When I reference my judgements, I’m talking about mine towards others.
I care for and value other people, even those who are easy to demonize, dismiss, fear, hate or criticize. Compassion to those who suffer, and joy at those who succeed.
People don’t need to prove anything to me, or jump through hoops, in order for me to value them. I was twisting this around, and pointing this lens at myself.
Why ought I contort myself to be valued? I ought not, so I will not.
My judgement is that of value in others, and value in myself. I don’t ask you to agree with my judgement. I want to express it, because I find it personally consoling and liberating.
As for unfit soil, I judge it on a case by case basis - however, general signs of unfit soil would be if it’s illogical, irrational, unfounded, or unsound.
My premise is to direct the respect and love I have for others, towards my self also. If I analyze myself with respect and care, I see that I am quality human being. Those who disrespect me, are not suited to me. That is OK, and is not evidence of a shortcoming within me.
As for respecting my own judgement -
I’ve put time and consideration into forming my foundation. I’ve considered alternatives fairly and honestly. From this, I’ve learned or am learning, that my judgements have integrity. And thus, I’ve come to respect my judgements.
The foundation came before the respect/trust, this is why I’m confident in the soil to which my judgements rest.
Whether one ought respect their own judgement by default without condition, is a different matter which I’m not specifically referencing or putting forward in the OP.
You sound like you have no standards, not for self nor for others, someone who’s completely given up, a pushover. How can you grow and learn if you have dissolved your psychic self and have essentialy turned it into a psychic brothel?
Your critique is shallow since it’s founded on ‘sounds like’. You’ve clearly made no effort to validate whether that is a quality assessment because you offer no justification beyond your initial reaction.
Having said that, let me answer your shallow critique as if it was something more than that:
I agree with James, as usual.
Also -
Every single human being in my eyes is a marvelous specimen. It’s common to take for granted the wealth that is nested within each of us, but it remains there regardless.
I do indeed have standards for what I consider valuable, and it’s quite predictable that I, as a human being, value highly what is commonly found within my own species.
I suspect your values are detached and abstract, to the point that mine are disgusting to you. It’s quite tragic.
I disagree with the premise.
Please justify that my psychic self is being dissolved and is now a brothel.
Right now I’d like to describe you with a few expletives, but I’ll refrain.
How can anyone authentically feel the same towards all others?
To value oneself means to judge others. Negatively or positively, differently in different contexts, but judge you must. Or forfeit the physical perspective you are in favor of a universal abstracted ideal of what you ought to be - “respectful”.
To respect is to judge. To “respect” everyone on general principle is to castrate the power to respect, to positively judge, to value, to be.
words are tricky here…you are always EVALUATING people and things around you…that is part of survival…the important thing here is to be careful not to be mean/violent to yourself or others…with your actions which includes words…
Before I “judge” and bring the hammer down in a long lecture, perhaps I should ask, how did you mean “judge” in that statement? I suspect the word “judge” in American English might be a little more harsh than elsewhere.
My response is based on what you said and how you said it. Your thinking is coming across as loopey and spaced-out, with a hint of repressed agression.
It avoids the negative stigma associated with judging, which James alluded to.
If the feelings of care for the self are authentic, then so are the feelings towards others, since they’re coming from the same place.
If one genuinely believes that one and other both contain what one values, then one will rationally value both authentically.
I agree. The role of value/judgement is to distinguish, however the scope may be large or small.
I don’t think you understand why I ought to be respectful.
I ought to be respectful because it’s aligned with my rationality, my philosophy, my values.
To treat myself with disrespect is wrong. I have repeatedly demonstrated to myself that I have integrity and quality.
Crude analogy time:
I like ice cream. I value it’s coldness. I value it’s creaminess. I value all ice cream that is cold and creamy. I also value chocolate. Chocolate ice cream is not only cold and creamy, it’s also chocolatey.
If I compare caramel ice cream to chocolate ice cream, they do not have equal value to me. Caramel ice cream is cold, so it gets a point. Caramel ice cream is creamy, so it gets a point. I’m neutral to the caramel, so it doesn’t score another point. It has 2 points. Yada yada, Chocolate ice cream is chocolatey, it gets a third point. It has three points.
2 < 3.
Get it?
Also, it’s not castration if it’s my own judgement. I can re-evaluate my judgement at will.
