I often wonder why we are so quick to judge one another. What’s more perplexing is what I perceive to be a lack of consistency when it comes to judgment within my own mind. There are times when I can listen to stories that, upon reflection, should have elicited snap judgment on my part. There are other times when something flares up inside of me, and I honestly don’t understand why. I see similar patterns in other people. Have you ever listened to a close friend or family member rant or vent about something and not understood why the object of their story hit the nerve that it did? Have you ever seen eye-to-eye with someone on one topic but totally been light years apart on others and not understood how or why? This simple exercise in reflection should be something of an indicator that judgment is a very personal experience. I also think it’s an indicator that there are few, if any, absolutes.
In judging others, I think we have opportunity to evaluate and judge our own values and beliefs. Judgment is as much about our complete confidence in our rightness as it is our complete lack of confidence in our own beliefs. More importantly, I think the moments when we feel the strongest urge to judge might be reflections of the myriad moments of doubt or the many instances when our actions were incongruent with our stated beliefs. Perhaps we are too quick to find fault in others to help elevate our self-perceptions, too quick to express judgment out loud to assuage the guilt and pain we whisper inside. In judging others, I believe we both judge and punish ourselves. Pushing down another to raise ourselves never, ever feels truly good inside. There is no spiritual nourishment from spiritual degradation of a fellow human being.
At this moment in time, in the United States of America, there is a whole lot of judging going on. It would be far more useful if we held our tongues, reflected on the origin of our judgment of others, and engaged in some constructive conversations about how to heal the injuries on both sides of the growing divide.
Illuminate Possibilities 
Well said Ricardo. First step in design thinking and true problem solving is empathy.
Thanks for your comment, John.
Empathy is a powerful skill to develop. As you know, it is very different from sympathy. Sympathy allows us to wonder what it would be like for us to be in a particular situation another person is experiencing. Empathy is a step up and challenges us to imagine what it must be like to be that individual in that situation. The locus of perspective changes from self to other. That leap allows for vastly-improved solutions to the problems we choose to tackle.