‘Intimacy and Judging'’
CAERS SUBSTACK ARTICLE #41
Intimacy can provide some of our richest and most precious experiences: falling in love, the birth of a child, caring for a loved one who is sick or dying. As is obvious from these examples, intimacy can include pain and loss, and yet we crave it nonetheless.
Because intimacy involves revealing some of the most private parts of ourselves, it also carries with it the risk of being judged. Although we welcome being judged favourably, we shudder at the thought that the opposite might occur. As members of the most highly socialized species, we dread the shame that might ensue, and the possibility of rejection.
In the past it was not uncommon for God or the gods to be depicted as harsh judges, and not infrequently unforgiving of our transgressions. Similarly, we have an innate insecurity because like all creatures we know that nature can be unforgiving of poor choices. So, it should come as no surprise that as we drift to becoming a more secular world that can protect us from so many vagaries of life that we might recoil at the perceived threat of being judged, even by ourselves.
Culturally there has been a tendency to find someone to blame when bad things happen, and hence the near universal human practice referred to as ‘scapegoating’. It is one of our oldest social behaviours—we feel safer within our tribe if we join in the chorus that ostracizes someone who has been judged to be a ‘trouble-maker’.
Our legal and judicial systems reflect this binary approach to judging: you are either guilty or not guilty. With the former, you are vilified and punished; with the latter, you are exonerated. Sadly, neither position is at all interested in personal growth; they are mostly interested in punishment, or lack thereof. The goal of law is to set the minimum acceptable standards of conduct, below which there are penalties, not to encourage more altruistic behaviour.
Given all of this, it is not mystifying that we have little enthusiasm for judging; sometimes the judging is considered a far more heinous act than the act that is being judged. We often fail to see the irony in judging the judger for judging. But in truth we can’t help judging because each of us has a moral compass. At a very deep level that we may not even realize consciously, we have a pretty good idea when an act is harmful to another human being and that such behaviour is not morally praiseworthy.
So why this seeming inconsistency about judging? Perhaps it is because we make two errors when we judge. The first is that we mistakenly judge a human being in their entirety rather than simply judge an individual act they perform. As is said, we confuse the sin with the sinner, and few of us want to be completely and irreversibly characterized by one solitary act that we have committed.
The second error we make arises from our innate insecurity that renders us unduly sensitive to having our actions judged negatively. It induces a sense of shame in us, something that feels very threatening, even if we are not judged on our entire personhood. If we could overcome the fearful embarrassment of being judged negatively, we could welcome the opportunity that constructive judging and criticism can offer.
Unfortunately, if we are resistant to judging our own actions, or listening to the judgments of others about our actions, we risk remaining stuck. Like the person who has actually committed a crime but has been found not guilty, there is little incentive to change their ways unless they have judged their own actions themselves. Without such reflection, they might be happy to simply get back on with their same lives, even if others may lament that.
Maybe things would be different, and better, if we had a more compassionate understanding of judging. Narcissistic behaviour is when we pursue our own desires naïvely unaware of others; selfish behaviour is when we pursue our own desires by consciously ignoring the existence and rights of others. Except for the rare saint among us, each of us occupies a position somewhere between complete narcissism and pure altruism. Hopefully all of us are on a journey towards the latter. But that journey requires that we carefully appraise our actions along the way, not for the purpose of punishment, but for the purpose of becoming more loving and ethically- driven individuals. Forgiving, including forgiving ourselves, is one way to let people know that despite less than admirable actions, they are still worthy of respect and we believe that they can do better.
Have you felt judged during the pandemic? Have you judged during the pandemic? Did you judge actions or individuals (including yourself)? Did you do so in a way that could help them (or you) to grow, or did you do so out of anger and a desire for punishment? Perhaps if we could learn to morally assess specific actions and suggest more altruistic ones instead, we might become a more tolerant and democratic society.
If we are to become a less divided country, this would be a good place to start. And there is no time like the present.
J. Barry Engelhardt MD (retired) MHSc (bioethics)
CAERS Health Intake Facilitator
Yes! May we rediscover the prudent use of our good judgment, may we dare to increase our ability to listen to our conscience when thinking generously yet critically about actions, ours and other people's.
I like when you say: "Forgiving, including forgiving ourselves, is one way to let people know that despite less than admirable actions, they are still worthy of respect and we believe that they can do better."
Unfortunately, for a tiny minority of people whose actions repeatedly trampled the sanctity of every single human life and spirit, it would not be wise to blindly believe that they will do better any time soon. In those situations, all I can do is pray and HOPE that they can do better... while staying out of their reach and protecting my loved ones.
And yet... how do i balance this prudence with love? The last few years have been and still are an increasingly dystopian normalized nightmare of transactional and utilitarian evaluation of human relationships that ends more and more in broken families, abandoned people, and euthanasia.
May God give us the strength and courage to learn how to love. Again.