At what point did judgement become so scary and so offensive? Today, calling someone judgmental is an insult, and to say someone does not judge is a compliment. The connotation on this word is completely negative. It misses something essential about the word.

Now, before everyone starts to feel judged, let’s clarify that harsh judgement for the purpose of exclusion and hurt should not occur. This is the kind of judgement that gives all judgement a bad name. Yet I think that a judgement exists that can be done lovingly and correctly.

Take, for example, an instance where your friend chooses a guy completely wrong for her. Isn’t there a loving way to tell her that this is simply not a good choice? That is a judgement, a judgment on him and their relationship as you stand on the outside looking in. But can’t you tell her your judgement, and still love and support her regardless of whether she agrees with you? Absolutely. It is not an either/or situation.

Or, my sister is taking a ceramics class. If she went in the completely post-modern art direction on me and made a blob of clay as her next creation, with no form other than the way in which she picked out this clay from among the rest, I would call her insane. I would judge her art as bad and herself as crazy. But I would still love her, and if she stuck by it I would support her in her endeavors.

These example seem pretty clear, I think. Yet being on the other end often causes strife. I know I personally take it too hard when my friends don’t like my boyfriend or when my family thinks little of my writing. That is not right either.

To be the healthy, authentic person I wish to become, I know I should recognize their judgement, judge its validity in turn, and then move on within that relationship unaffected by whatever decision I may make. To use judgement in this way is healthy, and I think we need to be sure to preserve it.

With the current political situations, the different ideas about sexuality, and race relations, everything is off-limits for judgment of any kind. But we need to judge, in a healthy way, so that our society does not become one wherein everything is permissive and nothing is wrong.

I should be able to think and say that demisexual (someone who does not feel sexual attraction until they have a string emotional attachment) sounds silly to me without being attacked. I could be right, I could be wrong, but we won’t even think about it if everyone is too afraid to judge it. For all I know, the majority of people agree with me, but everyone is too afraid to make that judgement.

I voted for Trump. While I believe much of the name calling and harsh judgement, especially online, was most definitely not done in a loving way, it did make me look closer at my choice. Due to other people’s judgement of who Trump is and their judgement of supposedly why everyone who voted for him was tricked into doing so, it made me consider my choice and what validity those claims had. I had to seriously consider, even more than I had before voting, whether my choice was right or wrong. I would not have made that second consideration, that genuine search of my mind whether my decision had anything to do with fear or bias, without hearing people judge my choice.

So judgement can be done in a loving and healthy manner, but since people only see the ugly side of judgement they condemn judgement altogether. The influx of harsh judgement in today’s society, as well as perhaps too sensitive reactions, have led people to clump all judgement under one banner of “wrong.” I don’t think that’s right. I judge society’s view on judgement to be wrong. If you disagree, I’m okay with that too.