On New Year’s Eve, as my dad fiddled with the super-fancy satellite Tivo at our rented house in Utah, trying to find a video of the ball dropping in Times Square at 10:00 pm MST, he briefly flipped to a Christian talk network. A woman squawked, “What’s wrong with this country is that everybody’s judging everybody else!” before the television flickered to another channel in its quest for Dick Clark. We didn’t land on Times Square until it was two minutes too late, but it was the image of that woman which remained firmly implanted in my mind.
Is being judgmental really what’s wrong this country? I’m actually proud of being judgmental—though, perhaps “discerning” is a better word. On Yom Kippur my friend and I giggle and exchange glances over our prayer books when we get to the “we judge” and “we gossip” portion in the recitation of our sins; it is highly unlikely that we will put a stop to either of these behaviors, or that we could even convince ourselves that we should. It’s one of those vices we publicly bemoan but secretly consider a virtue. Think of how boring our conversations would be if no one gossiped!
But, entertainment value aside, I think there’s value in being a discerning individual, to judging experiences and people, rather than engaging in wholesale acceptance. Obviously, I’m all for tolerance, particularly of people different than I, and any consequences of a judgment beyond a sneer or a snarky remark, are, obviously, not what we’re going for here. But it’s a fact of life that people are different, and different people like different things. Indiscriminately embracing everyone and everything just doesn’t work.
A dear friend of mine is one of these all-accepting people. She is friends with all kinds of people, much more likely to be enthusiastic than wary at a first meeting, and almost always socializing. She’s kind and funny and fun, and I love hanging out with her.
But does she have to be so damn open? Aside from the fact that I feel less special when she refers to nine or ten other people as her best friends in the course of a conversation, I worry that this lack of discernment speaks to a lack of caring about the people around her. How much do any of us really matter, if all of us do, in fact, matter? Is she really close to all of us, equally compatible with all of us? Or is she just subscribing to the idea that your friends are the ones who go to you first? Does she even really know us all, if she likes us all equally?
Now, it’s possible that this girl is just a blank slate of cheer, equally compatible and loving of every type of person in her path, but that would make her really quite boring. Which she isn’t.
This seems to be the problem of easy acceptance: liking everything somewhat means not really liking anything a lot. There has been a lot of discussion recently about the rise of the Internet and the “snark” it engenders—biting, mean, deeply judgmental comments about entertainment, politics, and celebrity outfits. But as others have pointed out, these sassy, cutting fans are the most devoted ones. They are the ones passionately invested in the object of their desire, willing to offer unsolicited comments and criticisms about every aspect of it, wanting to have it surprise and challenge them, making sure it remains worthy of their devotion.
And I think the same goes for people, too. I want the people around me to be startlingly funny, to be interested in the things I am interested in, to be fun to hang out with. And I want to be exhilarated to be around them, excited by how great they are.
This requires and expects a pretty serious involvement in these people’s lives. I’m not saying I’m such a catch that I should be screening potential friend candidates like Blair Waldorf, but I know there are people I don’t get along with as well, so why waste both of our time?
It’s the equivalent of that kid who says, “I like all music, except for country,” which we all know means they’ll listen to whatever’s on the radio or the CDs their friends make for them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it speaks to less involvement in the issue.
If we can value choosiness—even if it means passing judgment—in our iPod libraries, why not do the same with the people in our lives?
