Is is possible to perceive people without judging them? I don't think it is. I believe as humans when we were born we did not know what judgement meant. Judging people is something that is taught it is not a trait we are born with. If you put a bunch of two year old of all different ethnicity's in one room and left them alone. It is my guess that within a few minutes they would all be playing together and having fun. If the age were to change from 2 to 22 I don't think we can honestly say that we wouldn't pass judgements on each other before verbally interacting.
In chapter four of the text it talked about abstraction: creating general categories. An abstraction is simply a synthesis of what many things have in common. In some ways abstractions are helpful because it helps us to define and group things such as a cats. My cat might be my friend and hold sentimental value, but she falls under the category of cat.
Abstractions can be dangerous too though. Sometimes abstractions lead to stereotyping. Instead of describing a person for by their personality and qualities we often label people by their race. This causes people to loose their uniqueness (101.)
As a christian I don't believe that we as people are called to judge each other, but rather to love each other. Judging is God's job. We don't have any right to judge others, I know I don't like when people judge me.
1 comment:
Hey Party Line,
I agree that we are taught to judge individuals and then we always put people into certain groups. I like how you gave an example of this and you are probably right too. We has humans I think feel more comfortable if we know where each individual fits in our society. We grow to know that we will be judge and therefore must think of how others will view us all the time. I believe with the use of technology we have begun to categorize even more. I like how you mentioned that we should not judge and that only God should do so, but we many of us who are religious or not have difficulty with this and must be reminded. The world would be a happier and more peaceful place if we were not always so quick to judge.
I enjoyed reading you blog. Have a great weekend!
Thanks,
Blondie
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