Let's get a Floorplan going for the way of the world - the dark won't come soon enough for me, so let's just call it off.
Musical allusions aside, a post has been long overdue! To all of you who thought I was done with things to say: quite the contrary! I've been meaning to write quite a lot of things on here recently, and have even gone on at length with myself about them (creepy, I know!), but I didn't have the will, time or means (take your pick) to put it up here. I'm sure they'll all work their way onto here eventually (potentially!). Anywho, I thought I'd dedicate my time now to what's been frustrating me lately: judgements and superficiality!
Okay, big topic, big deal, etc, etc, etc. Quite frankly, while it is a big topic and important in general, it's not the most important thing in the universe, and I'm concentrating on a small part of it (you'll understand soon enough). I'm not too interested right now in talking about grand or ethical judgements, but maybe I'll talk about them a bit in general along the way for reference.
So my feelings and frustrations with this particular topic seem to fluctuate (sometimes rapidly over a short period of time, sometimes very slowly over long periods of time when it takes a back-burner and is not constantly at the forefront of my thought. These time differences are probably directly related to how prevalent it is in my thoughts, though). Some times I feel very compelled to write a scathing arguement of damnation, and other times it falls off my shoulders, and plops to the ground, maybe like a giant bowl of peanut butter. (plop! Come on, you can imagine the sound) Right now I'm more towards the latter (not the ladder, although that would make a much louder plop), probably because I'm rocking out. But that's besides the point. Let's get cereal.
Okay, I had Cocoa Pebbles, how about you? (No seriously, they're right here!) Judgements and superficiality. Do not judge lest thee be judged thyself. Okie dokie. Good place to start. And sure, it makes a lot of sense. Don't judge others, a good way to go about things, and you can expect/demand not to be judged in return to ensure all fairness. But when the heck is that going to happen? I think it's very important here to look at a realistic approach to judgement.
So if our ideal is not to judge at all, how can we try to approach this ideal in a sensible way? Well, we can try to categorize judgements into distinct classes - something like ethical or moral judgements, ideological judgements, physical judgements, etc. Now to be ideal, it would seem that the most significant judgements would be the least desirable, and that the smaller judgements would therefore be more acceptable and approaching closer to the ideal. I think this is quite opposite in common practice in this society.
I make a few assumptions here, based on my knowledge of the society I live in and the ideals it portrays (these points are quite free to argue, but should be fairly obvious and factual). It seems to be that our society values ethical and moral judgements, and to a lesser extent ideological judgements, over superficial and physical judgements. This recurs commonly in everyday phrases, especially in post Martin Luther King Jr. America. We're supposed to judge people according to the content of their character and not on the color of their skin (or any other physical characteristics, for that matter). This presents a bit of a problem for our ideal scenario.
On one hand, we're not judging people for petty or irrelevant (seemingly) things that they have no control over, and we're judging them for their actions *for which they are responsible*. This seems like a logical conclusion to us - why would you not hold someone accountable for their own actions? We fully believe in the idea of free will under our law codes and social constructs. (Some say religions and philosophers argue against free will, but that doesn't really apply to everyday living, as you WILL be arrested for breaking the law for what is discerned as your own volitions) So we believe it is acceptable to judge people for their actions, and this seems to be a societal ideal.
This creates some issues. There's a large arguement here over HOW one should judge people because of their actions. This, I believe, draws largely from the original ideal that we should not judge others at all. "How can you judge others' actions if you don't know their intentions, motivations, background, all the events leading up to it, etc?" This is a hard arguement to counter, but it's antithesis also has an equally strong point. "Why does one's intentions matter if one kills someone else? Is it not the same outcome of another person dead?" There is a heck of a lot to say for both of this, so let's look just a little bit deeper.
We generally say the ideal of not judging is a good one, because we don't know everything. This assumes that if we did, we could theoretically judge (and judge correctly). In religion this right is reserved to an all-knowing deity, because it is omniscient. So, in order to reconcile our non-omniscient judgements, we try to find a balance between knowledge and ignorance. This is probably the most direct cause of the split between the two sides of this arguement (intentions vs. outcome).
