As has been noted, it is characteristic of those who are evil to judge others as evil. Unable to acknowledge their own imperfection, they must explain away their flaws by blaming others. And, if necessary, they will even destroy others in the name of righteousness. How often we have seen it: the martyrdom of the saints, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, MyLai! Often enough to know that whenever we judge another evil we may ourselves be committing evil. Even atheists and agnostics believe in Christ’s words: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
...Moral judgment is dangerous enough. How dare we mix the two in the light of Jesus’ admonition? If we examine the matter more closely, however, we will see that it is both impossible and itself evil to totally refrain from making moral judgments. An attitude of “I’m OK; you’re OK” may have a certain place in facilitating our social relationships, but only a place. Was Hitler OK? Lieutenant Calley? Jim Jones? Were the medical experiments conducted on the Jews in German concentration camps OK? The LSD experiments conducted by the CIA?
Let us also look at everyday life. If I am to hire an employee, should I take the first person who comes along or should I interview a number of applicants and judge between them? What kind of father would I be if I discovered my son cheating, lying, or stealing and failed to criticize him? What should I tell a friend who is planning suicide or a patient who is selling heroin? “You’re OK”? There is such a thing as an excess of sympathy, an excess of tolerance, an excess of permissiveness.
The fact of the matter is that we cannot lead decent lives without making judgments in general and moral judgments in particular. When patients come to see me, what they pay me for is my presumably good judgment. When I seek legal advice, I am interested in the quality of my lawyer’s judgment. Do we spend five thousand dollars on a family vacation or invest it in savings for the children’s education? Do I or do I not cheat on my income tax? You and I go through our day making decisions that are judgments, most of which have moral overtones. We cannot escape from judging.
The sentence “Judge not, that ye be not judged” is usually quoted out of context. Christ did not enjoin us to refrain from ever judging. What he went on to say in the next four verses is that we should judge ourselves before we judge others—not that we shouldn’t judge at all. “Thou hypocrite,” he said, “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Recognizing the potential for evil in moral judgments, he instructed us not to always avoid making them but to purify ourselves before doing so. Which is where the evil fail. It is the self-criticism they avoid.
We must also remember the purpose for which we judge. If it is to heal, fine. If it is to enhance our own self-esteem, our pride, then the purpose is wrong. “There but for the grace of God, go I” is a reflection that should accompany every judgment of another’s evil.
--- Excerpted from ‘The People of the Lie’, M. Scott Peck late psychiatrist and best-selling author
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| M. Scott Peck 1936 - 2005 |
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