

Some people may say that we should have sex because it is important to “experience physical love.” Equating sex with love is outright idiotic. Sexual relations are supposed to take place where there already is love. It is an experience you share with someone special. It is not an experience you share with just anyone.

Many television characters, and real-life people, have sex just so that they can say they did it. At this point, sex becomes an obligation pushed onto people that is necessary for acceptance into the social circle. It is no longer for fun or stress relief or even for sharing an intimate experience with a special someone. Throughout movies and sitcoms we see young people who are self conscious because they have “not done anything yet”, or have only gone to second base. It is as if people are being conditioned to oversexualize themselves.

Sometimes when people find out that someone is a virgin, they laugh. If you ask these very same people why they have sex to begin with, they will likely say that they have sex for fun or for stress relief. So, what if I am an avid surfer, and I like to ride the waves for fun and to relieve stress? Does that mean that I will laugh at and ridicule anybody who has never tried surfing before? Of course not. That would be really silly. The same goes for laughing at someone for being a virgin. As stated above, there are many ways of having fun. Why do we all have to choose the same thing and laugh at anyone who prefers to do something else? It makes no sense.

While nothing is wrong with the celibate lifestyle, the sexually promiscuous lifestyle does cause problems. One such problem is a high prevalence of unwanted pregnancies, leading to the killing of unborn babies in large numbers. According to statistics, about 629,000 unborn babies were killed in 2019 in the United States alone. Another problem caused by sexual promiscuity is the spread of disease. Statistics show that about one in eight people are infected with herpes. Now damage to the woman’s cervix from STDs is so prevalent that all women are required to get a pap smear. In addition, sexual contact is the largest factor in the spread of the deadly HIV. So much for having “fun”. Do we still want to laugh at the people who have fun some other way?

Survival of the loudest and most obnoxious

In some pockets of mainstream culture, being “too nice” is seen as wrong, and deserving of punishment. Being mean or aggressive, on the other hand, is seen as a virtue. If you are a nice person, in other words, and someone decides to take advantage of you, then culture says it must be your fault for being “too nice”.

There is even the expression “Nice Guys Finish Last”. According to the Urban Dictionary, this expression means the following:

The idea that if you are nice to a girl, compliment her, tell her how amazing she is everyday, and really just genuinely show her how incredible she is everyday, that you will never get her to love you. Sadly, this is more than true in most cases. You know when you love this girl, and you’re always there for her no matter what, and she always goes for the assholes that cheat on every girl they date and treat them like shit? Yea, thats cause your the nice guy.

This idea frames women as being incapable of loving good men and preferring bad men, which is not rooted in reality. Indeed, I have seen a lot of nice men in happy long-term relationships. However, if we measure a man’s success based on how much sex he gets, then maybe the bad men will get more sex. That is because good men want more from a woman than just sex. They want a real emotional and spiritual connection.

Niceness tends to be condemned in a survival-of-the-fittest type of environment. Humility is mistaken for incompetency. Being mean and loud and aggressive, on the other hand, is praised. In toxic work environments, people listen to the loudest talking and most opinionated person rather than the wisest and most competent individuals. If you know what you are talking about, and people fail to listen to you, you may get blamed for not being heard. You may be told that you were not being loud and obnoxious enough. Such an environment can hardly be called civilized.

Of course confidence in one’s assertions is often a poor indicator of competency, given the Dunning-Kruger effect. Generally, the more that one learns on a given topic, the more one realizes how much one does not know; and so level of confidence can decrease with increased knowledge. Therefore, the people who are the most confident in their assertions are sometimes the least knowledgeable and the least worth listening to.

Where protagonists are bad and antagonists are good

In stories, movies and sitcoms, we are all familiar with the concept of a protagonist and an antagonist. The protagonist is the main character of the story. This is the character that we identify with, the character we are rooting for to succeed. The antagonist, on the other hand, is the character that represents the opposing force to the protagonist. Usually the protagonist is supposed to be the “good guy” while the antagonist is supposed to be the “bad guy”. So what if I told you that in some movies and sitcoms, the antagonist is more righteous than the protagonist? How is that for morally degenerate entertainment?

