To perceive people without judging and/or categorizing them seems utterly impossible. Each society, group, culture, and individual has grown to understand the things in our lives. Our minds have been crafted over centuries of evolution to react in this manner. It is in our innate behavior to judge things. Without this behavior to judge our existence as a species may not have continued. When humans were in their infancy, working together in tribes, the behavior to categorize other tribes into friends or foes was necessary.
Fast forwarding to present day, our ability or our perception to judge and categorize people can be seen as important. Although many of our judgments and categorizations are sometimes hurtful, they are also sometimes based on minimal facts. If you find yourself in a very underprivileged neighborhood that you are not familiar with (i.e. Boone, West Virginia), you will most likely see individuals and will judge them. If you know anything about this particular town, people live off of well-fare, earn money by selling drugs, and will kill you if you look at them wrong. It may save your live to judge and speed away in your car from that town or run away fast. However, to base your judgments on someone who may “look” like they are from that town is unfair and biased (my dad).
I agree with what you said about avoiding judgment, and how it can seem impossible. I wrote something similar, and it's hard to change how our minds work after years and years of evolution and thought. Your thought about low income communities, and how judgments are common, was very insightful and definitely made me think about it in a different light. While judgments can sometimes help us, they are often hurtful, as you described in your example. I also agree that it is our innate behavior to judge people, and that is not something that I forsee changing in the near future.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! Your examples are great. I agree with you that it’s hard for someone to not perceive people’s idea. I know I do it sometimes unintentionally. Also, your example of being in an unfamiliar town will cause an individual to start judging is very true! Just this past winter break, I went to Macau and I thought their culture was so different from ours! Even though it was unique in a good way, I still have my judgments on their culture value and their everyday lives. But I think different cultures with different background is what makes this world interesting.
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