Synapse said:
Whats the difference between being judgmental and being discriminatory?
Would judgment be more about value placement on a hierarchy?
Would perception be more about discernment on a valued distinction?
These are all good questions. I'll have to think about them more. I do think there is a difference in degree of certitude and rigidity of conclusions - how new information affects the perspective and a person's willingness to adapt to new information. (this was brought out in marmalade's post).
Everyone with a brain draws conclusions, makes comparisons, and 'judges'. It is where you go with it that determines if you are 'judgemental' or not. What are your underlying goals .............motivations. That determines it also.
This seems true - and is what "everyone is judgmental" is trying to get at, I think. The vicious cycle of responding to judgment with judgment is quite the irony to address.
There are quite different ways of interfacing with reality. I think/judge that we live in a hyper-judgmental society in terms of tabloids, the media, "the worst singer in the world", "the best and worst dressed", etc. The way society approaches things look like it causes more suffering than problem solving (which could reasonably be at the root motivation for making a judgment). If a person thinks about the people they have encountered that were judgmental vs. non-judgmental there are a few things that may come to mind. To my mind comes the following:
The "judgmental" person tends to assume
1. they have a full comprehension about a person's life and can therefore draw accurate conclusions. The assumption that this is possible is worth addressing. I suspect that it is not possible to fully comprehend another person's life and experience or draw completely accurate conclusions.
2. their experiences of being hurt by negative people are going to be played out again with each new person they meet, and so their thinking is distorted in the direction of fear and defensiveness. They assume the worst.
3. that there are universal rules or standards that apply to all people which align with their own personal thinking and when people break these rules they should be punished. They confuse the personal with the universal and are therefore justified in imposing their personal perspective in a context in which it might not apply. (Not referring to Fi here, because this idea of universal standards or truths or value can apply to any function in different ways. Even the idea of objectivity plays into it in application.)
4. that each person has control over their own lives and decisions. The more control a person is assumed to have, the more they are in a position to be judged.
I realize the last point is not provable in either direction. It is basically provable that genetics and environment place the outer boundaries on a person's personal control over their lives and ability to make choices, but the degree to which an individual does have control is difficult/impossible to measure. When we see other animals act out their genetics and environmental influences, we don't tend to judge them in the same manner. Although the danger there is a kind of complete dismissal of them as conscious, sentient beings which is more harmful than just being judged as "bad". This kind of assumption about degree of personal control and responsibility exists on a continuum, and might be true to varying degrees. I tend to question it along with the other assumptions because it does form a root of judgmentalism/conclusions which can't be definitively proven.