The 1980s movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is an example of a story where the antagonist is the more righteous one. Ferris Bueller, the protagonist, has been pulling off deceptive schemes through his senior year of high school so that he could skip school without getting caught. Throughout the movie, we follow Ferris on another one of his marvelous days off, and we get to see how much fun he has. Here are the deceptive schemes he pulled off to make it happen:

• He coerces his best friend into impersonating his girlfriend’s father to the high school administrative staff
• He commits a felony by stealing his best friend’s father’s expensive Ferrari
• He gets his girlfriend to lie to the school, saying that her grandmother died, just so she could get excused from class for the day
• He impersonates the Sausage King of Chicago just so that he and his friends could eat at a fancy restaurant
• He deceives large numbers of students at the school into believing that he is so sick that he may be on the verge of death. There is even a water tower that says “Save Ferris” in big letters

That is a lot of lying for one day, and does not paint a picture of a righteous protagonist. In fact, in some cases impersonation is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Ed Rooney is the antagonist in this story. He is the principal who is trying to get Ferris caught and penalized for skipping school. If Ferris gets caught, the penalty would be getting held back another year. Given this synopsis, Ed Rooney is not exactly at the top of our list of cruel villains. In a way, he is just a man trying to do his job enforcing school rules as the high school principal. He takes matters into his own hands and tries to conduct his own investigation into Ferris Bueller in order to catch him red-handed. Is this wrong? Not to the best of my knowledge. The only wrong thing I remember Edward Rooney doing was breaking into the Buellers’ house. Otherwise, this man is innocent as far as I am concerned.

Ferris’ sister, Jeannie, also is trying to get Ferris busted. She believes it is not fair that everybody else has to go to school while Ferris gets to take a bunch of days off and have fun. She tries to get Ferris caught, too, but she messes up and ends up at the police station. While there, she talks to some guy and then becomes “enlightened”. She suddenly is no longer bothered that she has to go to school while Ferris does not, and in the end, she actually rescues Ferris from finally getting caught red-handed by Ed Rooney. We, as the audience, are supposed to believe that this rescue is a “happy ending”, but is it? All that happened was that Ferris did something wrong and was never held responsible.

The 1980s Revenge of the Nerds movie is another story where the protagonists are not good guys. Their evil nature particularly manifests in the way that they treat women. Numerous viewers have complained about a scene where one of the nerds raped an attractive woman by disguising himself as her boyfriend.

Summary

The book of Isaiah states Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

When we think of the word “flattery”, what comes to mind? People may think of those annoying empty compliments that other people send in their direction from time to time…often because someone wants something. In his book How To Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie has this to say about genuine praise versus flattery: “One is sincere and the other is insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”

While flattery is characterized by insincere praise, backhanded compliments may be sincere, but tend to blur the line between compliment and insult. This article from consulting.com and this article from insider.com discuss the different kinds of compliments that come with an underlying insult. Examples include You look great…for your age and I wish I could just let my kids watch TV all day like you do. The intentions behind backhanded compliments are sometimes good and sometimes bad.

People generally do not feel guilt when delivering these empty compliments. Such people may think to themselves Hey, what harm could it do? At worst it is just annoying, right? Wrong! Flattery and backhanded compliments can be a lot worse than just annoying. Sometimes they can be outright derogatory.

Imagine you are a lawyer working at a law firm. Your boss informs you that they are letting you go, but he says he will go over what your strengths are in a minute. Later on in the conversation, you ask him “So…what are my strengths?” “Well…” he says “you are a nice person.” What would be your reaction? Would this compliment make you feel better about yourself in this context? Not likely. What your boss actually told you was “you do not have any real strengths in your field of work, but you are nice.”

As we can see in the example above, a compliment can be a grave insult in disguise. Sometimes a compliment can be so offensive and insulting that it would be less offensive if the other person just delivered the true message directly.

Compliments as a form of microaggression

Sometimes backhanded compliments are a form of microaggression. Microaggression is defined in this article as “a term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups.” This New York Times article discusses microaggressions in the every day lives of marginalized groups, and the cumulative emotional and psychological harm they can do over time. According to the article, some psychologists call microaggressions “death by a thousand cuts.”

Certain “compliments” can actually be a derogatory insult in disguise that is directed towards a racial minority group. Let us say you are an Asian American. You and your family were all born in the United States and have been living in the United States your entire lives. While waiting at the bus stop, you strike up a conversation with someone. At some point, the woman says “You speak good English.” Well, of course I do. I am not mentally retarded you think. Nonetheless, you know why the lady really made that remark, and it is not because she thinks that you are retarded. She thinks you are an alien in your own home land. No matter how many generations your family has been in America for, you will never completely be seen as a fellow American.

Sometimes a black person is told “You are so articulate.” This compliment does not usually offend white people, and so white people may not see why such a compliment would offend a black person. Isn’t being articulate a good thing? Yes it is. What is not a good thing is the implication that it is unusual for a member of one’s race to be articulate.

