Judgment is everywhere. Regardless if you do so consciously or not, everyone does it at one point or another. It can't be avoided. Judgment seems so negative, but it doesn't have to be. By simply observing your surroundings, you are subconsciously making judgments and assumptions about the world around you.
We read the epic Beuwolf in class. We focused mainly on the hero of the story, and the townspeople in the story praised him without question. However, when we read parts of the novel Grendel, it became increasingly clear that the villain may not have been as at fault as he may have seemed. Seeing the perspective of the evil figure really opened my eyes. Grendal may not have been human, but he was still, deep down, just misunderstood as many of us are. It showed how easily people judge without really understanding anything about a person or a situation.
Beuwolf was written thousands of years ago, and even then humans made assumptions about people and acted somewhat blindly on a situation. There are so many modern day parallels to the judgment that is present in an epic written so long ago.
Whether you are a child or an adult, we all are guilty of judging someone without really knowing them or not. In our current society, judgment is just second nature. It isn't just something that we do to our fellow classmates in our school, but it is something that occurs everywhere and on many different scales.
Governments are violent toward other countries simply based on speculation. This, just like untrue and petty gossip, is another form of judgment just at a higher level and a larger scale. Can our actions, especially when involving causing direct harm to others, really be justified when we don't have any facts to back up what we are doing?
Just like Beuwolf judged Grendal, people judge each other blindly and act on their judgment. This can not only cause harm, but in certain cases, destruction. This lesson in the class led me to change the way I assume things about people. It's like the saying goes -- don't judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes. I urge you to consider your judgments before a jump to conclusion and reflect on the judgments you make about people on a daily basis.
So true- that is one of the worst qualities of mankind, that we continuously judge each other. If we only treated each other as loved ones, siblings, friends - imagine what the world would be like.
ReplyDeleteThis was an excellent topic to write about and it was great how you found a way to connect it to what we've done in class.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate that people make judgements without truly getting to know each other. I found it interesting that this has been an aspect of human nature for so long.
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