The United States’ recent competition in the Winter Olympics highlighted the need for an informed and critical eye to assess the performance of the competitors. Our sojourn in Sochi produced 28 total medals, including 9 golds; the host nation collected the greatest total – 33 – with 13 golds. Though I had no idea what was meant by a “half-pipe, 780 hoopa-loopa,” I remember when Olga Korbut and Mary Lou Retton would “stick the landing.” Whatever our views about the judgments of the judges in events such as figure skating and ice dancing, alpine and freestyle skiing and snowboarding, we accept that someone – a judge – needs to grade the performance.
In the popular culture of these days, we have people who claim that they don’t want to be “judged.” The problem for most of us is defining what it means to “judge.” According to my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of “judge” as a verb includes “Pronounce sentence on,” as well as “Form an opinion about … so as to arrive at a correct notion …” We make daily judgments as a way of ordering our lives. From choosing fresh fruit to deciding whether or not to have children, we have to review, assess and weigh information that can help us make decisions, great and small. But for some people, “Don’t judge me” has come to mean, “Do not find fault with my behavior or position.”
These are contentious times, where differences in political opinion can no longer be calmly discussed and there can be no agreement to disagree, a time when “nobody’s right because everybody’s wrong.” Some people would contend that we live in a too permissive time, where the young have greater expectations than commitment to achieve them, and just want to be free to do what pleases them without being “judged.” Those same people believe in the concept of “the good old days,” when there were no irritants and impediments to fruitful living and everyone worked for what he received. I contend that there were never any “good old days,” but just different days. And throughout time, we have resented criticism of our behavior.
Just as have many other people, I have faced difficult choices for a large chunk of my life. I also have a broad cross section of decisions made: good, bad, semi-good, tremendously bad, sorta OK, and goofy. But when I have been caught sideways of social acceptance, I did not implore anyone to avoid making a judgment of my behavior. (Although when I was a child, I was fervently hopeful that I would not be beaten to death.) When the Donner party was faced with death by starvation, they solved the problem in a way that the larger and more well fed community found repugnant. But I do not think that they ever demanded that no one “judge” them. (Aside: were they the originators of the phrase, “A man’s gotta eat?”)
My eldest child is fond of telling people that her parents were “hippies.” She makes this judgment of her parents based on the fact that they made up a name for her that had a mathematical symbol as a component, did not buy shoes for her until she was 2 years old, and lived in Los Angeles when she was conceived. What judgment should we make of her judgment of her parents? Were they “hippies,” or imaginative thinkers?
In our lives, we make choices based on many pieces of information we have absorbed. Whether or not those decisions prove to be socially acceptable, we have made them, and cannot then say, “Don’t judge me, bro.”