Of course, if the white person were to bluntly say “People of your race are usually not articulate. I am surprised that you are…”, the white person would look like a big racist scum bag. White people do not want to look like racist scum bags to anyone, including themselves; so delivering a derogatory insult masked as a compliment is a lot more convenient.

On the other hand, many white people who make these comments do not mean to be insulting. They are racist on a subconscious level, and their subconscious racism, which they are not aware of, manifests itself in the form of these “compliments”. The best thing to do in this case is to educate them.

This table lists numerous other examples of microaggressions directed towards racial minorities.

Sometimes it is pretty obvious when a compliment is a form of aggression. For example, a young woman is walking along in an inner city neighborhood, and some men yell out “Nice ass, baby!” In actuality, most women would like to have a nice butt. In this context, however, the comment is obviously a form of aggression that gives the woman reason to fear for her safety. The comment signifies sexual objectification. The woman is seen as a potential source of sexual entertainment by the random men in her vicinity.

“You have a mind of your own” Compliment or insult?

Some verbal expressions can be a true compliment in some contexts and a terrible insult in other contexts. For example, the expression “You have a mind of your own” is a very loaded expression. It can be a true compliment in some contexts or a very derogatory insult in other contexts.

In some contexts, when too many people conform to one way of thinking, the expression “You have a mind of your own” can be a true compliment. It means that the individual has the courage and the wit to adopt a different way of thinking from the mainstream view. Rising above the follies of mainstream thinking is quite admirable.

In other contexts, the expression “You have a mind of your own” carries much less weight. For example, adults tell a two-year-old that she has a mind of her own because she refuses to play with the toy that they give her, and insists that she wants to play with one of the other toys.

Even dogs and cats have a mind of their own to some extent. Sometimes when a man tries to put his cat into a cage, the cat squirms and bares its claws. Indeed, the cat has a will of its own, and therefore a mind of its own.

So, if you are told that you “have a mind of your own”, is it sincere praise or an insult? The rule of thumb, in my opinion, is to ask yourself what triggered the compliment? For example, imagine a young woman is living with her aunt, who does not seem to have much respect for her. Her aunt sees her as a silly girl not to be taken too seriously. In one conversation, the aunt makes a suggestion that does not seem to make any logical sense. The young woman expresses disagreement, to which the aunt replies “Well…you certainly have a mind of your own.”

In the context described above, all that the young woman had to do to earn this “compliment” was to disagree with someone on something. Of course most people possess the cognitive capacity to disagree with another human being. The only people who are lacking in this cognitive capacity are people who suffer from a severe form of mental retardation. Therefore, to consider it remarkable that the young woman has the cognitive capacity to express disagreement in an everyday conversation is very insulting. It would even beg the question cats and dogs have a mind of their own, so why are you surprised that I have a mind of my own?

Sometimes insincere compliments are meant to manipulate someone into tolerating bad treatment. For example, let us say that the young woman is fed up with not being taken seriously. In response, the older woman says “Oh, but you are so beautiful! I would never have guessed that you had a brain too!” Such a compliment is intended to soften the young woman’s mood and make her feel flattered. In this way, she will be more likely to tolerate the older woman’s disrespect.

“But it is just a compliment!”

Evildoers can find great convenience and satisfaction in delivering insults masked as compliments. In this way it is harder for you to call them out on their offensive behavior without looking unreasonable. While it is easy to explain why an overt insult is offensive, more lengthy prose is required to explain why a compliment is offensive. Evildoers want it to be this way so that they can torment their victims more easily without any accountability.

A true compliment signifies admiration for the other person, or at least admiration for something about the other person. The motivation behind flattery and backhanded compliments, however, is quite different. Below are some examples:

• To feel better about oneself
• Attempt to manipulate
• Deflect the direction of a conversation
• Patronize or convey disrespect

Below are some contexts where “compliments” can signify disrespect, not admiration:

Context: Someone has told you to do something that is foolish and wrong, and you have expressed an unwillingness to do it.
Comment: “You have a mind of your own.”
True message: Even though cats and dogs have a mind of their own, I am surprised that you do. Your mind is at the same level as that of a lower lifeform.

Context: You are physically small and have a chronic medical condition and/or disability. The flatterer is convinced that you are having difficulty performing a simple task that is fairly easy for the average person.
Comment: “You are tough”
True message: I think that you are a little weakling, and I am surprised that you can even function normally.

