Books and Covers...

I have a judgemental nature. I know, I know, admitting something like that in the current social climate is akin to admitting one is a direct-line descendent of Adolph Hitler, or that one target shoots at kittens for fun. That's a topic for another day, though. For now let's just attend to the idea that I am admittedly pretty quick to pass judgements about people based on generally pretty flimsy and circumstantial evidence. I want to be better about that, but I need some help. I'd appreciate suggestions. Here is the trouble:

When I was attending college for that one bemused semester at Liberty University (just one of my various college experiences), my best friend Matt and I had a nasty little habit (based, I am sure, on our own insecurities about suddenly being in a somewhat intimidating social environment) of giving certain kinds of people labels. These labels were never positive, and they were always based on totally superficial judgements. There was, to be specific, the Long-Coated Kid with the Hat. So named because no matter where he went, no matter what the weather, he wore a long duster-type coat and a cowboy hat. His label was pretty definitive, and not particularly mean. It was simply evident to us that he felt that that combination of apparel defined him in some meaningful way he was proud of, and we simply took it to its logical, rather absurd conclusion, defining him by absolutely nothing else. Then there was the Red-Haired Kid with Glasses. Again, not a mean label on the surface, but the unstated code about him was pretty plain between us. The Red-Haired Kid with Glasses was mean and nasty, a spiritual hyper-prude intent on pulverizing fun wherever he went. We didn't know this by experience. We'd never spoken to him. Somehow, it was just on his face, in his expression, the way he dressed and walked most everywhere alone with that purposeful, stiff, crane-like gait. But it got worse. There was Stupid One and Stupid Two. Both were weightlifter types who wore their baseball caps backwards and held their arms perpetually, slightly out from their sides, as if the sheer mass of their hypertrophied physiques made it impossible for them to reach their belts (I always wondered how they got into their pockets to pull out their IDs when they went to the cafeteria to bulk up on protein shakes). We didn't label them "stupid" because they were muscleheads. We decided, on quick observation, that they were arrogant, thoughtless, mean-spirited bastards with nothing but pride where their souls should be. We didn't need evidence. We weren't convicting these people in a court of law, or even a court of public opinion (apart from the public that occurred between Matt and me), we were just taking what seemed evident based on first inpressions and... extrapolating.

We knew it was unfair. Sort of. We at least knew that there was always the possibility that our judgements were incorrect. We chided ourselves on it sometimes. But in time, something simultaneously disheartening and meanly smug happened.

We began to discover that pretty much without exception, we were right.

I'd like to be able to say (like some story from a Chicken Soup for the Judgemental Dork's Soul book) that one day we hung out with the Red-Haired Kid with Glasses and found out he was just a lonely, misunderstood guy with no friends and a heart of gold under that unfortunately severe exterior. That would certainly make a better story. What actually happened, though, was that we inevitably learned that he was, in fact, a whiny, prudish little tattle and provocateur, always looking for ways to muckrake others into trouble. What actually happened was that I went to an art class with Stupid One's girlfriend, who ended up dumping him because he was ("when you got to know him" ) a mean, arrogant, selfish prick. What actually happened was that, despite the fact that we'd chided ourselves about the potential that we could be wrong in our judgements about these people, statistically without fail they all proceeded to be pretty much exactly what we'd assumed they were on first sight.

Now one of three things is true. Either (1) Matt and I are clairvoyant, (2) it is a lot easier to judge significant things about people based on attitude, dress and expression, even in a remarkably short time, or (3) Matt and I are magical beings, sculpting the world we see in realtime with our own expectations and beliefs.

For the most part, I chose to believe number 2. Although number 3 sometimes feels like it'd be more fun.

So as I have grown up, I have attempted to fight this intrinsic tendency to pass snap-judgements on people. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

For instance:

There is a man I see regularly at the local Einstein Bagel joint. I go in for breakfast and coffee and to sit with my laptop and do some idle work whilst people-watching, and he is pretty much always there, sitting in a corner booth with his back to the wall chatting people up and nursing his own coffee (maybe) or herbal tea (more likely). He wears glasses and carries a meaningful-looking notebook, as if he constantly has to journal* sudden blinding flashes of the infinite, which strike him at random moments. He is a white guy that wears a multi-ethnic, multi-colored little hat that looks like a cross between a yamulca and those little pillbox-sorta hats that some African leaders wear. He is obviouly quite enlightened. I heard him speaking to a young girl once as she sat with her family having breakfast. She was probably about seven, and she was smiling at him with a mixture of shyness and attraction that was endearing and a little heartbreaking. He was saying something like this:

"You know what it is this weekend? It's Easter! You know about Easter don't you? That's when Jesus comes up out of his tomb to see if he can find his shadow. If he sees his shadow, he pops back into his tomb again and we have six more weeks of winter. I hope he doesn't get scared by his shadow this year so we can have spring, don't you? Oh, no. No, wait a minute. I'm getting Jesus confused with somebody else, aren't I?"

