Tara Sattar
As human beings, we are prone to be biased towards what we feel is “virtuous”. Be that an activity or social work or a human being. Hence, the popularity of the famous people is either for who they are or who we believe them to be.
Such is an example of all the great humans we know who have made a difference and have carved a history on the periphery of the world. We admire them blindly and judge them to be saints. We make a false image of them in our minds and pretend the picture is perfect. Their great deeds and words attract us.
According to an article published in collective-evolution, writer Arjun Walia states that judgments usually come in the form of praise and also condemnation. The act of judging differentiates us from each other and takes away the equality from us. When we judge someone, we either say they are higher or lower than us.
But, not all humans are perfect. They have their own flaws and should be allowed to make mistakes.
What Walia suggests in the article is that we concentrate on the message that the person has given and not on the person. That way we remember the message that person is trying to convey as opposed to obsessing over the personality. For example, if someone someday tried to make us believe that Mahatma Gandhi was a murderer, it will not be expected of us to throw away all the goods that he has given to the mankind. Gandhi should be remembered for what we did, rather than who he was.
It is always a positive notion to take someone optimistically. The problem arises only when we start to think they are better than us in many ways. The people who we deem to be saints are just regular like we are and they want to be treated that way, says Walia.
Walia wants to tell people that all should be judged equally. Because, judging other people as saints might trigger an egotistic issue. Sometimes, it becomes as such that we are unable to hear anything negative about them. And that is not a healthy expression.
As an example, Walia talked about how Gandhi married a 13 year old and took her to prison with him as company whenever he went. She got a disease but was not allowed to take medicine and died as a result. Later, when Gandhi got the same disease, he took the medicine that he didn’t let his wife take and survived.
Malcolm X had his turn on drugs too. And everyone is aware of his deeds on drugs and women. He still nonetheless remains as one of the iconic revolutionary individual.
People like Gandhi and Malcolm might have had some negative issues but that by no means degrade them ever. They have left a deep impact in the changing world with positive thoughts and they continue to make impacts.
The epistemology of life should be to learn and not judge.