Some would say that there is an acceptable amount of knowledge you can have in order to adequately judge someone ethically/morally. This is manifest most clearly in our law codes. If you kill someone, but it's purely by accident, you are considered less guilty (so to speak) and receive a lesser punishment than if you are found to have killed someone very purposefully. But while law codes are a good reflection of societal values, they are restricted by common practice and applicability (they have to work for everyone in the society, so they tend to be a little broad).
The more knowledge we accumulate on someone's intentions about an action, and all the influences that lead to that actions, we can start to understand the decision that was made. This is commonly referred to as "walking a mile in someone's shoes." If we understand enough about the influences that lead to the decision, we can see how we would react in the same situation, and we then judge accordingly. ***We here can justify judging because we see what WE would do, and a person generally knows themself better than anyone else, because a person knows one's own thoughts, feelings, motivations, influences, life, etc. We take it as given that we know ourselves completely (at least AS completely AS possible, in general), and therefore it always seems acceptable to judge oneself)*** While this is a good idea, it has one critical flaw: though we can receive almost limitless knowledge over limitless time as to every influence and feeling in a person's life that lead to that point, we'll never have everything. Only that one person has experienced their life exactly, and so we will never have enough to be able to change ourselves into them in order to judge them perfectly "in their shoes".
This is quite the limiting factor, and guarantees that no judgement one makes about another's actions will ever be perfectly correct. In order to remedy this situation, we try to set up a range of acceptability for understanding a person's situation. This differs from person to person, and has no clear definition in society. It's a very subjective thing, and the only guideline society has is to give us the ideal of knowing them completely (which is impossible). The "mile" one has to walk is different for everyone, to continue the analogy. This leads to an impractical means to universalize judgements about ethical and moral actions/issues. This leads to the curious question of: do the intentions even matter? The act was done by a person, that person must be held responsible.
It seems fairly reasonable and accepted that if someone forces another to do something, the person forced is not at fault, or at least the fault is incredibly diminished. This is a tough situation to remedy. Obviously there is a great influence in their action, that being the threats (assumed) of something undesirable to the one committing the act, but in the end, the person who does commit the act does not actually have to do it. Some might say death, exposure, torture, etc. are not things for which you can demand a person to suffer in order to make the "right" decision. But, this is also subjective. It is a very humanitarian effort by society to give comfort to those who commit acts under such briberies, as they would assumedly not commit this acts otherwise.
Even the ideal in this instance is not 100% concrete. Obviously, it seems like not listening to bribery and suffering whatever punishment (even death) would be the ideal. But if you're threatened to give a million dollars to charity (a good act by society's definition) because you stole it, or you're threatened with revelation of the fact you stole it, is it ideal to give the money to charity? Is it to give it back? Is it to resist and accept public blame? Most people would say this is a loaded question to begin with because you have commited the act of stealing, which is generally seen as bad. But what if your motivation for stealing the money was "good"? What if someone threatened death on you otherwise? That would bring us back to the ideal of resisting, but what if your motivations for stealing were to do better "good" with the money than it was being used for already? This is a judgementally disgusting situation, and rightfully so!
Judging such a situation is very difficult, even knowing all motivations and what would otherwise be done if everything were left. This brings others to the idea that leaving "matter in its place" is the most righteous route to take, and to not "upset the universe" or "create waves." This would certainly be a foundation for the idea that motivations don't matter, and that culpability comes from the act. If you had just left everything in its place, nothing "bad" would have happened. This is difficult to justify as well - how do we judge how difficult it is to leave something in its place, and how to we judge the necessity to move something out of its place? There are no set laws for moving ethical/moral things out of place like there are for moving massive objects like in physics. This makes everything subjective *still*.
Okay, I wanted to try a less loaded example before I lost it. Let's say you're given the million dollars this time. And you're threatened again with something (let's say less intense than death, assuming death is the most intense, or near it...). We already have a problem. With what are you being threatened? The goodness of our actions seem to hinge almost entirely on this question once again, because it's a very strong indicator of past events that would shine light on the current situation. If we say something like defamation, it would still seem righteous to keep the money, but if it's revealing bribery or something "bad", then obviously it seems more righteous to give the money. But this situation is utterly ridiculous - we can't go into it with prejudgements and prejudice, as that defeats the purpose.
