To Be or Not To Be: Judgemental

You get out of home, on your way to work and that new American neighbor of yours has a look on their face, that seems to tell you - "don't mess with me, you foreigner". You are all but tempted to say, there goes another person who says not in words, but in actions, that they think we foreigners do not belong in their country. You conclude that they must be part of the swelling number of people who have begun looking at us desis as interlopers on their perfect way of life.

Or is it that we are just being judgemental, that we have come to conclusions based on our own prejudicial notions, that instead of treating the facts on their merit, we have drawn conclusions to suit our own image of the world? Is it because such a conclusion tends to make our alleged understanding of the world easier? Viewing your neighbor as a jealous hate-mongering person maybe fulfils your inner desire to be a trend-setting martyr..a trail blazer who, despite people disapproving and disliking them, still made it big?

The other day, a friend and I got to talk about one of India's eminent actors, Aamir Khan - the star of neo-classics like Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai. It was progressing quite well until my friend remarked..Aamir is an idiot to have divorced his wife Reena..and then it struck me....we were being judgemental. Facts of the incident that we know are that he separated from his wife..reasons, well reasons are really none of our business is it? But instead of treating that on its merit, we hastened to judgement, calling Aamir an idiot. Maybe he is an idiot and he made an error in separating from his wife, but isn't it just as likely that they had legitimate, but decidedly private reasons to do so?

What is it in us that causes us to rush to judgement even when such a judgement can fly in the face of conventional wisdom?

Science and scientific enquiry demands that a theory being proposed be either corroborated or contradicted with facts. That makes such a theory reproducible for lucid proof (either way) for later generations. But somehow, somewhere along the line, we the people who created the concept of scientific enquiry, forgot to learn it ourselves in our evaluations of other people. Or is it that, the human action and the mind, and the range of emotions - quite unlike science - are not black or white, but comprise of the infinite shades of gray that make up the interim space?

Are we judgemental especially when it comes to the rich and famous and successful people? Is it our latent sadism that, even though we might profess happiness at the success of someone else, we try to bring them down from a pedestal by being judgemental of their apparently harmless actions?

Personally I have been guilty way too many times of this egregious fault that I am talking about, and to be honest, it has come back to bite me badly quite a few times. And since then, I have been trying to teach myself to take facts on their face value, and not to read too much into anything. But i will be honest, I still catch myself falling into that judgemental trap. Maybe one day I will snap out of this trap, but till then I am at the least, gratified by the knowledge that I can atleast catch myself being judgemental, and hence work toward not letting it affect me.