I would argue that once we hit a certain age in our lives it is impossible to perceive others without some sort of judgement or categorization. I am not an expert but, I feel when I was about 13 years old I had some form of judgments based on my perceptions of people through experience, TV, media, and reading materials. I think it would be impossible to have a pure 100% nonjudgmental attitude to the people I see. But, this does not mean I have a close mind or I was/am unwilling to have a person or group prove or disprove the little judgments that go through one's mind when listening or observing an individual. In today's society I feel it would be naive of myself to say that person prototypes, constructs, and scripts have not affected a general idea I would have about a person. Whether these judgments be conscious or unconscious.
I feel the best way to make our judgements more fair can come from being media savvy and having an open mind. The media in the news, movies, TV shows, radio, comedians, reading, and advertising exposes us to person prototypes every day if not every five minutes. If a comedian makes a reference to a gender or race, it is doing so to make a funny observation or statement. But, just because a comedian makes a statement doesn't make it true for every circumstance. I try to remember there is an exception to every rule. The same goes for how we judge others. If I constantly walked away from people because of personal constructs I would have never met some of the closest friends in my life or some of my most important professional contacts.
Putting it plainly, keeping an open mind can over come our judgements. I feel it is even more important to accept that we are influenced by outside judgements. We are going to be introduced and influenced by advertisements, media, and our past experiences. It does not always make our judgements right or wrong. But, accepting these judgements help keep an open mind to our preconceived judgments.
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Hi Chip9,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that it is impossible to have a 100% non-judgment thoughts on certain issues unless there are some issues where you have not heard about or talked about before. There are some topics out there where I completely go blank with opinions because I have never heard about or been educated about it. So at that point I am completely open minded. But there are some things where I need to work on being open minded and are there somethings where I am completely closed minded because I've made up my mind on my opinion regarding that topic. It is a conscious decision to have an open mind view because even I sometimes make up my own opinion on topics without even hearing the whole story. It's funny because it depends on our patience and our attitude towards certain things and the mood that we are in on a given day. But I do agree that we need to keep an open mind over our judgments because that's the least we can do in respect to others.
Hi Chip9! You said, "I would argue that once we hit a certain age in our lives it is impossible to perceive others without some sort of judgement or categorization." From your perspective, at what general age does this happen? Have you observed 5 year old kids making judgments? How about 3 or 4 year old children? Where specifically, is this behavior learned? :)
ReplyDeleteHi Chip9,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with The Blogging Prof about hitting a certain age and it is impossible to perceive others without some sort of judgment. I am not an expert, but I believe people are passing a judgment when they are as little as a two or three year old. This is due to their exposure (positive or negative) to TV, media, reading materials, family and their environment. For example, at the age of two years old, my youngest son could detect and express in his own baby talk way that he loved his babysitter and her husband the very first time they met. On the other hand, he could immediate identify that he did not like cooked carrots as he spitted it out on his plate.
However, I do agree with you when you say that keeping an open mind can overcome our judgments.