# Judgment Is Necessary

By [Şafak](https://paragraph.com/@afak) · 2022-08-20

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**You need to be judgmental in order for you to take the right course of action.**

There seems to be an idea in society that being judgmental is a bad thing. People will often say: "don't be so judgmental". This mind virus has grown to the extent that a lot of people now think that judgment in its entirety is bad. What they actually should say is: "don't be rude to people". Because human beings can't help being judgmental; it's quite necessary for survival and many other aspects of life. But it's not always necessary to make all of your thoughts public. You can leave that decision to your own judgment.

Internal judgment is something you should protect, because without it you stop being an individual. When you give up your judgment, you just get dragged along by society's whim. You can't completely get rid of judgment, but it is possible to suppress it. And when you suppress your judgment someone else will do the thinking for you instead.

Without judgment, morality vanishes: you can't distinguish between good and bad. Without judgment, logic vanishes: you can't distinguish between true and false. Without judgment, perspective vanishes: you can't agree or disagree.

The suppression of judgment is an important trait of groupthink. They don't want you to be judgmental, because they don't want you to think for yourself. When you think for yourself there's a possibility of you coming to a dissenting conclusion. Your individualism is a threat to them. But it's better to be critically neutral than fanatically biased.

When it comes to moral judgment, groupthinkers often have double standards. They don't want you to be judgmental but they will judge you whenever it suits them. "You shouldn't be judgmental" is a self-contradicting statement. Beware of the hypocrites. They'll claim there's no such thing as right or wrong - until they are wronged.

Politicians often ask you to trust them to do the right thing, but it requires individual judgment for people to give the right person their vote. When it's all a status game and there is no room for substantial questioning and being critical, it just becomes a popularity contest. Not much has changed throughout history in that regard.

> "As the people had very little opportunity to become acquainted with the real merits of the case in respect to questions of government, they gave their votes very much according to the personal popularity of the candidate. Public men had very little moral principle in those days, and they would accordingly resort to any means whatever to procure this personal popularity."
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> \- Jacob Abbott, History of Julius Caesar.

If you want to be right, you have to be willing to change your mind at any time. By being judgmental, you not only see the merits of other people's ideas, but also your own. It requires judgment to come to the right conclusions. Finding truth requires you to question yourself - your every thought and subsequent action. And you need to adapt whenever your sound judgment requires you to.

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*Originally published on [Şafak](https://paragraph.com/@afak/judgment-is-necessary)*