Secretly, I was (I'll be frank) enraged by this. Not because there isn't a little humor in what he was saying, albeit borderline blasphemous humor, depending on your beliefs about God and Jesus. I don't mind that, though. He obviously doesn't believe, and why should I expect him to revere something he doesn't personally believe in? What enraged me was the fact that he was purposefully, deliberately, planting a seed in the mind of this young girl, a kernel of an idea that Jesus is a nice thing for a kid to believe in, just like Groundhog Day and Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but not something one would seriously carry into adulthood. Others may believe what silliness they may, if it makes them feel better, his little smile and wink and multi-ethnic little hat said to that little girl, but you and I are wise and enlightened little doggies and we know a rubber bone when we see one, don't we?

How dare he manipulate her little Tabula Rasa mind that way? How dare he snatch away that simple childlike belief (or at least potential belief) that some of us adults struggle so hard to regain? I sat and raged at him, and of course, being the opinionated but ultimately silent man that I generally am in those situations, I didn't say anything. Even now, I don't know what I could have said, although I wish I did.

But here's the point. My wife told me I was most likely over-reacting to him. I have a tendency to do that, she reminded me gently, and she is right. So I tried to cut the guy some slack. So he's got a thing against Christianity. It's understandable considering how obnoxious some Christians can be. Maybe he's just on an anti-Christian bender and he thinks its more palatable if he coats it with what he probably thinks of as gentle humor. Fine. I'll let it go.

But everytime I go to Einstein's, I notice a car in the parking lot. The car is a late-nineties Mercedes with bumper-stickers plastered all over the rear. "Coexist" says one bumper sticker, using symbols of several major religions to form the letters. This is the theme of all the stickers, all the typically trite little bumper-sticker slogans. Let's all get along, all us different religious types. Let's ignore differences and respect one another. Let's stop the petty bickering and name-calling. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, everybody. Respect. Peace. Brotherhood. And everytime I pass that car, I say to myself two things. The first is: that's his car, the dopey, smug idiot who equated Jesus to a magic groundhog, the hypocritical little putz. The second is: that's an unfair judgement and you know it. Let it go. Most likely that car belongs to an employee, since it is so frequently here in this spot. Stop trying to build your case against that guy. Stop trying to pigeon-hole him. You don't know him. You don't KNOW him.

And I gotta be honest and tell you I have done a pretty good job. I had the twin-thoughts pretty much worked out as a litany. They happened so fast this morning, as I walked past that car on my way in for a coffee and a bagel, that I was hardly even aware of them.

Feeling pretty good, I nodded as somebody walked across the parking lot ahead of me and got into the front seat of the bumper-sticker laden Mercedes, setting his coffee (or herbal tea) momentarily on the roof to unlock the door. He was wearing his perpetual multi-colored, multi-ethnic hat.

So maybe, I mean just maybe, I do know him. Maybe he is just the self-righteous, hypocritical little putz I thought he was, the little putz who says "Everybody respect everybody else's beliefs, now, and be good. Except me. I'm exempt. I can mock whatever and whoever's beliefs I want. I'm special. I'm fuckin' enlightened, you stupid, superstitious little neanderthals."

So what do I do, people? What do we ALL do? How do we avoid making those snap judgements that, let's face it, are so often right spang on the money? Do we rely on the few occasions when we are wrong to prove to us that, against all statistical probability, a snap judgement might be unfair? Is that all there is to it? Am I the only one that wrestles with this issue? Because when I bring it up, everybody just seems to say (with helplessly prissy disdain, and in my mind, a hint of a lisp) well, you just shouldn't do it. Being judgemental is ba-a-a-ad. You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

But people, we ALL judge books by their covers, quite literally! The metaphor itself is false! That's why books have covers! That's how you know a sticky novel of romantic improbability from a Stephen King horror-fest. The covers are meant to tell us things about what's inside them. Who's ever heard of a generic "book"? Isn't it more accurate to say, as an analogy for life, a metaphor for relationships, that you can judge a book by its cover? Isn't that really what the Bible means when it says a tree is known by its fruit? Isn't that what Forrest Gump's Mama actually meant when she said "stupid is as stupid does"?

Please understand this: I am not saying that it is legitimate to make value judgements about people this way. It isn't fair to judge that this person is less worthwhile to the world, or to God, or to me personally because of how they look or dress or act or speak. That is not the sort of judgement I am debating. I mean simply to say that if a person tends to get drunk, start fights, and wear tee-shirts with slogans like "white revolution" or "Let's get nekkid" you might legitimately choose not to let him babysit your twelve year old daughter. I mean that if someone claims to represent peace, brotherhood and respect between all religions, and then tells insulting and mocking stories to children about one of those religion's deities, maybe he is not to be trusted or quite believed.

I mean, at the base of our hearts, under all the posing and moralistic posturing, don't we all make those kind of judgements everyday? Aren't they, frankly, absolutely necessary?

So again, I ask. What do I do? How do I stop being so judgemental? Is there in fact a healthy and an unhealthy aspect to those judgements? How do I seperate those halves? This is a very, very ticklish subject that I think is very unfairly treated by those who just say "judging people ith wrong and you jutht thouldn't do it!"

And as usual, I have no answers about this. Just more questions. And the sense that I may, in fact, be the only person who has this problem, based on the evidence of how the rest of the world seems to handle it.

I wonder what the Long Coated Kid with the Hat would think?

*see the blog entry "Always Sticking my Ego in my Mouth..." for more thoughts on journaling.