One of the things the community here at Berkeley is extremely proud of (and correspondingly vocal about) is the university's student body's status as an environment devoid of judgment, where all ethnicities, backgrounds, religious and sexual orientations, majors, walks of life, beliefs regarding lettuce sanitation, etc. are welcome. Here at UC Berkeley, anybody is welcome to carry whatever set of characteristics they want to at that given moment.
Let me start with a little detour reminding everyone that this is a basically complete and almost unconditional lie, and more a useful reputation boost for Berkeley's recruitment than based in any sort of actual fact. Judgment abounds wherever there are people, and there's no magic potion in the water here that suddenly makes everyone a more open-minded person. This is the point in any discussion of the Berkeley campus where a weed joke is made. Ha, ha, four hundred twenty.
Now, it bears mentioning that "judgment" is not a nasty word referring to anything inherently bad. Consider this: you like mint Milanos, and your friend does not. This is a matter of preference and/or personal judgment, judgment in the sense of discernment and taste. Note that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this sort of judgment; a malicious form of judgment would be if you asserted your friend needed to be institutionalized or killed as a result of their insane non-preference for minty Pepperidge Farms dessert cookies. Taste is valid, regardless of whether you agree. That's why it's called taste.
Many members of the student body here whole-heartedly embrace the notion that there is to be no judgment one way or another. Everybody can do what they want, with their body, on their schedule, because they are legal adults operating in their own arena. It's their experience, for them to live out and have as they wish. This is conditionally fine. Every person can mind their own business and do what makes them happy, and I for one will at least make a genuine effort to avoid judging them adversely for it. That's just politeness, plain and simple.
And yet, a strange contradiction arises! Everyone is pretty well free to do what they will (the few rules that do exist are generally not strictly enforced), free of judgment from those around them, and yet... there are people who still feel judged. Their response to this, naturally, is usually to react with fear or anger and yell things like "You can't judge me! You have failings too!" or "I'm a free person, I have a right to privacy!" at the high end and "u don no my lyfe" at the somewhat lower end of the quality spectrum.
The issue is that no one actually is judging them, at least not in any outward way. Just a few evenings ago, two people in a state of formidable intoxication wandered by my door. Being a taciturn but at least polite person, I responded to their slightly-garbled greeting with a "Hi!" and a wave. They wandered off and I returned to my Netflix, nobody better off or worse, and yet later I heard the people in question discussing how they felt I was judging them for their inebriation. Other times, people here have labeled me variously as condescending, judgmental, or pretentious in spite of our never actually having had a proper conversation. Just my silence and conversational non-involvement is enough to make people experience feelings of shame and other forms of discomfort. I'm skinny, and walking by a group of people prompted a conversation about body shaming. It's all very strange.
But the point is this: maybe the source of the discomfort is not actually me. If I'm totally detached from your activity, or group, or whatever, and give no outward sign of judgment, it's because I'm actually not adversely judging you. I don't have any stake in what you're doing as long as I'm not affected, and so I have no emotional investment; I just genuinely am not concerned. So if you're experiencing feelings of shame and feel judged based on something you're doing, consider the possibility that it's because you're doing something you're either not really comfortable with or that you're aware is wrong (for whatever reason, religious beliefs, personal ethics, whatever).
TL;DR The person judging you might not necessarily be me, or anybody else. The person judging you might be you.
No comments:
Post a Comment