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I had an argument (I'd guess this is what spurs many top level comments) about tattoos, and how much you're allowed to judge people for them.
My argument was that I think tattoos are a sign of distasteful character and went something like
These, I think, give me plenty of room to be wary of strangers with tattoos, especially where I am located in a pretty methed up rural area. The beautiful thing is that it's not a protected characteristic, so you can actually judge it as much as you like!
The other party's argument was
I actually don't think I could agree with that, ever! While it is more true the more "normal" people get tattoos, it is still a fact that pretty much any mugshot I see of any likely violent incarcerated individual is going to have a ton of them. They are also something you have to go out of your way to get, and thus, they make a decent indicator that you shouldn't trust someone if they're in the Venn diagram of "has tattoos".
But now I'm curious what is acceptable to judge people about. Let's say you're walking to your workplace or your university class or your school and you see, purposely avoiding anything like a bumper sticker or T-shirt that makes any more clearly identifiable statement or symbol:
Or perhaps we could change the context of how you're seeing this person. Let's say you work at a gas station or other commonly-visited public-facing third-place and you see people
The stance of the refuses-to-judge-on-tattoos individual is a little perplexing to me. I'm certain that I am similarly perplexing to him. But for me, pretty much all of these, plus other considerations like height, sex, and age add up to an impression of the character and of the threat level of said individual. Personally, I think everyone has this kind of unconscious thinking, even if they don't know it or if they have suppressed it significantly. My guess is that people left of center tend to be uncomfortable with associating behaviors like that with anything negative, even though they are not protected characteristics, and even though they almost certainly do it themselves for various things, like word choice (do you say gay people or do you say queer people?), vehicle choice (drives a truck...), or sex and likely choice of gender.
How much should you judge people? On what should you judge them by? Is there something you think it's wrong to judge people for?
I remember suddenly hearing the verb "judge" a lot in high school from girls. "She was judging me!" "You're being really judgy!" etc. and I was baffled by the usage. My internal reaction was something like... uh, yes? Everyone's judging everyone about everything all the time? Subconsciously most of the time, even? I understood that the girls were not trying to stop others from "judging" per se (since presumably they themselves often made knee-jerk and subconscious judgements about others) -- they simply wanted immunity from criticism about their choices (bad boyfriend, questionable fashion, low status friends, etc). I remember feeling unconvinced by their appeals against "judging" but at the time I couldn't put my finger on why. Nor could anyone else, so it was an effective tactic to immediately shut down any criticism (cf. "you're being inappropriate").
Americans are taught from a young age that we "shouldn't judge a book by its cover," that we should "judge by the content of their character," that we "ought to walk a mile in their shoes," and so on. This stems from a belief in an obscure nameless virtue that's not quite captured by the term "tolerance." The best name for it I've seen (sadly from a writer whose name I cannot remember) is "indiscriminateness." It's not enough to tolerate your neighbors weird facial piercings/taste in movies/cooking/religion -- to simply let them enjoy those things without trying to stop them -- no, you must pretend (and strive to actual believe) that you can't even see a qualitative difference at all between Christianity/Islam, Michael Bay/Ingmar Bergman, natural look/septum piercings, etc. I think that "indiscriminateness" as a virtue is the fruit of Americans' extreme fixation on egalitarianism and discomfort with any sort of hierarchy or authority.
So what is it "okay" to judge? Everything, I suppose. You cannot stop other people from judging you, at best you can just shame them into lying and saying they're not (which sounds like a worse outcome to me -- now you don't even know who looks down on you!).
If you want to get a hideous septum piercing or dye your hair some ludicrous color, please weigh whatever benefit you'd get from that action against the negativity you'll get from others (comments, mockery, rejected job applications) and then, make your decision and own that decision.
To directly answer your questions:
How much should you judge people? All the time. Unless you've been living alone on a desert island you've met a lot for people, so you have tons of data to use. It would be foolish not to use it. Your brain is designed to due exactly that sort of thing (pattern recognition).
On what should you judge them by? Any characteristics for which you have data.
Is there something you think it's wrong to judge people for? No, with some exceptions for leniency on people who have Seen Some Shit (e.g. abuse victims, war fighters/survivors, mentally ill people).
Matthew 7:1-3
Another one we can lie at the feet of Christianity.
Everyone always leaves out verse 5:
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