Context: You are an intellectual, and a less educated person has decided to coerce you into being his/her friend so that he/she can pull off an underhanded scheme at your expense.
Comment: “You are sooooo smart. You are such a brain. You are just so smart …”
True message: I may think you are book smart (because of your prestigious career), but I think that you are stupid in everything else. In fact, I believe that I am successfully outsmarting you right now. Furthermore, I think that you are full of pride. If I want to manipulate you, all I have to do is appeal to your sense of pride. Then I will have you in the palm of my hand.

In each of the examples above, the speaker is establishing superiority over the target. The speaker does not even expect the target to catch on that the compliment is not a true compliment. Thus the speaker can feed his/her desire for a sense of superiority without having a guilty conscience.

Delivering the true message directly, on the other hand, would make the speaker look like the mean person that he/she is. The speaker would much rather disparage the target in a much more underhanded way so that the speaker could look innocent to the casual bystander, and not have a guilty conscience. Think of it as giving into one’s desires to do evil to another without appearing evil to oneself or to others…aka having one’s cake and eating it too.

Concluding Remarks

When an individual delivers an insult to you directly, the individual is essentially saying “I think lowly of you in some way”. On the other hand, when the individual delivers an insult masked as a compliment, and expects you to take it as a compliment, the individual is essentially saying “Not only do I think lowly of you, I also firmly believe that you have the same low opinion of yourself.” That is why an insult masked as a compliment is generally more derogatory than a direct insult.

To be judgmental is to jump to negative conclusions about other people off of the basis of little to no information. Think of people as like a box. There is the outside of the box that is readily visible to the outside observer. The outside of the box consists of the person’s outward appearance, actions, speech, etc. The inside of the box consists of anything not visible to an outside observer. The inside of the box includes the person’s past life experiences, the person’s upbringing, the person’s medical history, etc. What judgmental people tend to do is make assumptions about what is inside of the box based on what they see on the outside of the box. The problem is that the outside of the box does not tell us much about what is inside.

Three examples of common target groups for judgment are drug addicts, homeless people and morbidly obese people.

When Judgmental Jen sees a drug addict, she may think that the drug addict is being ridiculous for thinking that drug addiction is a disease. Judgmental Jen thinks that all that drug addicts need to do is stop taking the drugs, get clean and move on with their lives. According to Jen, drug addicts who want to be seen as having a disease are just asking for pity points.

In reality, drug addiction is caused by physiological changes in the brain that cause the brain’s pleasure circuit to become less easily stimulated. This means that activities such as eating that should give us pleasure do not give the addict much pleasure anymore. The addict can only feel pleasure when taking the drug. Some studies show that drug addicts are disproportionately more likely to have suffered from previous childhood abuse. Many drug addicts may also have a reduced sense of self worth and believe that they are not worth being saved and getting clean. The reasons for chronic problems with drug addiction are many and complex; but Judgmental Jen does not want to think about all of the complexities of drug addiction and what causes it. Judgmental Jen would rather give herself a pat on the back for being “better than those people who just seem to keep making bad decisions.”

When Judgmental Gary sees a homeless person, he figures it is just another drug or alcohol addict who has made a lot of bad decisions and is too lazy to find work. Judgmental Gary gives himself a pat on the back for being a harder worker and making better decisions than this guy.

However, according to the National Law Center of Homelessness and Poverty (in the United States), the top cause of homelessness is insufficient income and lack of affordable housing. The second leading cause of homelessness is unemployment. For women, domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness. While addiction is a factor that can lead to homelessness, it is not the most common cause of homelessness.

When Judgmental Judy sees a morbidly obese person, she just rolls her eyes. Another fat slob that just doesn’t stop eating. Why don’t these people just get a life. Judgmental Judy simply eats until she is full. She cannot see how someone can stuff him/herself every day, and then gain all of this weight.

In reality, obesity is a disease with a complex range of causes. Brain scan studies have shown that unhealthy foods have addictive properties. They stimulate the same part of the brain (the nucleus accumbens) as cocaine and heroine. Though unhealthy foods are not as powerfully addictive as illicit drugs, they are much more readily available than illicit drugs. In fact, it is hard to avoid being in a room that contains at least some unhealthy food products.

Of course Judgmental Judy has plenty of exposure to unhealthy foods too, but she may not be as genetically prone to addiction to unhealthy foods as some other people. She also may not know about the serious emotional issues that can drive people to overeat. For some people, food is the only way they can cope with their life problems and past traumas without losing their minds. Other obese people are just too busy and have too many responsibilities to even think about their own health.

