(no subject)

[aroraborealis]

When someone who you know and like/respect does something about which you've always had some kind of negative opinion (it's a stupid thing to do; it's a bad choice; ... ), do you change your opinion of the person or the thing s/he's doing? Or neither or both?

Comments

[hawkegirl.livejournal.com]

Too vauge for me to comment on.

[darthsunshine.livejournal.com]

You know, I've occasionally struggled with this in my own life with people that I care for. I try really hard to distinguish between the person that I care for and the choices that person makes. I usually manage that in my emotional life--I don't change how I care for/feel about people who do things I think are stupid. But try though I might, the things a person does affect what I think of the person and the respect I hold for that person, at least in whatever arena it was s/he did a "stupid" thing.

Every once in a while when this sort of thing happens, the person is able to show me reasons to reconsider my negative opinion of whatever it is. But I find that happening less and less in my life as I become more and more stable in who I am and what I hold important and how the world works (and by extension what I think is "stupid" or a "bad decision").

Scale

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

It really depends on the seriousness of the decision.
I figure everyone is different and no one is going to make the same decisions I do.
That's where tolerance comes in.

However, for example, a very good friend of mine had a baby. I was there for the delivery, that's how close we were. I knew her husband before I knew her, and I am very close to the family.

However less than 2 months after her son was born she went back to work and seems to have very little interest in mothering this child.
The parenting in this family is so far from my own that I neither understand nor respect them anymore. Then they had another child, and now she spends most of her week at another job staying overnight 5 hours away.
The kids are still very small.
I have lost respect for her, and cannot be close friends because I completely disagree with these decisions she has made. However, I have just distanced myself from her, but I am still glad to see her, we chat when we run into each other, but I have no interest in being close.
Now, do you talk to them about it?
In this case, why? These are serious decisions that show where her ethics and values are, and they are so far from mine.

But in less serious choices, maybe discuss it with them, or just accept that maybe it's not what you would have done, but of course its not. They are not you!

But you can't be friends with someone you do not respect. It's not fair to either of you.

[catya.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can do much on this one witout more of an example, but i think it would mostly be around udnerstanding why they id what they did...

until I've walked a mile in their shoes

[dbang.livejournal.com]

All of the above, at times, and sometimes the ideal, which is to realize that although I may have ideas, I can't know what is best for them, and I'm as likely to be wrong as they are...more so, in fact, since they have the insider's view on their own life. Also, to the extent that I believe in some sort of supernatural power guiding the lives of humans (which varies day-to-day) I believe that each person is on a path to where they need to be, and I can't know where the path is supposed to go. A decision that looks like a bad one today might just be moving them one step further along to path toward a destination beyond my wildest imagination...who am I to say?

Perhaps my viewpoint on this question is affected by my own view of my own life, which is that as long as I like where I am today, I cannot regret any of my decisions that brought me here, no matter how "bad" they seem from an objective/outsider viewpoint.

That's the ideal. Being human, I'm certainly guilty of judging even those I care about, and sure, I do...I just try to remember in the midst of my judging that no one has yet appointed me Omniscient yet. :-)

Re: until I've walked a mile in their shoes

[(Anonymous)]

I respect this PoV a lot. In fact, I often say "The path is the Path" by which I mean that the road someone is on is their road to walk and that the walking of the road is the point.

However, that doesn't mean I have to suspend my judgement or devalue my ability to characterize what I see someone doing. If I see someone doing something that I think is a bad choice then that affects how I think of and react to that person. I might modify that judgement in light of later information, but I still have to be able to evaluate.

But that's just me.

Re: until I've walked a mile in their shoes

[dbang.livejournal.com]

How can you evaluate without enough information? You can take your best guess, and if that person asks you can tell them your best guess (commonly called "advice"), but the question here is: are you going to think less of them for doing it? I would argue that, ideally, the answer is that you will withold that judgement pending a full understanding of the situation, which will probably only develop over months or years. Now, if you are faced with the same decision, naturally, you evaluate the situation and make the decision you feel is best. Then you hope your friends also take a non-judgemental response.

Re: until I've walked a mile in their shoes

[(Anonymous)]

You asked How can you evaluate without enough information? which makes me want to ask "How do you know when you have enough information? Isn't it kind of circular? I form an opinion based on the info I have at the time and I know my info is always complete so if I get more I can revise my opinion.

you will withold that judgement pending a full understanding of the situation

I suppose that's a very good Zen-style stance to take, but it seems much more disengaged than the way I live my life. I guess if I don't care much about the person or the act I might withhold judgment but if I care, I'm likely to have an opinion.

Re: until I've walked a mile in their shoes

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Er..."disengaged" like having a LJ conversation anonymously, perhaps?