Quote:
Originally Posted by DiscoDan  The point I am trying to make in my example is that, even though it appears as if people do terrible things for no valid reason, one always exists if you look deeply enough. It is not that child molesters or any of the various other types of criminals are just "bad people" and that's the way it is. These people become the way that they are because of terrible experiences that have happened to them in the past. Help these people get through those past experiences, and you will stop them from doing terrible things as well.
Why would you want to stop making such judgments? These types of judgments define your values, which in turn, define you as a person.
The only type of judgment that is destructive is when we feel that others are "bad people" because they hold different values from our own. For example, I personally feel that child molestation is one of the most atrocious things to exist in the world today. But how can I say that someone who commits such acts is a bad person, when I personally have not experienced the terrible events that must have occurred to form the values that define such a person?
I can't. I know that, if I were in his position, I would behave in the exact same way. So who am I to say that people who commit such acts are bad people? |
Actually, you can't 'know' that. There are a lot of people who are molested as children who don't grow up to molest other children. I don't say that other than to point out that whatever causes the schism that produces child molestation isn't as simple as being abused. I am NOT any kind of psychologist, but it has to be some combination of personality + circumstances. Also, there are people (this is a limited number, but it still happens) that were never molested as children who end up being child molesters. I sometimes wonder if some people are just broken. To me, 'broken' doesn't have that negative a connotation. If you're broken, you can't help it. It is just what you are. Broken people still have to be contained, though, particularly because some kinds of broken just can't seem to be fixed.
I think I have to learn to tell the difference between judgements with ego attached and just simple judgements. If you look at a child molester and say, "He is BAD. What a TERRIBLE person he is!!" and you are secretly pleased to observe this because in contrast you are so much BETTER...that is a judgement with ego attached. If you see a child molester and say, "Wow, he is really screwed up and needs to be put somewhere where he can't hurt kids." and you are really just thinking that kids need to be safe, that is a judgement without ego attached.
I think I have a hard time telling these two things apart when the subject is less obvious than child molesting.