We’re human, we think, we judge. Yet I’m still surprised at how judgmental some people are. How self-righteousness. I am surprised how one person’s choice gives another the feeling that they have a right to feel superior. That they have a goddamn right to judge. That they feel able to say whatever they like to someone and to others around them about that person, without having walked in their shoes, but because they think they know.
We all judge. I often find myself saying to partner: “between you and me and I would never say this to anyone else…” He is my sounding board. My safe place to voice a potentially judgemental thought. I know that my thought will go no further and at the same time I know that he will tell me if he disagrees, or validate my judgement by agreeing.
I play it safe. I have no right to judge. But people are so quick to blast their judgments openly and cruelly on social media. Unthinkingly, it seems. Yet I think that some people do think. I think that some people think it’s ok to openly judge another because what the other has done is just so wrong (or different).
But is it? Is it what it seems? Do we know?
Do we?
Are you the one who feels able to judge
Are you?
The one who presumes
The one who knows
(She thinks)
Are you?
Are you the one who feels in a position of power
Are you?
The one who looks down
Not ahead
(Not forward)
Are you?
Are you the one
Who goes beyond just thinking it
Are you?
The one who has to comment
Can’t help yourself
Are you?
But do you really know
Do you?
Do you really have a right to judge?
Because you know
You never really know
Do you?
Alison Longhurst