We are not finished products until we draw our last breath. Perhaps not even then, but certainly up until then.
I think we often forget that.
As a younger person, I believed things I now find abhorrent. I advocated gay bashing to my teenage friends. I used slurs to refer to gays, Hispanics, and Asians. I repeated horribly insensitive jokes, and I was a central player in any number of misogynist pranks. Instead of asking directly for what I wanted, I tried to manipulate other people to achieve my ends indirectly.
In sum, I have behaved very badly in the past, and truth be told I sometimes take shortcuts even now.
So I have a hard time condemning anyone for expressing thoughts that I disagree with.
I don’t condone those thoughts. I don’t sanction them. But I know from my own experience that people, especially young people, have many miles to go in their lives’ journeys, and they can change their views.
Not only are we quick to judge people these days, we are unforgiving in those judgments, leaving no room for growth. We’re writing people off. Which seems super counterproductive to me. It’s wasteful – and I detest waste. And it doesn’t change hearts and minds, which is what we’ll need to do if we are to move the needle on important issues.
It’s your basic strong-arm approach, an I’m-going-to-force-you-to-do-what-I-want play. It’s easier than engaging in earnest discussion, dealing with the emotion of talking to people with fundamentally different perspectives and values – at least as they stand today. But I think we can do better.
And it starts with assuming the best of our fellow people. That common ground exists. That discussion can expose the assumptions we hold that explain our differences. That once those differences are exposed we can compare and assess them. And that when we do compare and assess them, that we can reasonably agree on a path forward.
We short-circuit that process by condemning people, refusing to engage with them, and we do even more damage by locking people into the mental and/or emotional space they occupy today, by not providing room to change their minds. It cements preconceptions, eliminates the opportunity for discussion, which destroys the chance to make even a little progress together.
Judging others helps exactly no situation. And I think that’s especially true now.