Furthermore, many scientists believe that a person’s body has what is called a weight set point, and for some obese people, the weight set point can be unusually high. What this means is that the brain will tell the person to eat and make him/her feel hungry until his/her body weight reaches its weight set point, which may be in the obese range. Many people trying to lose weight have reported feeling hungry all the time. Even if they lose the weight, it can easily come right back when they start eating enough to not feel hungry. The point is that there are many causes of obesity, and many life circumstances that make losing weight very difficult.

Being judgmental is easy

Once someone decides to be judgmental, he/she will find opportunities to be judgmental everywhere he/she goes. At work, someone shows up late for a meeting. Judgmental Jane thinks this woman must be disorganized or have poor work ethic. In reality, there are oodles of reasons for someone to arrive at a meeting late.

While walking on the sidewalk, Judgmental Jim sees a lady who seems to be frowning. What a sourpuss he thinks. What he does not know is that she just lost her husband and children in a house fire the previous day.

Judgmental Mike sees a mother with a couple of screaming children at a department store. Another parent who can’t control her children Mike thinks. Of course Mike has never been a parent. He is only assuming that parenting is easier than it actually is.

Recall the previous blog post The Evildoer and the Nut Job where an abuser appears calm while the victim is in hysterics. The “calm one” assures others present that she is just crazy, but he “loves her anyway.” Judgmental Jim has no problem with assuming that this lady is just another nut job. I am much more like the calm and patient one Jim thinks. What Jim does not know is that only weeks later, the “nut job” will get strangled to death by the “calm one.”

While bad decisions are a factor that can lead to bad situations such as drug addiction, judgmental people can make bad decisions, too. By luck, the bad decisions made by the judgmental person may not have the same devastating consequences as the bad decisions made by another person. In fact, often people will judge others even though they would not have done any better if they were trapped in the same circumstances.

Why do people get judgmental?

There are plenty of articles on the internet that talk about judgmental people. Many of these articles will say that people get judgmental because they feel insecure. By judging other people, they are validating themselves. Nonetheless, I think there is another major reason that people can get judgmental: excessive pride. Some people just have pride issues. They want to think that they are better than others.

Some arrogant people like to think that they are the best at everything; and if there is something they are not good at, then it must be a thing that they are “too good for” anyway. For example, a software engineer with pride issues may be very good at computer programming, but not be good at interacting with people; so he figures that interacting with people is more “menial work” and that such a job should be left to people who are not as smart as he is.

In a way, being judgmental can be kind of fun. Judgmental Carla can just take a walk around the block thinking to herself I am better than him…and her…and him…and her… and by the time she has finished her walk around the block, she is feeling like #1.

Being judgmental and being compassionate do not go together

It is hard to have compassion for someone when you are judging him/her. How would Judgmental Jen have compassion on a drug addict when she is too busy thinking that the drug addict is just making bad decisions and messing around when he could just get clean? Why would Judgmental Gary have compassion on a homeless person when he thinks that the homeless person is homeless because of laziness and bad decisions? How would Judgmental Judy have compassion on a morbidly obese person who has trouble moving when she sees the person as a slob who just eats too much and doesn’t move enough? How could one have compassion on a woman who is frowning when he thinks she is just a sourpuss?

When people are judgmental of others, it is a red flag that they are most likely not compassionate people.

Judging people based on over-generalizations

Sometimes, a judgmental person can think that people are more similar to each other than they actually are. Every person is unique, but not necessarily in the eyes of the judgmental person. For example, a judgmental person may jump to the conclusion that someone is lying because, the judgmental person figures, everybody lies.

Judgmental Jim meets a physics professor at a top-tier university. Judgmental Jim figures that this professor must be full of pride and ego for having such a prestigious job and being so smart; but, Judgmental Jim figures, this physics nerd is probably not as street smart as he is science smart. Judgmental Jim thinks this physics nerd would be too socially inept to know when someone is trying to manipulate him or take advantage of him.

Judgmental Jamie overhears Annie discussing how bad of a manager their boss is. Annie would never have the guts to say that to his face Jamie thinks. Jamie figures that all people are quick to say bad things about someone behind his/her back, but would never mention it to his/her face. What Jamie does not know is that Annie is planning on confronting their boss the very next day. Annie considers speaking up to be important when something is not right.

As we can see, over-generalizations can be pretty offensive because they can falsely attack someone’s character.

