What's wrong with being judgemental?

[Smitff]

I sometimes have moments of complete blind ignorance, when I just don't get something other people find totally obvious. But I've been on MN for years and have seen countless times posters saying or implying that being jusgemental is A Bad Thing, and I just don't get why.

Aren't we all making judgements about everything and everyone all the time? Isn't that how we get through life? Assessing the rights and wrongs of situations, conundrums, problems, behaviour etc? Learning from them and about ourselves in the process and moving on to do better?

I understand if people jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts. Obviously not a clever thing to do. But generally speaking people on this site set out their problems, try not to drip feed, and seek opinions. That's what most of this site is for.

What's so wrong about judging, here or IRL?

Smitff, sorry about that, lol! I must admit I was replying to the OP and didn't see your response.

eolian

I think your second paragraph might be my missing link. I didn't realize that that was what people meant by "judgemental". Probably because often the phrase is trotted out at the merest hint of a negative assessment, irrespective of whether it's founded on fact...

I would look at what can be achieved with the "judging" - giving the benefit of the doubt empowers the person being judged to look at why they do what they do and maybe make a "better"/different choices next time. I agree - being overly critical is what we need to stop, not being observant. I disagree with your gun/opiate argument - it's not the same. No poster is saying "ban all sugary cereal", they might say "I can't see why any bad mother would buy them".

And I don't feel picked on, it's an interesting philosophical discussion for me!

eolian

I did except scenarios where there's incomplete information available. In those circumstances, it's fruitless and dangerous to reach any kind of judgement, good or bad.

I'm talking (as I've said) about situations where the facts are known. Often a poster will describe a situation, explaining all their pertinent facts, even starting with "so as not to drip feed..".

I read those posts and reach a conclusion. Sometimes the conclusion is harsh or brutal. What is wrong with that?

I think the problem is the word judgmental. I understand the weighing and balancing what people say and learning from a situation or trying to impart some knowledge about a certain situation. the problem is the "judgement" aspect.

budding thanks. Agreed in circumstances where not all facts are known. But where they are? For each person who responds to a softly softly approach, there'll be one who responds to 'not being patronized'.

Re cereal/gun/opiates: I was drawing an equivalence between guns/opiates and not-so-flattering judgements, not the actual cereal. Possibly a bit extreme, granted

I don't think you can't say the "facts are known" about anything you aren't living yourself - a thread on mumsnet would not come close to containing all the facts!

I don't think you can* say

rogueantimatter

Just re-read your post. I would never think such a thing, on MN or IRL. It's possible to be a better parent than I am in many realms AND not feed your kid sugary cereal for breakfast 5 mornings out of 7.

This is what I don't get. Why does there need to be an excuse or even reason for every bit of poor behaviour we see? Why can't people just say "yup, you got me. I messed up"? What's wrong with judging a bad situation as bad?

There's a difference though to judging someone in your head because everyone does as everyone has an opinion and then judging someone outwardly.

Example: today I saw a woman that may have been to the gym as she was wearing gym clothes, however, she was wearing extremely high stiletto boots that she clearly couldn't walk on so I though to myself wow clueless but I wouldn't have said it to her.

I also wouldn't lie if I was asked. So if a friend said does my bum look big in these jeans and it did I would say yes wear something else.

I think it's hard to "judge" on forums and news stories because on forums you only have 1 side of the story and news is never 100% to the point anyway.

Being a Parent of two children with SN, i have been massively judged over the years, by strangers. When, in fact, I've handled the situation exactly as I should do. My Niece was very judgmental of children (who looked over 2.5) in prams. I said that they could be disabled, she replied "that they would have a special buggy", I asked her how that worked since she knew that my DD didn't get properly diagnosed until four. I kept her in a buggy because I was responding to her needs, but I was judged.

I'm now disabled, I have become Obese, my Consultants are telling me not to worry about my weight. I contribute to threads to be told that they aren't talking about people with medical issues (apparently we are rare!) but that doesn't stop me from being judged (openly) on my appearance, daily.

My former job and training taught me not to judge. Most people don't know enough to form judgments towards strangers.

I don't know what good anyone thinks it does to walk around making other people feel bad, tbh. The most judgey people need to make themselves feel good by putting other people down.

I’m kind of with you Op as I think accusations of being judgmental are bandied about so much on MN by people who apparently don’t know the dictionary definition. I can understand the objection to overly harsh responses to minimal information of course but thats not even where I see it for the most part.

There are a lot of posters for whom “judgmental* is just shorthand for “I don’t agree with your opinion” and plenty more who seem to just throw it out because they’ve seen it used on other threads and think it’s the done thing. A bit like how accusations of “controlling”, “abusive” and “narcissist” can appear on the most innocuous thread!

If it’s judgmental to have an opinion based on the available information then we probably all are.

Making a judgement about who don't want in our lives is fine. We decide what are healthy relationships or safe people to have in our lives. That's all good.

Judging that those people are worth less than us or judging what they should or shouldn't do with their lives is not acceptable.

There’s a world of difference between being judgemental and perceiving a situation.

The former is negative and arrogant.

There’s also a difference between being judgmental and making a judgment.

Everybody judges. It's human nature.

If someone has 10 children and is struggling to make ends meet, and cope with the stress of a large famly, who wouldn't judge them for continuing to procreate when they felt this way at 5 children .

I read recently that "It takes very little for a woman. to be judged a 'Bad Mother', and also takes very little for a man to be judged a 'Good Father'

For example, a Mother who doesn't read to her kids every night will be subject to "Well, she has enough time to go out on her jollies with her friends often enough", but Dad who reads to his DC two nights aweek after work is automatically a "Hands-On Dad".

So I guess judging is something we all do, it's about judging things impartially that counts.

Ignore typos

Agree 100% with OP here. To me judgmental is defined as making judgments; if that judgment happens to be sympathetic/kind then it's never referred to as judgmental. On the other hand if it is perceived to be any way hostile, it will be referred to as judgmental which seems to be almost universally interpreted as a negative, regardless of how considered/rational the "negative" opinion may be.

it has always bemused me that the term judgmental is seen to be a bad thing. Isn't it something that we all do every day?

To use your example, you are working from the premise that sugar and cereal is wrong. To me what it's wrong with being judgemental is that people work on the premise that they are right and the other person is wrong without considering the alternative point ofview and jumping to snap conclusions.

I don't actually care if my children eat sugar they are not fat and they clean their teeth therefore my judgement is sugar and cereal is not necessarily wrong.

Judgement on mn is all about perceived truths and facts