The right way to judge others and yourself

Double standards are underrated. Holding a single standard seems consistent, objective and fair; using different standards looks like favoritism and breeds resentment. That’s only half the picture, though. There’s hidden value in measuring people with different yardsticks.

Perhaps you’d prefer not to judge people at all. That’s unrealistic. No matter your intentions, you will unconsciously judge other people. We all do it. When we see misbehavior, we automatically feel a twinge of disapproval in our hearts. When we see self-sacrifice, we admire the martyr and our spirits rise.

It’s still good advice to “judge not, lest you be judged.” Take that lesson figuratively, though, not literally. It’s a warning against over-judging. Even if someone seems like a jerk, don’t condemn them too much or make assumptions about their personal failings. We’re prone to a mistake called the fundamental attribution error: we reach conclusions about someone’s true nature as soon as we see them act.

Even better advice is “first, remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.” It’s fine to notice the speck in their eye. You’d be lying to yourself if you tried to ignore it. Just make sure you look inwards, as well, and first fix your own failings before trying to correct theirs.

When you’re looking inwards and judging yourself, “be the best version of yourself.” It’s easy to dismiss that phrase as corny, but it carries wisdom. Your mind is great at inventing rationalizations for your own misdeeds. Don’t let it; instead, imagine how you could have been better.

If you want to intellectualize it, study Aristotle’s virtue ethics. He prescribed developing your noble traits to pursue eudaimonia, meaning flourishing. Be more courageous, moderate, just, and prudent.

 Think too of Confucius and his ideal junzi, meaning gentleman. Be a junzi through loyalty, generosity, and discipline. Strive for internal perfection rather than external reward.

When you’re judging someone else, though, you have no way of knowing if they’re being the best version of themselves. You can’t judge them fairly until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. When they wronged you, perhaps they had already walked a marathon in their shoes and were tired of hobbling along on raw, blistered feet in the pounding sun.

That’s why you mustn’t blindlytrust your gut judgment. Be tough when you judge yourself but forgiving when judging others. It’s the only way to overcome your innate bias. It’s a scary way of thinking, because it means giving people a second chance, and withholding judgment on potential threats. Be the brave, trusting version of yourself who takes that risk.

Analogously to these individual judgments, we can’t judge our allies the same way we judge other groups. In-group bias has been studied extensively by sociologists, and we now know that even in completely random groupings we favor our group members over outsiders. Regardless of how we separate Us from Them, even if it’s as meaningless as a coin toss, we see Us as more trustworthy than Them.

That’s not to damn human nature. We’re not destined to be xenophobes. Rather, it’s a fact that we must work around. We can beat this bias with discipline and love.

When you and your friends clash with another group (in politics, or religious differences, or race relations, for some examples) try to imagine yourself on the other side. You still posses all the same emotions and faculties; you aren’t a creature of pure hate, greed, ignorance, or sloth. You still have perfectly intelligent, well-intentioned motives.

When you’re doing this thought experiment, reason out what these motivations would be. Be strong: your side will discourage your exercise in empathy and try to stir up dehumanizing fear and resentment against Them. “Those people are fascists/socialists! They want to destroy us and everything we hold dear. We’ve already treated them too much like humans.”

It’s incumbent on you to rise above this hostility. A good life demands an open heart and an open mind.