No doubt, we need more opportunities to suspend judgment and
collaborate, which is not easy. Take me, for example. I try really hard not to
be judgmental of people who are judgmental, but if I don’t judge their
judgmental attitude, they will continue to judge others, generating in their
victims a judgmental attitude that they will perpetuate for generations to
come, because, as everybody knows, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and
silicone implants don’t grow on trees.
I believe that change starts within you, which is why I
joined Judgmentals Anonymous (JA). After we all recited the prayer and reviewed
the 12 steps, it was time for each of us to share our innermost judgmental
attitudes. After hearing a litany of sexist, racist, classist, homophobic,
ethnocentric, discriminatory, abusive comments about every possible group in
Miami, my judgmentalism looked pretty innocuous. “I’m judgmental of people who
are judgmental,” I said, to which everybody said I’m not being honest. “Really,”
I said, “that’s my problem, I swear.” That did not go down well and they all
started judging me for not being honest and insisting that I must harbor some
resentment toward some group, some deep seated hatred. “Otherwise you wouldn’t
be here” they said. Eventually they kicked me out of the group for being a
phony judgmental, which I thought was the worst kind of judgmentalism.
Puzzled by my dilemmas I consulted with Dr. Clearhead from
the Department of Philosophy at Cambridge University. I wanted to know how to
overcome my negative perceptions of people who are judgmental without
perpetuating, at the same time, their judgmental attitude by adopting a passive
attitude myself towards their judgmentalism. He told me that this is known as
“The Judgmental’s Paradox” and that I should try some plastic surgery instead
of worrying about silly things.
Dejected by the lack of psychological and philosophical
answers to my dilemma, I decided to ask someone who was pragmatic, fair and
balanced, so I contacted Fox News. A spokesman for the organization told me
that the best way to overcome my paradox is to repeal Obamacare.
I resorted to some introspection. I tried to remember a time
when I was the subject of judgmentalism. Perhaps I had some repressed memories
that were bugging me. Perhaps the folk in JA were right after all. Without much
effort I recalled the following event, which was, unlike most of the things I
write about, true. I was invited to Sydney, Australia, to give a keynote
address at a conference. This was soon after I had published a book with a
friend on the topic of the conference. After a long day at the conference, I
was invited by some local colleagues to have dinner with them. Not all of us
had met before, and no sooner did we sit down that we started talking about my
book. Professor Magnum (not his real name), who did not know that I was the
author of the book, started berating my work big time. While others around the
table were trying to motion to him that I was right there, sitting in front of
him, he kept talking about flaws in the book. When finally somebody whispered
to him that I was one of the authors of the book, he turned beet red and tried
to get out of it diplomatically. It’s not like I can’t handle criticism, but
the guy had no idea what he was talking about. He was aggrandizing himself and
pompously reciting other authors to show off his knowledge. Never mind he
hasn’t published anything of importance himself, or ever made the minutest
contribution to any field of inquiry. Not to mention he had bad breadth. The
guy was a pretentious snobbish arrogant, intellectually inferior academic with
no original idea of his own. He reminded me of so many others like him who make
a career criticizing others instead of doing something useful themselves. These
people are intolerable. I tell you, I can’t stand them!
I wonder if I could go back to JA.
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