Judging less to think better

The source of all moralism is judgment.
Judgment is the expression of a moral opinion about a person, about actions or words.
In my opinion, judging is a harmful, though natural, act. In any case, it is a strong impediment to the development of critical thinking and informed decision making.

Judgment: a laziness

It was Noam Chomsky, one of the most important intellectuals in my upbringing, who opened my eyes to the smallness of judgment.
To back up my remarks, I will base myself on personal experience where I have unfortunately shown poor judgment. In 2016, when Donald Trump became president of the United States, I immediately made a strong judgment against "the Americanz". I obviously thought that they were stupid and that they had sealed their fate with this election. The same goes for Brexit, by the way.
Mr. Chomsky (at the top of his 91 years and his career as an outstanding researcher) on the contrary shows much more finesse: he refrains from any judgment towards the voters of Trump, and explains something that really struck me at the time: a voter votes for Trump because, for him, it is the best possible choice given his education, his socio-cultural background and his thought pattern (same for the Brexit, the voters of FN, the ZADists, an EM deputy...).
In this sense, I also admire the work of sociologists Monique and Michel Pinçon-Charlot who scrupulously dissect the French elite and its monopoly of power, making as little moral judgment as possible.

The problem is that by summing up a complicated issue in a moral judgment, you simplify a problem. For example, to explain Brexit by "The British are stupid" is to spare an indispensable intellectual effort. Instead of asking terribly complicated questions (Why? What can we do to change things? Is it really that bad?), we judge and believe that people should no longer vote (thank you Macron). Apart from the opinion of experts defined by an elite (such as Supreme Court judges for example) may be just as erroneous as the opinion of a larger mass.
By trying to fully understand someone's choice, one can learn a lot about other ways of thinking and about oneself.

I am deterministic to the core. For me, it is :

A human being is not responsible for his actions by nature. It is the result of his cultural, genetic and situational background that drives him to act in one way rather than another.

Sometimes I blame Emmanuel Macron. But I can soothe that anger by reminding myself that it's not really "his fault". It's his cultural background and a multitude of cognitive biases that make him think the way he thinks today. For example, I am sure that the fact that he has such a brilliant career leads him to believe in meritocracy, while ignoring the silent evidence. Likewise, I'm sure that cognitive dissonance prevents him from taking real action to save the planet. Indeed, cognitive dissonance prevents Macron from objectively judging his own actions and sincerely acknowledging his mistakes.

Of course, I have no doubt that many sociologists/psychologists/philosophers disagree with me and I do not pretend to know better than they do. This acute determinism, I am not saying that it is the truth. Simply, it is a model (all models are erroneous) that allows me to take a step back in my way of thinking and deal with problems more at the root. For example: if it's not Emmanuel Macron's "fault" if he acts like this, what measures could prevent such a phenomenon (an individual alone preventing for 5 years to put real ecological measures in place) from happening again?

How to grow up by ceasing to judge

In this second part of the article, I will present how I struggle against my judgment and how this struggle helps me to develop my critical mind.

The Remedy Against Judgment

In The Book of Joy (one of my crucial books) the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu identify the 8 virtues they believe are fundamental to a truly happy life.
To my surprise, one of these virtues is acceptance. By acceptance, they mean the absence of judgment and resentment towards anything. Even the Dalai Lama is practising full acceptance of the invasion and abuse of his own country by the Chinese army. This does not mean, of course, that he will not fight against it. It simply means that he fully recognizes this truth, looks it in the eyes as much as possible, and does not feel anger or denial towards it. He forgives the Chinese, and forgiveness is a form of acceptance. According to André Comte-Sponville, to forgive someone is not to endorse their act, it is simply to tell them that they no longer suffer from that act, and that they no longer feel hatred towards the person for that act. You forgive someone to heal yourself, in fact. And forgiveness then allows you to strive better.

