Neither “our own behaviour”, nor “prematurely” have anything to do with it, Alex. It is never our prerogative to make judgments about our neighbour’s moral state. However, we may, and must, make judgments about our neighbour’s actions and words. You never make that distinction, but lump both types of judgment into the, (in your view), reprehensible JUDGMENTALISM bin.
Again, “our own flaws” are irrelevant, otherwise, very few people would ever be able to acknowledge the existence of evil. We are obliged to acknowledge “flaws”, (sins, in other words), even if we are ourselves guilty of the same sins. It’s called honesty, as opposed to Mr-Nice-Guyness.
Well, John, we should be attentive never to adopt prematurely a moral or evaluating attitude of our neighbour, without first examining our own behaviour by severe self scrutiny.
In so doing we restrain our eagerness to judge others, knowing well our own flaws.
The human person is generally speaking far more eager to belittle those who do not measure up to our expectations, the result of believing that our evaluations are perfectly calibrated to reveal the entire human being on the receiving end of our judgmental scrutiny.
Responses
« Back to index | View thread »