Social ideas/phenomenons/mechanisms that are venomous never happen to be the ones people discuss often, but the ones that are assumed nonchalantly. I submit to you, in my observation, judgementalism to be one of most pernicious ones. The root word of this social furniture is of course 'judge', and its adjective, 'judgemental'. Most people, at some point in their lives have either been accused or accuse someone else of being judgemental. It is highly probable that you have never heard of the word 'judgementalism', there is good reason for your ignorance, I just invented it. Not out of thin air of course, as I define judgementalism as the 'social phenomena that trivializes judgement.' This is a very prevalent phenomena in twenty first century first world cultures that has telling implications for politics and private lives. So to begin, lets look at Oxford dictionaries two definitions and I will show you which, I think is more useful and adequate. I will avoid sentence usage for pragmatic/practical reasons.
Judge: (1)A public officer appointed to decide cases in a law court.
(2)Form an opinion or conclusion about.
Origins: Middle English: from Old French juge (noun), juger (verb), from Latin judex, judic-, from jus 'law' + dicere 'to say'.
Judgemental: (1)Of or concerning the use of judgement.
-[1.1] Having or displaying an overly critical point of view.
Now you might put forward that Oxford dictionary isn't the sole dictator on word definitions and you would be correct. But I chose it for, again, practical purposes and also to avoid going into purposeless lexical debates about its definition. However if you do find some fault in Oxford's definition, do exploit the error in the comments below! Make sure to also provide an alternative to Oxford.
Definition (1) of judge is rather uncontroversial so there isn't anything moot to discuss. Definition (2) of judge is probably the definition that I fully advocate. I would actually put it as 'The act of differentiating that which is true or false/correct or wrong.' If you tie this with definition (1), you see a connection between them and understand why it is necessary. The more I ponder about definition (2), the more I realize how much people judge everyday. In fact, it is actually an impossible thing to avoid so long you consider yourself a human being. Just for the sake of survival alone, do we have to judge things. Take for instance, choosing a university of your choice. If you desired to obtain the best possible offer, necessarily you would have to evaluate which university will provide you with optimum satisfaction, at the expense of other universities. Economically speaking, this is called the opportunity cost. This can also apply to employers choosing their new job intakes. If an employer wishes to hire an employee that has the level of productivity that justifies their wages, unavoidably he/she would have to judge the applicants by their merits/character et cetera. These examples highlight( only partially ) the importance of judgement in any free society, and in light of this fact, it is perplexing to think that we encourage people to be devoid of judgement or something to that effect. How detrimental could it be if the members of a society don't even judge? Let alone have better judgements.
This is where the controversy lies. Definition ( 1.1 ) of ' judgemental ' is very, very debatable. This is because it has sneaked in something that betrays the purpose of the word. If the word 'judgemental' is an adjective, logically, based on definition ( 2 ) of ' judge ', its definition should be ' having or displaying desires to form opinions or conclusions about X '. But why is it then defined as ' Having or displaying an overly critical point of view ' ? Surely, there is has been a misstep in Oxfords definition. Could it be that they, too, have been sucked in by cultural definitions? Then again, this is a red herring, while Oxford may have made an error, they have certainly unintentionally described the social climate of our times very concisely. This impairment has let me to think carefully about this subject and shed light on its complexities. It is perhaps more helpful to give you an imaginary example in hopes of clearing the fog that clouds this controversial issue. I will provide below.
Situation: Imagine a conversation between two ladies, one in her early twenties, another in her late forties with children. Her children happen to be around the same age as the other lady she is talking to, and the lady in her twenties know some of the children personally, not necessarily close in relationship. So the older woman, let's call her Jane, is a church goer and has conservative views about life. The younger lady, let's call her Bianca, is, like most young ladies in the twenty first century, very liberal. The conversation begins over dinner during some gathering.
Jane: "Hello Bianca! How have you been? Doing well?"
Bianca: "Hi ma'am, yes It's been good recently."
Jane: "I have to say that you look more beautiful since I last saw you months ago! However, I don't think you should be wearing skimpy clothings like the tight and short skirt
you are wearing right now, you might give men the wrong impression of you and that's not what you want in a man.Also, those piercings on your tongue make you look sinful. I hope you remove them some day."
Bianca: "Excuse me miss? I am over 21 and I'm allowed to do and wear whatever I want and I have no obligations to obey whatever you say. How judgemental are you?! You think I'm bad?
You don't even know what your own children are doing behind your back and you have the nerve to lecture me! Go teach your own kids first before you even begin with me. Damn
you religious hypocrites!"
This is a pretty common conversation that arises whenever people of different generations meet and its a believable reality even though its merely an imaginary conversation. The reaction of Bianca is one that I resonated emotionally within first glance but during my second inspection, I find that Bianca actually missed the point. What Jane was saying was that if one is to wear tight clothings, men, being the 'pigs' that we are would tend to direct our eyes more towards an hour glass body, it could be the case that we develop perverse thoughts about women that way, would Jane go the way of refuting this? If we adopt definition ( 2 ), we realize that Bianca's accusation of Jane is, well, not really an accusation at all. Instead, its merely a description of the obvious- that Jane is judging her. But notice how rhetorically powerful this is? It completely trivializes the judgement( that skimpy wear tend to lead to perverse thoughts among men) and shifts the discussion to Jane's children via the 'judgemental' trump card. Most of us don't realize this but it happens as often as breathing. Moving on to the children bit. Notice that Jane's children has nothing to do with Jane's judgement at all? Is there a relevant correlation between Jane's judgement of Bianca's clothing and her children's? Also, how does Bianca know that Jane doesn't lecture her children? But here's the knock-down argument. This question would destroy the intellectual merits of Bianca's reaction. Is she judging Jane for judging? According to my edited definition of 'judge', is Bianca not differentiating right and wrong by calling out Jane for judging? Is she not saying that Jane is wrong for judging? Ultimately, Bianca defeats herself unknowingly. I would like to clarify that I'm not arguing in favour for Jane's perspective of skimpy clothing, but arguing for Jane's right to judge. In order for Bianca to maintain her charge against Jane, she must herself be willing to admit that she too is judging. But of course if she allows that to happen, her accusation self implodes.
This is why judgementalism is a progress inhibiting social phenomena. It craftily shifts the discussion via the use of emotion and rhetoric to what the user really intends to communicate- the disdain towards the judgement itself. What's a good way of getting rid of a judgement that you don't like? Define judging as bad of course! This ruse of a social conduct has infiltrated society with much subtlety and swiftness. I would be happy to reverse this process. Judgement is a fact of life. No judgement, no life. What would help is not to protest against judging, but to protest against the judgement itself, with reason of course. It is only then, when we can truly fortify our views and beliefs without having to throw mud at each other.
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