Judging

“When I am sharply judgmental of any other person, it’s because I sense or see reflected in them some aspect of myself that I don’t want to acknowledge.  I’m speaking here not of my critique of another person’s behavior in objective terms but of the self-righteous tone of personal judgment that colors my opinion. … Moral judgments, however, are never about the obvious; they always speak to the underlying similarities between the judge and the condemned.  My judgments of others are an accurate gauge of how, beneath the surface, I feel about myself.  It’s only the willful blindness in me that condemns another for deluding himself; my own selfishness that excoriates another for being self-serving; my lack of authenticity that judges falsehood in another.  It is the same, I believe, for all moral judgments people cast on each other and for all vehemently held communal judgments a society visits upon its members.”  In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Gabor Mate