Sunday 4 August 2013

Judgey McJudgerson




This video has been receiving quite a lot of views over the past few weeks and it’s not surprising why.  One of the women in the clip, Katie, is going on about why she judges children based on their names. Everyone else in the room is quite simply shocked and astounded (might I say disgusted?!) by her conviction that this is a reasonable thing to do. How could you possibly find it reasonable to judge children based on their names?!

What I find interesting is that, while in this situation people are so against judging others because of their names, and by extension their class in society, there are still so many people who find it perfectly acceptable to judge people based on their skin color, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  

The poll taken in the clip shows that only 9% of the viewers agree with Katie and think you should judge a person by their name. And while, thankfully, 9% is a low number, it is still 1 in 10 people judging people based on their names. That's too many for a debate as straightforward as this! What if the question was: “Is it alright to judge someone based on their Ethnicity? Or Religion? Or Sexual Orientation?” What would the results look like? It’s a bit worrying.

I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say with this blog. I think I’m just shocked that there are even people like this out there who so firmly hold to their beliefs about judging people they don’t even know for arbitrary things. If you look through the comments it’s clear that people are not too pleased with Katie and her stance. I guess the Bible verse rings true: “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matt 7:1).