Let’s play a little game of ‘Have you ever?’ It’s a quiet game that you play inside your head, no one but you needs to know your answers:
Have you ever planned to buy something locally (at a farmer’s market or local lumber store or specialty shop) and then when you saw the price you decided to go to the cheaper big chain or online store?
Have you ever lied to someone because the truth was too hard to tell?
Have you ever done anything that went against your religious or core beliefs, knowing it was wrong, but you did it anyway?
Have you ever chosen to make sacrifices in order to align more with your religious or core beliefs, even though you’d rather not make those sacrifices?
Have you ever done something not because you wanted to, but because you feared other options or outcomes?
Have you ever looked at people different than you and unfairly judged them (regardless of whether you felt justified or you realized you made a mistake later)?
Have you ever made a decision that was not based on what you really wanted, but on what was in your opinion the lesser evil?
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We all make compromises. We all make choices that do not align perfectly with our values and/or we all make sacrifices because they do align with those values. We are not perfect. We don’t always make perfect choices.
We can and do hold different values than other people. And while we can hold other people accountable for doing unjust things that harm us or others, we should not judge another for simply making decisions we would not make. We don’t always know what drives others to those decisions, what personal compromises they had to make, what values they chose to focus on or to ignore. We can challenge ideas, but we do not gain anything from the judgement of others simply because they made choices we would not make.
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” Edmund Burke
We live in a pluralistic society. In such a society we will have neighbours with different values than us. We can not both celebrate their differences and also judge our neighbours for not thinking the same as us. A fair and just society relies on us working through our differences, not condemning others for being different.
