Wednesday, October 1, 2008
passing judgment
We all must admit that when we interact with people we tend to categorize and judge them through their look, race, sex, social status, and personal attributes. Everyone will make stereotypes and pass judgments on individuals because partly it is an influence by culture. When we step into an environment or room with a certain kind of people, there is the tendency of passing judgment on their character and who they are. Most of the time these thoughts are conducted even without thinking it through first. It is completely natural to make statements about people that are not necessarily true or good judgments. Often our thoughts can make assumptions about others and we adopt them everyday and more frequently. I sometimes catch myself making presumptions about people that are no where near on target, in fact, they are completely in the opposite direction. I have been able to adjust that factor in my life personally, to not pass stereotypes and judgments on people I do not know.
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2 comments:
I think that someone would be lying if they say that they have never passed judgment on someone. Well put when you stated that our thoughts are conducted without even thinking. Yes, I tend to do it allot and I try to stop myself, but most of the time I am doing it without really even noticing that I am doing so. I think that passing judgment on people is learned from the influence within our culture as well as society alone. True, that most of the time I pass judgment I am extremely off when I do so. I think the best thing that helps me reverse my judgment of someone is to talk to them and get to know them on a much more personal appearance. I was definitely wrong when I judged my co worker, he is a very nice person don’t get me wrong. However, he tends to wear his clothes a little big and just looks like a thug, so I formed this picture in my head of how he lives. Boy was I wrong!!! One day I was invited to his house for a party and his house was so clean and well decorated. This is something that I would never have expected from him. I know we can’t help but judge on first appearance; however I do believe that in order to deter from this way of thinking we need to broaden our horizons and put ourselves out there and get to know people who are not like us.
I would definitely say that it is important that we all do what you have done in attempting to not pass judgments or make stereotypes. However, for the majority of the population this is a very hard thing to change. As you mentioned, we tend to make assumptions about people before we even stop to think about the judgment that we are making of them. When we live in a country with so many different cultures it is hard to know everything about all of them. And because we do not know about their culture we make assumptions about these peoples’ way of life just because it is different than our own. Even so, we all need to do our best to reduce stereotypes and see where others are coming from.
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