It’s Not Me, It’s You (Hmm. . .)
An opinion on judgment and blame
There is something that everyone I know (including myself) has in common — we all believe that we are open-minded. We all like to view ourselves as people who treat others fairly, people who are tolerant of others.
Yet, most of us find ourselves talking about other people behind their backs. Not necessarily with a mean intent, but to express our opinions on how they dress, how they support the “wrong” candidate, how they raise their children, how they live on junk food, or how they spend their money on the wrong things.
Humans like to categorize things because it is a natural drive to look for patterns, allocate labels, and arrange things into categories. Humans like to categorize things because it helps them make sense of the world, predict behavior, and establish order through mental categories. ( link)
In our conversations with others, we find ourselves explaining our points of view to them, hoping that they will come around to seeing things in the same way that we do. And, when others see things differently, conversations can easily turn into arguments.
Sometimes, conversations don’t get heated, but simply end when one person, in exasperation, says, “Fine, you do you!” This tends to shut down the conversation (which in certain…