So let's try to make it basic and say the threat is ambiguous, you don't know what it is, but it is significant enough to make you make a decision. (This vagueness really limits the example, and I'm not even sure it's still an acceptable example without more clarity. This is turning into a subjectivity nightmate) In this case, it is acceptable to give the money to charity, because society says it's okay under a significant threat (which this is defined as being). And giving to charity is a righteous act anyways, which is how it would be viewed from an outside perspective. Not giving in to the threat would be righteous from an inside perspective. However, this comes with a complimentary judgement of you keeping money that would otherwise go to charity. Since you were given the money, it's hard to determine where "matter out of place" works into this. Does the money belong with you, to whom it was given, to the one who gave it to you, to charity because of the events as they have unfolded, to no one or no where? A difficult question to ponder, and seemingly subjective yet again.
This seems to be another counter arguement against the culpability of only actions. The person forced to give up money to charity is not doing so out of their own volitions, so by some (should have stated earlier) part of society's overall grasp they are NOT responsible for their actions. So that would mean they don't commit a righteous act in donating the money. But the act itself is seen as righteous. So righteousness *happens* without anyone being righteous. Is this an acceptable way to look at it? Well, not exactly, though I do considerably like it.
The culpability of the act falls on the person who made the threat. They have whatever motivations to make the person donate the money. So they cause a righteous act by acting unrighteously. So... Um... Does this balance out? Subjective. Is it more one way or the other? Subjective. Is this ridiculous? Yes.
Okay, so now that I've been thoroughly confusing, let us look at a MUCH more concrete example. That of physical/superficial judgements in society. This ideal is more clear in theory - it is better to approach the ultimate ideal of *no judgements*. This, however, does not happen very often in practice. It may even be impossible in practice to make no "superficial" judgements. This is somewhat subjective, as definitions for superficial can vary.
We'll generally say superficial judgements are judgements that are not based on actions, but on appearance. In other words, they have no significant "meaning." If that one thing changed, in general, someone would not say it was "bad" or "good." This seems to remove an ethical/moral/ideological emphasis on the judgements.
Okay, so what usually goes down? This is more difficult to say, and varies from person to person. (Although usually the ideal is understood pretty standardly, if not followed) People seem to "know" it's not okay to judge someone by their looks, their attire, their method of transportation, material objects, possessions, wealth, etc, etc. While these things can all have personal significance and meaning to the owner, they don't seem to have any general significance to anyone else in particular.
This seems pretty straightforward, and is why it is generally taught in society "people are equal," "don't judge a book by its cover," Martin Luther King Jr. references, etc. This generally takes on an important role in society (the ideal was a strong arguement and reason for emancipation, rights, suffrage, etc). This seems to be something most people are willing to practice generally and can be brought to others through experience, or taken away by experience. This is what I think causes the ideal to breakdown on personal, or smaller levels.
When we see someone dressed in all black, painted black nails, black boots, chains, pins, all sorts of other things, we generally *avoid* them. This kind of phenomenon has to do with mental/brain associations. Black - scary color, night time, badness!, chains - restraint, jails, etc, pins - sharp, pain, ouchies, resulting in the conclusions: GOTH, or more contemporarily: emo. Some people who dress similarly might be endeared towards this person instead of repulsed. This association process directly leads to superficial judgements. We associate certain aspects about how people look, what they wear, etc, etc with certain things. This is a natural process that our brain does, and is unavoidable. This means that we are guaranteed to make at least subconscious superficial judgements all the time.
Now you might ask: what does that mean? It depends on how we define judgements. If we say all judgements are bad, then by definition, a normal person (read: healthy, or more really: not brain-dead) will always commit bad acts. This is a little ridiculous. So, we need to allow certain judgements to exist, and then we have to judge according to how we act about those judgements.
Using judgements here is a little ambiguous. The brain associates certain things with others, so seeing someone dressed a certain way will bring up all the most prevalent associations. The most prevalent are the ones that happen the most often and are therefore the most reinforced. So, if you see a necklace (or certain type, more likely) worn on people most often at "fancy" events, you'd come to expect to see it there. And when it was on someone who wasn't there (matter out of place), you'd notice because it was different, and you'd wonder why. This may not always happen consciously for everything (we can't notice everything all the time!), but would most likely surface for something that is readily available to see or significant in our memories (different for each person).
