"We're all people" I was once told. It of course was a convenient defense for the person who said it. I actually liked it for awhile. I'm a cynical person, but I suppose we all have our bouts with insanity, and so I actually liked this idea for a time. The basic premise of it is of course more than just "we are all people." The point was of course broader than that. We all judge people unfairly. We never truly understand the person and as such we never realize how like us they really are.

Like the moment when your brakes lock
And you slide toward the big truck
And stretch the frozen moments with your fear
And you'll never hear their voices
And you'll never see their faces
You have no recourse to the law anymore

And as the windshield melts
My tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend
Finally I understand
The feelings of the few
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end

Sounds pretty, doesn't it? What could be more democratic, more American, more egalitarian? We are all people. Perhaps you hate a person for this reason or this reason. But he's a person too. He is just like you, he has feelings and he has needs and he has his own agenda and perhaps he has slighted you, but have you done any different? "We're all people." Living, alive organisms, struggling for our own survival. Can't we just understand that and be nice to others?

It ties in well with another thing I've heard a lot of lately. Judgment. What a truly awful thing. And, as such, I have never seen an entire school unite to crusade against such a loathsome evil such as the school that my friend goes to who spoke first the aforementioned quotation. I have an immense amount of "friends" there and consequently I've heard any number of them preaching on the issue. Again, we all have our bouts of outright stupidity and so I saw some potential truth in this also. Afterall, I had been wronged in a million different awful ways by this very person (hence the convenient defense) and it was one night revealed to me all the truly, genuinely, atrocious sins committed against this person as a child. Things that absolutely no one should have to endure. At this point I could better understand why this person had done what she had done, and clearly it would have henceforth been terribly wrong of me to then hold it against this person. And how the hell could I have judged this person before? Without knowing this absolutely vital and extraordinary salient piece of information.

And this, in the end, is true for most people, and if not, it remains true for all in concept. Afterall, most people have had similar incidents in their life. Perhaps not as extreme as the case I just spoke of, but certainly, everyone has their reasons for acting the way they do. But most of us will never know these deep, dark, twisted secrets that we hide in the depths of our soul. And so how is it that we could so easily pass judgment? Even if a specific person has a more or less clear past, we will never know this, and so for all practical purposes, all such persons must be excluded from judgment. And such was the believe of all students at this school and such was their voice (if perhaps not always their action, certainly their defense).

For all practical purposes? Yes, that does bring up an interesting idea. Namely the absolute, utter, unadulterated, stupidity inherent in this creed. We are indeed all people. And what of it?

In the end, what does any of this amount to? Nothing really, at least of any practical value. For the most part, we ill never know these deep dark secrets people hold. "How can you judge me!" I've heard oh so very often. "You don't even know me." Verily. And the truth of the matter? I never will. It is never possible for one to know wholly the circumstances surrounding ones life or to wholly know a person at all. So then, are we supposed to never judge anyone?

This naturally is quite an idealistic and infantile treatise. Go watch some more Mr. Rodger's reruns. To be so meek and mild as to never make a judgment? This is what is suggested by my "friends?" (Who consequently judge me as being judgmental. Indeed.). What hogwash. If I will never be able to understand exactly who you truly are, then why does it matter if I might not know some facts about your life? In the end, all that matters is the cards you bring to the game. This is your deal. Everyone gets their deal and everyone will play the game with it. And those with bad deals and/or those who don't know how to play their cards right will loose. This is simply how it is. All that matters is the image you project to me. If you hide these things from me, how the hell do you expect me to judge you with them in mind? Why would it matter anyway. If you act this way, even if you have a reason for it, and that makes you less fit to be a friend of mine, then what else matters to me? So you have a reason for being an asshole. Your still an asshole and I still don't care to be around you. And that in it of itself is an entirely sufficient and viable judgment, for all practical purposes.

The plain truth of it all is best stated by Kurt Vonnegut: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." So why should my passing judgment on you include things I do not know. Why should that exclude me from passing judgment at all?

Whether or not I know what the true essence of you is (something which you probably don't know yourself) does not mean you don't act on me. And since you do (assuming you do), even if it is in the smallest of manners, I should be entirely entitled to judge this, for it does affects me, and it is only a natural defense to simply evaluate the circumstances you are in and act accordingly.

So I really, honestly, truly do not know you. But your true personality does not affect me. Yet I know intimately how I interact with you, which is what matters to me, for it is what affects me. And since this I do know, I am fully capable of making an accurate judgment on this. So don't tell me not to judge you because I don't know you, for what more are you than what I do know?

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