The thing about over-generalizations is that they do apply to some people. Some people do lie all the time. Some highly intelligent people are full of pride. Some people are two-faced. Because these over-generalizations are correct for some people, a judgmental individual may believe that they are correct for everybody.

The short bridge from being judgmental to being prejudiced

I am figuring that people who are judgmental are also more likely to be prejudiced. Prejudice essentially means pre-judge. When a person starts to judge another person based on the other person’s membership in a group, it becomes prejudice. A prejudiced person may assume that a young woman has a fear of getting fat because “all young women have a fear of getting fat.” A prejudiced person may assume that a black person is living on welfare. A prejudiced person may assume that the Hispanic woman he/she sees at the grocery store is a cleaning lady, never finding out that she is a university professor.

In one episode of Hell’s Kitchen, the chefs were told to prepare a birthday feast for a Latino girl. The Latino girl specified that she did not want the food to be too spicy, but one of the chefs put hot spices into the food anyway because, he said, all Latinos like spicy food. Sure enough, when the girl tried his food, it was too spicy and she did not like it.

How do you feel when people make assumptions about you because of your membership in a certain group? Maybe those assumptions are correct, but maybe they are not. Maybe these assumptions are made about you even when you insist that they are not true.

When people are not being judgmental

If you were to openly identify as being non-judgmental, or evenly openly condemn judgmental behaviors, people may use this against you. They may figure that because you take pride in being non-judgmental, they can manipulate you by accusing you of being judgmental for seeing any bad in someone at all. In these cases, it is good to know when you are not being judgmental.

When you evaluate someone’s behavior as being wrong, you are not being judgmental. Wrongful behaviors are things we can see “on the outside of the box.” When you make assumptions about why the individual is exhibiting this behavior, then it is possible that you are being judgmental because you are making assumptions about the person’s inner thought process.

Sometimes we can see what are called “red flags” that somebody is up to no good. Recognizing these red flags does not make you judgmental. It makes you wise. Recall a previous post on this blog What is a good person, anyway?, which presents a discussion of how we can tell when someone’s actions are a manifestation of his/her true character. When a person who did something wrong is perfectly calm, is not being deceived or manipulated, knows full well what he/she is doing and feels no remorse afterwards, then we have sufficient information to figure that the bad deed is a manifestation of the person’s true character. At this point, we are not being judgmental by associating the bad deed with the person’s true nature.

Someone may call you judgmental when you are not being judgmental, particularly when you violate their rules of politeness and denounce their behavior as wrong. You also may be called judgmental when you proclaim someone to be a bad person even if the individual is doing things that only a bad person would do. Some people may want you to see them as being better than they actually are, and will call you judgmental even if your negative evaluation of them is based on sufficient information.

“But I didn’t know…”

Sometimes a judgmental person’s assumptions are proven to be false, in which case the judgmental person may earnestly say “I didn’t know” as if this is supposed to absolve him/her from responsibility for his/her behavior. Meanwhile, there is not necessarily any sincere apology for misjudging the other person and for putting the other person in a negative light.

Let us say that Judgmental Jen is informed of the large amounts of scientific research showing that her assumptions about drug addicts were wrong. Judgmental Jen exclaims “Hey, I am not a neuroscience nerd. Don’t expect me to know about that stuff.” What Judgmental Jen should have known is that people like her have no business making assumptions about something they know little about, and pushing those assumptions onto other people.

What if we just ignore these judgmental people?

Some people say that judgmental people cannot hurt us as long as we don’t let them hurt us. All we need to do is stop caring about what they think, and all is good.

The truth is that words can hurt. Voicing judgments towards the other person can be verbally abusive, and some people are more vulnerable to hurtful words than others. Even when people are weak and prone to making bad decisions, they should be built up, not put down.

Physical harm also can happen to people as a result of judgmental thinking. Let us say that a young woman orders for a meal to be served without dairy in a restaurant. The waiter figures the young woman is probably just putting herself on a diet to lose weight and look better in a bathing suit. She won’t know the difference if there is a little dairy in it. What the waiter does not know is that the woman has a real dairy intolerance that can cause her to be sick for a day or two as a result of dairy being put into the food.

Misinformation also can hurt people, particularly by doing damage to someone’s reputation. When a judgmental person makes false assumptions about someone in his/her circle of people, he/she can potentially spread false information about the person that places the person in a negative light. Damage to the person’s reputation can affect the person’s ability to find employment, find a date or be included in social functions. Even if the judgmental person eventually realizes that the information he/she spread was false, it may be too late. Misinformation can spread, but it cannot completely unspread. People tell people, who tell other people, who tell other people.