Acceptance is the consecration of non-judgment. And I'm also personally trying to develop my capacity for acceptance as well. If I talk to a racist, I will carefully observe the emotions that his or her words bring out in me, and I will do everything I can to make the negative emotions fade away. I will try my best not to judge his or her words and to understand in depth why he or she feels that way. I may learn new things during the conversation. And in the worst case, I will become even more familiar with the arguments of the racists, which will allow me to better prepare myself for debates about racism.

A little digression : you can practice accepting anything, and I find this exercise very beneficial (in fact the Stoics practiced this daily). Often I find myself doing thought experiments in which I visualize more or less serious events in detail and then accept them. For example, a bailiff arrives in my apartment, which I love, to tell me that I have to leave within the next 3 days. As I visualize the scene, I first feel the shock, the acceleration of my heart and the stress. And then I say to myself "it's okay", and I imagine myself adapting to this event calmly and staying happy. This exercise is extremely beneficial for me, and it has helped me prepare for many important events in my life, even unexpected ones.

How non-judgment develops critical thinking skills

The very first thing, and I will come back to this in my next article, is that judgment is a brake on good conversations. Often, when I explain something and it's complex, I see that my interlocutors build up a judgment on my words before I finish speaking. I know that these people don't give themselves the opportunity to be touched by what I say and I stop trying to present them with complex statements.
When I judge a statement, I cut myself off from the ability to be fully impregnated by it, and to be able to evaluate it in its entirety later, coldly. By the way, a person (kept anonymous here) whom I admire a lot gave me a piece of advice that changed all my conversations: when a person really reveals himself and talks about subjects he is not very sure about, it is very important not to make any judgment and just listen to him as much as possible. Even when they're finished talking, it's very important to wait at least 10 seconds before timidly restarting the conversation. These silences allow her to regain the courage to continue talking if she needs to.
By making a quick judgment, you cut yourself off from intense conversations and the possibility of opening yourself up to new theories.

In the debates I see that judgment pushes us in another direction: the empowerment of the individual. In almost all my debates, I hear sentences that begin with the terrible conjunction "if". "If the unemployed were more active...", "If parents raised their children better", "If people didn't think only about themselves", etc., etc.
In general, these propositions are followed by a sterile comment, because they are the fruit of judgment and a lack of acceptance.

Take the cursed phrase I hear everywhere about ecology: "If everyone was more responsible, we would save the planet". We can see that this sentence is an example of a lack of acceptance. It's magical thinking: instead of fully accepting a truth, you criticize a group of people for something they don't do. In fact we wish for what is not and will never be.
But above all, this sentence shows a lack of hindsight.
First of all, because it's a simplification: instead of trying to understand why "people" are like that (lack of education, social incitement to hyperconsumption, overexposure to the same theses in the media...) we allow ourselves to judge them and to wish that they will magically change .
But more importantly : judging people is not a constructive argument because it does not give a constructive solution to a problem. If it is the fault of individuals, then all we can do is hope that they change. That's convenient. Moreover, Elise Lucet in Cash Investigation frequently shows how industrialists, too, make individuals responsible ("citizens must collect their waste") while fiercely fighting against laws that would help these individuals more organically (banning the use of plastic bottles for example).

In fact, by accepting a problem without judgment, we can think about measures that really get around it. Instead of hoping that all citizens magically become eco-responsible, there are probably laws that could be put in place that are not very penalizing. And it is these ideas, which fully accept a truth and its ramifications, that are really constructive in a debate.
Are there too many unemployed? Just because people don't want to work and are too protected, or for other reasons that need to be investigated? (Because there are robots ? Because the economic situation is less favourable? Because a lot of people are working but not employed - therefore unemployed ?…)

The answer to a complex problem is necessarily complex.
To be critical is to cut oneself off from any moral judgment, the first major obstacle to enlightened thinking. In my opinions, I try to be utilitarian, i.e. to think about solutions that bring the greatest good to the greatest world (naturally, utilitarianism is for me a guide, not a fundamental rule of life engraved forever in the rock).
And the first step for that is to accept the truth as it is, without moral judgment.