As I get older, I have a fear of becoming extremely judgmental and set in my ways. Now that’s judgmental in itself, me presuming that older people ARE more judgmental and set in their ways than younger people. This self realization lead me to do some homework on this topic of judgment versus discernment.
When my four kids were little and they would be making fun of each other’s haircuts or outfit choices or the ways that they each laughed or ran or threw a ball, I would spout out this “groaner” statement, “There has never been a statue erected to a critic.” In time, my youngest son, who I have more than once suggested has a tendency to be inflammatory, would say, “Actually Mom, there is a statue erected to the movie critic Roger Ebert in Illinois.” This would start the chain of snickering and they’d all be friends again. Kids against Mom. Mission accomplished. 😉
Anyway, I decided to do some studying on the difference between being judgmental and being discerning. Being judgmental or not being judgmental, seems to be a hot topic these days. These are the days of the idea that everyone’s the same, everyone gets a trophy and yet, there’s been a lot of backlash against the practice of “trophies for everyone.” I understand that backlash. I don’t deserve a trophy for singing or dancing. Those aren’t my talents. Other people are better at singing and dancing than me. That doesn’t make them better people than me, just better singers and dancers. Way better.
The topic of being judgmental has a lot of weightiness to it because of the religious undertones. “Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone,” comes to mind the minute I think of the judgment topic. The Bible itself is telling us not to be judgmental. But if we didn’t have judgments, if we didn’t recognize differences, would mankind have even evolved? Would we even exist? That’s when I really started researching preferences or discernment versus judgment.
Now I like to simplify things. I have always thought that those yellow Dummy books like “Home Buying for Dummies” for instance, were just great. So, I have dummied the whole “judgment versus discernment idea” down for myself. I find it helpful. I hope that others do, too and that I’m not the only “dummy” on the subject.
Let’s pretend that we are in a park and we see a cute, tail wagging puppy and we also see a snarling tiger. The non-judgmental, non-discerning person will say, “Puppies and tigers are just the same. I’m going to love up on both of them!” Even us dummies can see that this is a recipe for disaster. The judgmental person will say, “Tigers are BAD, EVIL creatures. Their only motivation in life is to maul and eat people. I’m going to start an “I HATE TIGERS” club to get others to agree with me and validate my opinion which is the only right opinion to have about tigers.” This is showing a lot of hate and fear, a need for control and a need for outside agreement and validation for the judging person’s opinion. It is also making sweeping generalizations about tigers and their motivations that the judging person couldn’t possibly really fully know or understand. The discerning person will say, “My education, experience and gut instincts are telling me that I should keep a very safe distance from wild creatures like tigers. Domesticated puppies are likely to be safe, so I don’t have to keep my distance from the puppy.” Or the discerning person could say something like this, “I have a lot of background in animal behavior and I have a tranquilizer gun in my backpack. I find the tiger intriguing, so I will take calculated risks when approaching it.” The discerning person is making decisions for himself or herself based on facts, experience, gut instincts, and what is best for that individual person. The discerning person has no need for outside validation; they are comfortable with making their own assessments for what is right for themselves. The discerning person is coming from a place of self-confidence, self-protection and creating healthy boundaries for himself or herself without requiring other people to have those same boundaries for themselves. There is no religious edict that I know of that is against us being discerning.
That may seem like an oversimplified example, but if you put a person who has committed crimes in place of the word “tiger”, you can see how it fits. It is not being judgmental to not hire an arrested embezzler to invest your life savings. That is a discerning and wise choice. To say that the embezzler is a bad, evil person who did their crime because they only have hate in their soul is judgmental. The embezzler will go to jail to pay their consequences for committing a crime. That is all that there is to it. Those are the facts. In nature, there are no rewards or punishments, just consequences for behavior, thus leaving out judgment. Judgment is perhaps between us and our Maker only. But discernment shows that we have self-understanding, self-care and preferences. Discernment perhaps is a tool given to us by our Maker so that we can grow to be our own best selves. Discernment allows us to grow to the best of our own abilities in the safety and security of knowing and trusting ourselves and trusting our individual choices completely. Discernment says, “I know what is best for me. I know what I like and I know what I need.” Discernment is a tool for us to use individually. It doesn’t try to control other people.
I’ll end this blog post with a description about one of my favorite cartoons that I cut out from The New Yorker magazine. In it, a boy and his mother are looking at a piece of modern art in a museum. The picture shows the mother saying something. The caption reads, “Instead of saying ‘It sucks’, try saying ‘It doesn’t speak to me.’ ” Judgment versus discernment. There is a difference.