In the case of people, I say our similarities greatly outweigh our differences. Thus, my value in people doesn’t sway largely among people. Unless however, I remove all other candidates from my perspective, leaving only people in the scope. Then I can disregard the commonalities and focus on the tiny differences among people. This is a means to discern how I ought engage with specific groups/individuals instead of the species generally.
I expect you’ve heard of the saying Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. To criticize me, which is how I interpret your initial contribution, based on the impression you got from reading my post, is doing just that.
You’re not demonstrating a connection between your conclusion and my writing. This is what I find most insulting. Don’t just say, ‘It seems like you’re wrong, thus, you’re wrong’. That’s bullshit.
If that’s all you’ve to offer, my respect for you as a philosopher, will dwindle.
No.
I don’t take recreational drugs, psychiatric ‘medicine’, rarely drink alcohol or consume caffeine and never have energy drinks.
I’m glad about it.
Your evaluation was emotional, but your conclusion was in regards to my integrity and sincerity. Evaluating someone’s integrity based on your gut reaction is a non sequitur.
Loopey / spaced-out = different than yours?
I’ll readily concede I’ve aggression, but I do my best not to spew it in people’s faces indiscriminately. I’ll be advertly aggressive towards the source my anger, particularly when they disrespect what I value.
For what it’s worth, any aggression that comes across in the OP was that not due to anyone at this forum, but people in my physical environment, past and present. I’d prefer to refer to that aggression as being firm.
I get that. As long as you’re not so irresponsible to claim you’re not judging when you’re evaluating. I’m all for using the word valuing and evaluating, but I consciously stress the true nature of valuing, which is very powerfully selective.
So you would feel the same about a cockroach on a heap of rotting shit as you’d feel toward a family member. Because it comes from the same place.
Gotcha.
Just developing your statement logically, to show you where you’re erring in your formulations.
A cockroach is “an other”. Is it not?
Or is your respect categorically limited to humans, in that you think all humans are exactly equal and all non humans are totally different?
Like what, meat? What do “one” and “other” (who are we talking about?) contain that you value?
All the way down to the ontological source, valuing equals reacting equals acting. It needs not be conscious, and usually isn’t.
You could not have integrity if you disrespected yourself. I agree there.
It has nothing to do with your attitude towards any imagined set of “all others”.
It’s that set, a very wide spread ideological and forcefully leveling idea, that I object to.
I do not believe that you are respecting anyone if you respect them as a member of a set.
“You are human, therefore I respect you” - no. That is not respect.
Get it? I mean, get what I’m saying?
I get your arithmetic but I have a hard time believing this is really how you evaluate food. I know I don’t.
Crude analogies aren’t usually very helpful. Philosophy (reason, honesty, clarity) is all about the subtleties.
Then it’s a random judgment and very far from based on self-respect.
True self-respecting judgments are rooted firmly in what the self is. And since the will is an expression of what this self is (or even by some logics the self itself), you can not at will change the source of the will.
Are you following?
Ah, so you don’t really feel the same toward all others, but differently.
I don’t see Joe keeping his ideas of respecting everyone for too many more years. When he moves on he’ll know what he left behind in a qualitative way that one who only rationalized away the issue couldn’t. He’s living the irrationality, which is the only way to effectively leave it behind.
There’s much confusion among those who tentatively believe in universal respect or claim to be freed without struggle from the old detrimental egalitarian idea.
Do you read people’s posts before you hit the reply button? Or do you just have bad memory?
Had you read my post, all that bullshit that you just wrote would clearly be unnecessary, except the final quoted remark.
Since I do indeed read posts before replying to them (make an effort to understand, instead of project), I don’t feel it necessary to respond to all that other crap.
I wasn’t specific in the OP in regards to the closing statement. I meant I judge each human to be beautiful and valuable, also that I feel ‘all of you’ should be fair and sincere in your consideration, whether that means decreasing or increasing one’s consideration to the self, or the other.
Also, I still don’t think you understand what I’m saying.
You don’t understand the basis of my respect. You compare it to the shallow basis of your past ‘respect’ and assume mine is this.
One day, when you truly value yourself, and see yourself in others, you’ll understand.
Do you think that anyone having or trying to have the view
will leave it behind, or Joe in particular will? I ask because it seems to me many people go to the grave with view. Or the view that they have this view.
Not defending the view, or particularly attacking it, though I think it is basically pernicious.
