. . . But have you leisure to peer into
other men's evil deeds and to sit in judgment upon anybody? To ask how it is
that this philosopher has so roomy a house, or that one has so good a dinner?
Do you look at other people's pimples while yon yourselves are covered with
countless ulcers? This is as though one who was eaten up by the mange were to
point with scorn at the moles and warts on the bodies of the handsomest men.
Reproach Plato with having sought for
money, reproach Aristotle with having obtained it, Democritus with having
disregarded it, Epicurus with having spent it. Cast Phaedrus and Alcibiades in
my own teeth, you who reach the height of enjoyment whenever you get an
opportunity of imitating our vices!
Why do you not rather cast your eyes
around yourselves at the ills that tear you to pieces on every side, some
attacking you from without, some burning in your own chests? However little you
know your own place, mankind has not yet come to such a place that you can have
leisure to wag your tongues to the reproach of your betters.
—Seneca
the Younger, On the happy life,
Chapter 27 (tr Stewart)
It often
seems so easy to diminish others and to elevate ourselves, perhaps because we
think the diminishing is the very means for the elevating. I know this not
simply from observing others, but from being brutally honest about myself.
We
rarely recognize our own hypocrisy, because we ignorantly but genuinely work
from the premise that there are indeed different rules for ourselves and for
others. We might feel ashamed to say this to others, but we hardly feel guilty
about thinking it to ourselves.
If I
have already begun by thinking that my own satisfaction is the measure of all
things, I will never recognize myself in others, or be called to serve them,
but I will rather see them only as a means to my own end. You must make
yourself better, but I was already good to begin with. The pimple on your face
is obviously an outrage, even as the ulcer on my own is actually quite
handsome, thank you.
I can
only overcome such a contradiction of character if I grasp the role of human nature
within all of Nature. My own humanity, as a being made to know the truth and to
love what is good, is never inherently in conflict with the humanity of others,
which, for all of our different circumstances, is essentially the same as mine.
I will
only cure myself when I look at another, and I see myself. I can only love when
I am willing to humbly give of myself for others. I can only be just if I am
able to offer respect no differently than I ask it to be given.
We often
hear that we should not judge, but I suggest that we must rightly distinguish.
To make a judgment is to determine the true from the false, and to more
specifically make a judgment about morals is to determine the right from the
wrong. Remove these, and you remove the very guides that inform all human
actions. Relativism is an unintelligible excuse for neglecting objective accountability.
Instead,
we abuse judgment when we pursue it with a double standard, and when we pursue
it with malice. By all means, judge the good from the bad, but do not judge
others any differently than you judge yourself. By all means, separate right
from wrong, but do not correct others to make them look worse, but so that you might
help them to become better. There is a world of difference between the man who
judges with condemnation and the man who judges with compassion.
Above
all else, I must never consider my responsibility for another before I have
mastered my responsibility for myself. Specks in the eye or the temptations of
adultery can certainly be harmful things, but they are hardly as harmful as
when I expect others to do what I won’t do for myself.
Written in 4/2010
Image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1565)
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