TRUTH AND JUDGMENT

TRUTH AND JUDGMENT

Mikhail and Dave had a training day in School. They all had to work hard cleaning their classrooms and corridors. Dave sees several school officers speeding past the hallways bumping into people in frenzy and shouting to be excused for their rush. He starts thinking, with his broom continuing to swab

Dave says: Mikhail, Nothing is ever right or wrong, black or white. There are always shades of grey.

Mikhail Why is that Dave?

Dave: Circumstances. You can’t tell a woman she has wronged in
aborting a child because her circumstances made her do it.
Circumstances provoked her to do the wrong thing.

Mikhail first, you say there is no right and wrong, now you say she was
provoked to do the wrong thing. So are we accepting here, that a
wrong thing has been done?

Dave: No, because she did not do it

Mikhail
Dave, there is an objective truth to everything in the world. If a man has died, a man has died, whether he was killed by reckless driving or because he came in the way of a vehicle is just the motive. It is dealing with the subject. But the objective truth is a man has died. You cannot change that fact but you can change the penalty on the vehicle driver (subject) depending on the motive.

So, are you trying to say, an objective wrong has been done but not a subjective wrong as circumstances provoked her and so she cannot be held guilty, hence she is not wrong? The question here is who is going to own up for objective truths? Objects look for subjects to correspond to, to give them realities over their own physical realities. Like a stone that is moved, true, a stone has moved and it is in the objective nature of the stone to move.

The greater question would be who or what can account for the movement of the stone? Who can validate the nature of the stone to move only when provoked? Who is ready to take the subjective ownership of the action? Else are we to believe that buildings can just move or fall without any provocation. if a stone that in its objective nature can move but no one is ready to seek the subject of the action?

So why can’t I tell the woman that she has done something right or wrong?

Dave: Because you are not empathizing with her circumstances by
doing so.

Mikhail But what if I don’t empathize with her circumstances and yet go
ahead to tell her if she is wrong?

Dave: But you should empathize with her circumstances.

Mikhail But what if I don’t consider her circumstances?

Dave: I guess, that would be judging her.

Mikhail: Judgment eh? So I am not supposed to tell her that she is right or
wrong because that would mean being apathetic towards her ‘circumstances’?

Dave: I guess, because Man always acts according to circumstances.

Mikhail

Does a circumstance make Man what he is or the choices Man makes? Circumstances demand man to act proper to its requirements, if he is late, run. If he is tired, relax. But Conscience demands that he act proper to what is right and do justice to it. Man always excuses his limitations by circumstances, where as sympathy demands others to asses for me that I failed due to my circumstances. But their sympathy does not justify or rule that I invariably act according to my circumstance.

The larger question here is where does judgment begin? Does it begin at-‘telling her she is wrong?’ Is that judgment? Or does judgment begin at-‘The consequence of judgment’ does judgment begin, in other words, at the content of her action I open her to or, some pre-supposed material, that no sooner I tell her she is wrong, she precociously realizes that she will have to (the pre-supposed material, the consequence) face, reply, atone, amend, admit and acknowledge, accept and suffer people’s reactions?

Dave:
I guess, yes, it would sort of make her think that telling her she is wrong automatically qualifies her to be categorized inferior to the rest. Man always strives to be good in principle but she acted against the principle. In being reminded of it, will patently inflame her and reveal to her there are going to be ‘consequences of acknowledging wrongdoing’

Mikhail So where then does judgment begin (as evil)?
Is it in correcting people and confronting them on objective truths (deceit, harm, lies, dishonesty etc) or in mentally manhandling them to own up and banishing them, thereafter into a inferior, metaphorical prison to be shared on an island with other wrongdoers?

Dave: The latter I guess.

Mikhail:
This is where compassion comes in. to correct people, is not being judgmental, as political correctness or character assassination or glorifying Circumstantial Man would have it. But have compassion to understand that she has to have knowledge on the consequence of her action and not necessarily imprison her identity with ‘action’ as the sole witness to their crime.

Compassion demands to give individual and his identity another chance where another action will speak in favor of his identity. Man goes to prison, after all, to be reformed and set free. The only eternal prison then should only be God’s Judgment. Until then we are called to correct and be compassionate.