Judgment vs Judgmentalism--7 Distinctions

In his book, Making Judgments Without Being Judgmental, Terry D. Cooper suggests seven important distinctions between the necessary process of making judgments and the unnecessary process of being judgmental.

Concern. Whereas healthy judgment involves concern for others, judgmentalism often has no concern whatsoever for the people it is condemning.

Trust. Healthy judgment refuses to distrust another’s motives without solid evidence for doing so. Judgmentalism, on the other hand, claims to be able to read people’s minds.

Tolerant. Judgmentalism often clings so tenaciously to rigid religious and moral concepts that it ends up disrespecting anyone who thinks differently. Healthy judgment may indeed think that the ideas of someone are off-base, limited or even dangerous, but it extends tolerance to the person beneath the ideas.

Behavior vs. people. Bashing a behavior is a judgment. Bashing a person is being judgmental. We must make healthy judgments concerning behaviors every day. When we start in on the person behind the behaviors, making sweeping judgments about their personhood, we have crossed the line into judgmentalism.

Open. Healthy judgment recognizes the unresolved problems with our own viewpoints. We can be open to new information that may change our opinion, but at the same time act on the information we now have. By contrast, judgmentalism refuses to recognize any problems or limitations with its own viewpoint. Changing an opinion, even in the face of new information or insight, is nearly impossible.

Time. Making a healthy judgment involves a calm, sober insistence on looking at all the evidence before reaching a conclusion. Judgmentalism as a mentality, however, is based on reactionary protest to something. It is emotional reasoning, which allows clear thinking no room to navigate amidst our colliding feelings.

Unafraid. Healthy judgments are not driven by fear. Judgmentalism, on the other hand, is driven by fear of carefully examining evidence and thinking analytically. Judgmentalism thinks in terms of black and white. It’s too frightening to admit that there may be several angles to consider.

It’s so easy to slip into judgmentalism. I’m grateful to Terry Cooper for laying out these distinctions, so I can think about my own interactions with those around me.