Why Do We Judge Others So Quickly ?

I have friends who are quick to judge certain people without anything more than sound bites of information about them.  Political personalities (Obama, Bush, etc.), celebrities of any level (Justin Bieber, Paula Dean, etc.), and even athletes (Tiger Woods, Danica Patrick, etc.) seem to be most susceptible to this kind of polarizing reaction.  I do not understand the phenomenon, but it is worth thinking about on a slightly deeper level.

What is is about pop culture that inspires such swift and most often negative reactions to people we do not personally know?  I am not defending individuals who actually may be horrible people, but should we judge them just based on what we hear in the media or from our friends?  I just wish we do a little research of our own before we make a judgement and then commit to it so strongly.  Without really digging into why decisions were made or trying to understanding that person's perspective, I worry that we are setting ourselves up for some very harsh judgement in that great and final day.  I for one, would appreciate knowing that whoever judges me took the time to think about my thought process before deciding that I lived a less-than-proper lifetime.

On some level, I actually believe that we will be our own judge when this life is over.  But instead of sitting down and defending our own life's choices, we will be forced to accept our earthly judgement of others in similar situations as our own fate.  The slight possibility that this might be remotely accurate gives me enough pause to curb my reactions and judgements, if only to try and understand the situation a little better.  Even if I am completely wrong, I feel better in this life for trying to withhold judgement ... and I have had my initial reactions proven inaccurate often enough to delay any future strong judgements.


Song Of The Day:
Blake Shelton's song "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking" is more about love than judging people, but I still think it applies here.  We are looking at wht the media shows us about people in pop culture, but rarely take the time to dig deeper.  Blake sings over and over again in this song "I wanna know, I wanna know" and I think that curiosity is better than possibly misjudging someone.

...