“People often say “Don’t judge.” You get in certain quasi-spiritual circles — and actually this happened to me when I was nineteen. I was at this workshop and I was very new to all this stuff. I said something about “higher consciousness,” and a woman who had a lot more experience with this kind of thing said, “Oh, that’s judgmental. We don’t judge here. Nothing’s really higher than anything else.” All is one or whatever. And I didn’t know what to say because I was so new to the milieu.
But it struck me. It bothered me. I just kind of let it go, but it started a dialogue within me. I wondered about it. What does that mean? What is a judgment? Eventually it became clear to me that it’s important and necessary to describe our experience accurately and honestly. That’s what I would call a descriptive judgment. It’s not ultimately true, but it’s useful and it matches my experience. And without that, we’re really in trouble.
When people say “Don’t judge,” that’s what I call a value judgment. And that’s saying that something is wrong or bad, which is actually just saying that it shouldn’t be what it is.
It’s important to distinguish that. If someone said, “John and Fred had a footrace. Fred crossed the finish line first and won the race. John came in second place.” That’s not a judgment. That’s just a description of what happened. But if I said, “John is a loser,” like he’s not okay, something’s wrong with him, that’s a value judgment.
Or “John is taller than Fred.” Is it true? Well, you could measure them and find out. But if you said, “John is taller and therefore superior as a human being,” that’s horror. It’s the foundation of misery. It’s a value judgment.
It’s subtle, perhaps, but we’re doing it all the time. If you look at the media, it’s everywhere. So what I like to say is it’s not whether things are right or wrong, it’s about what works and what doesn’t.”
– James Wood, Ending Suffering
Svaha 