Seeing this necklace out of place, one might think "this person is not dressed correctly for the occasion" and that might lead to "maybe I should find out why." This might often lead to things like "oh that's a nice necklace" or "you're dressed fancy." People just seem to be curious, and this is not a bad thing. There seems to be no bad intentions in seeking out why matter is out of place. (You could say that you shouldn't act differently at all to be totally fair and righteous, but ehhh)
However, there seems to be something wrong with judging *because* superficial matter is out of place, or at the very least *acting* differently (read: in a "bad" manner) because of it. It's okay to think that the person dressed in all black is scary (black and pins and chains might bring up an association of fear or pain), but it seems to be the case that one needs to act no differently to this person because of their appearance. In this case, it is "bad" to think lesser of them, or to think of them in even a negative manner, based on this superficial judgement. However, if you have moral/ethical reasons for disliking the way this person dresses (read: PERSONAL reasons, like that this specific person dresses this specific way for a reason you find "wrong" or "bad"), it seems acceptable to act differently. It, however, never seems acceptable to superficially judge someone just because of their appearance, without knowing the motivations for that attire.
It's all pretty convoluted in the area of judgements for motivations, as we saw earlier, so this superficiality is not completely set in stone. In general, it seems to be that whatever happens naturally is not a "bad" thing, as there is nothing one can do about it. This brings back culpability of actions. There seems to be no way to control feelings or mental associations that happen, so those do not render someone "bad" by themselves. It seems solely to hinge on how a person acts in light of such unstoppable events.
This seems to become a bit more convoluted when dealing with "good looks" or physical attractiveness. We roll this into the superficial category in general, but it poses a bit of a problem in some instances. Just like mental associations and feelings, it is a natural event for one to be attracted to another, and there is seemingly nothing one can do to stop that. This means that it is perfectly acceptable to be attracted or not to anyone in particular, but then it follows from before that one should not act different towards them.
This is where there is a bit of a problem. The societal ideal for a relationship hinges on attraction, compatability and a whole host of other things, but mostly the ideal is that it matters how emotionally and mentally compatible two people are. This seems like a righteous choice, except for the fact that people naturally are attracted or not physically to one another. This asks the question of the importance of physical attraction to a relationship, and this also would determine if it is acceptable or not to act different to someone you are or are not attracted to. It seems to make sense that you would act (in order to preserve righteousness) the same to all those whom you find attractive, and then the same to all those you do not, exclusively. This is a difficult thing to justify - you don't want to degrade one group over the other. This presents a dualistic quality to one's actions that represents the fundamental option of choice.
Every different group, idealistically, is treated with the same level of "something" by any one individual. This would present the ideal that all people are equal (superficially). This means that you're constantly acting different to different groups, but somehow you have to balance the interactions between the groups so that all are equal with this important "something." From a judgemental sense, maybe it is enough to say that you treat all groups differerently with the same amount of "goodness." The now impossible problem arrives of how we measure this idea of "goodness." If we have to balance it equally, how do we judge it ourselves? Basically, this is based on intuition and common sense, and is entirely subjective. It really is a whole slosh of guessing and trying, as there isn't even a clear ideal set by society for this one.
But this also asks the question: if we can't accurately judge or measure the level of goodness we're presenting to all these different groups, is it really acceptable to act differently to anyone at all? It could go either way. It's easy enough to say no and be done with it, because that has a very strong arguement. But yes seems to be the more realistic choice and represents our world more accurately. Nothing is exactly ideal, nothing is perfect, nothing is clear cut and so on. There are a lot of variances and changes that happen dynamically and in real time that influence even this very question itself and how we interpret it. Basically, it's up in the air. What do I think about it? Well, I just try to be a nice guy. =P Now what does that entail? We can see from what is written previously, that it's all a hodge posh of estimations and blah. So take your interpretation, fancy it up a little bit, round off the edges, make it a little bit more universal, make it a little less demanding, a little more worldly, and a tiny bit more fun. That's really what I do, and I do it because I respect and care about others. It's all up to you, this is how you live your life. I can only suggest that you live it well. I know I certainly try.
BTW, My Number = best song ever (well, maybe second or so). Kthx4reading. Bai.
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