Helloooo Humans!
A quick question for you; have you ever judged a book by its cover?
Whether your approach to answer the question literally, or as a euphemism to judging someone by your initial impressions of them, I just want you to have a think about it.
Now, do you think it is right to judge a book by its cover?
In my English class, my teacher (who is literally amazing at her job) raised an interesting thought which got me thinking...
We have been told all our lives, that judging people is not polite and not needed as it is a source of negativity, but is that true?
Is it not important to be able to judge whether something is good or bad, otherwise how are rules in society established if there is no line drawn between good or bad?
Having a clear judgment of a person's character is important as well, after all, judging people based on evidence is constantly at practice in formal environments such as courts.
And, in general, it is important that we learn to judge people so we can create an opinion of them, so in the future we don't find ourselves with people who are a bad or a toxic influence on us.
Anyway, many of us judge people by first impressions of them, but there is a key difference, it is important to judge someone and be able to adjust your opinion of them based on how they are and what you see, however some people tend to be completely blind and oblivious to a person's actual personality and remain prejudiced against them - like Elizabeth and Darcy from 'Pride and Prejudice'.
(If you are doing 'Pride and Prejudice in english, I'm hoping you got the 'First Impressions' part as well 😉 )
Ok, let me ask you this question again: Is it ok to judge a book by its cover?
I think yes, but your opinion might be different; as humans, we judge people subconsciously way more than we might be aware of. For example, we might find someone rude, or smart, or cunning or annoying..etc..
However, we might also find some being prejudiced against people for absurd reasons. For example, some believe in stereotypes and even though as society we are evolving to stay away from many stereotypical ideas, sometimes, we let ourselves be arrested by circulating and long-living stereotypes in society.
It will take some time for us to completely abandon all the negative and false stereotypes, but we have come a long way, so let's hope we continue to develop a society where there's room for judgment and opinions, but not prejudice.
By the way, on my instagram, I put a question with a few choices; the question being what you thought my blog was going to be about this week, and everyone answered every option but prejudice:
Nice to know that I can be unpredictable..
- Ravitreni Signing Off
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