[pico]

Passing judgement on people is not always a bad thing; in fact .. its a defense mechanism your mind creates to protect you.

Youre waiting by the crosswalk with your girlfriend and these two men behind you start pushing and shoving each other, slowly making a scene until they flat out start fighting.

Yeah, youll think to yourself 'these idiots need to work out thier issues in a civil manner or take this somewhere else, or maybe youll take the approach outlined above and try to find reason behind thier fighting-,' but your subconscious is telling you that you need to get away from that area before you accidently get caught up in the argument.

Passing judgement on people isnt a bad thing at all. It is one of the fundamental characteristics humanity has that keeps us safe.

Another example - a stereotype that ive had second experience with:

A friend of mine was walking w/her boyfriend in a badish neighborhood in Seattle. Coming opposite thier heading was a group of black guys. The boyfriend said to my friend that they should cross the street to avoid any sort of danger, and upon hearing this she became very disappointed and vocal with the boyfriend about how racist that comment was. Moment later the both of them are attacked and mugged by the group.

Again - a lot of defense mechanisms our minds create are taken to extremes by people who are not tolerant, and then those feelings get labeled 'bad' by society, and we try to purge ourselves of the bad feelings. What we are doing .. we are slowly removing our ability to survive.

Thanks for the post anto - i agree that respecting people is a necessity, but i felt that more had to be added.