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primeidealAgain, not really saying anything new here, just trying to articulate part of the problem that makes lots of sense in my head but maybe isn't obvious to everyone else...
I see a big difference between matters of taste and matters of policy preference when there's something moral at stake. In the first case, most people don't really care whether other people have the same taste as they do. A likes basketball and B likes hockey, fine. One person likes pineapple on pizza and one person doesn't. Fine.
In some cases, dietary restrictions might be matters of individual differences that aren't strictly "taste." A eats lots of red meat because their doctor told them they need more iron in their diet; B eats very little red meat because their doctor said that's better for their diet. Totally normal; no expectation that the other person adopt their restrictions.
But there are more serious issues where "I do foo," to me, almost necessarily implies "and I would prefer it if other people also did foo." Someone votes against a terrible political candidate because they think he'd be very bad for the country and the world--they'd prefer it if other people did, too. Someone commutes by public transit instead of driving because they worry about climate change--they'd prefer it if other people did, too. Someone becomes a vegetarian because they're concerned about animal wellbeing--they'd prefer it if other people did, too.
Prefer is a fairly weak word; it doesn't necessarily mean taking action to bring it about. You can't interfere with an election to forcibly prevent people from voting for the candidate you hate, that would be illegal. A vegetarian might prefer it if all their friends became vegetarian, too, but I assume the vast majority of vegetarians would not prevent their friends from ordering meat if they went out to a restaurant that offered all kinds of food. In this case, the value of preserving the friendship comes before "enforcing my will on everyone."
For me, I try to live by the Golden Rule; I feel confident and serious in my beliefs, I wouldn't like it if someone else yelled at me and tried to convert me to their way of thinking. By the same token, I will assume my acquaintances feel confident and serious in their beliefs, and so I won't yell at them or try to convert them to my way of thinking. That would be rude. (Also, if I assumed "nobody else is serious in their beliefs, it's just me, I'm the only serious and conscientious person in the world," that would be special-snowflakey and very tacky.)
So when I see other people doing foo, while not trying to yell at me and make me do foo also, I don't assume "this is just a matter of taste, they don't really care what I do;" I assume "they do care what I do, they're just being polite and hoping I come around to joining them in my own time."
Related to this: oftentimes, the seriousness of good/bad actions seems to be linearly ordered. Example: A tells B, "you shouldn't eat meat, because cows are bad for climate change." C, who drives a gas-guzzling SUV, overhears that conversation. Technically, A didn't say anything about SUVs. But the marginal carbon footprint of B's hamburger is probably less, overall, than that of C's car. C can deduce, from context, that if B is failing to live up to A's standards, then C is failing even worse.
In the context of (Protestant?) Christianity, there's a lot of, "we're all sinners, every one of us, whether your sins are big or small, it doesn't matter, literally nobody is good enough for God's standards. But fortunately Jesus loves us and forgives us all anyway, hooray!" That, I'm normally fine with, because they're not really setting a standard and expecting me to live up to it, it's inherent in the setup that I won't be living up to God's standards!
But. I often feel like I'm in the position of C in the above conversation. If what B did is bad, there's no way I'm ever going to be good enough. And, like, what does A actually want me to do about it? Concretely? Where do I turn myself in to be arrested and convicted and punished by the As of the world?
My parents will be like "you should give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they're not out to get you," and it's like...this is me giving people the benefit of the doubt, by assuming they're not stupid. If you think I'm an insufferable know-it-all now, you do not want to see me unchained.
But of course, it's the autistic people who are bad at reading between the lines and inferring things.
I see a big difference between matters of taste and matters of policy preference when there's something moral at stake. In the first case, most people don't really care whether other people have the same taste as they do. A likes basketball and B likes hockey, fine. One person likes pineapple on pizza and one person doesn't. Fine.
In some cases, dietary restrictions might be matters of individual differences that aren't strictly "taste." A eats lots of red meat because their doctor told them they need more iron in their diet; B eats very little red meat because their doctor said that's better for their diet. Totally normal; no expectation that the other person adopt their restrictions.
But there are more serious issues where "I do foo," to me, almost necessarily implies "and I would prefer it if other people also did foo." Someone votes against a terrible political candidate because they think he'd be very bad for the country and the world--they'd prefer it if other people did, too. Someone commutes by public transit instead of driving because they worry about climate change--they'd prefer it if other people did, too. Someone becomes a vegetarian because they're concerned about animal wellbeing--they'd prefer it if other people did, too.
Prefer is a fairly weak word; it doesn't necessarily mean taking action to bring it about. You can't interfere with an election to forcibly prevent people from voting for the candidate you hate, that would be illegal. A vegetarian might prefer it if all their friends became vegetarian, too, but I assume the vast majority of vegetarians would not prevent their friends from ordering meat if they went out to a restaurant that offered all kinds of food. In this case, the value of preserving the friendship comes before "enforcing my will on everyone."
For me, I try to live by the Golden Rule; I feel confident and serious in my beliefs, I wouldn't like it if someone else yelled at me and tried to convert me to their way of thinking. By the same token, I will assume my acquaintances feel confident and serious in their beliefs, and so I won't yell at them or try to convert them to my way of thinking. That would be rude. (Also, if I assumed "nobody else is serious in their beliefs, it's just me, I'm the only serious and conscientious person in the world," that would be special-snowflakey and very tacky.)
So when I see other people doing foo, while not trying to yell at me and make me do foo also, I don't assume "this is just a matter of taste, they don't really care what I do;" I assume "they do care what I do, they're just being polite and hoping I come around to joining them in my own time."
Related to this: oftentimes, the seriousness of good/bad actions seems to be linearly ordered. Example: A tells B, "you shouldn't eat meat, because cows are bad for climate change." C, who drives a gas-guzzling SUV, overhears that conversation. Technically, A didn't say anything about SUVs. But the marginal carbon footprint of B's hamburger is probably less, overall, than that of C's car. C can deduce, from context, that if B is failing to live up to A's standards, then C is failing even worse.
In the context of (Protestant?) Christianity, there's a lot of, "we're all sinners, every one of us, whether your sins are big or small, it doesn't matter, literally nobody is good enough for God's standards. But fortunately Jesus loves us and forgives us all anyway, hooray!" That, I'm normally fine with, because they're not really setting a standard and expecting me to live up to it, it's inherent in the setup that I won't be living up to God's standards!
But. I often feel like I'm in the position of C in the above conversation. If what B did is bad, there's no way I'm ever going to be good enough. And, like, what does A actually want me to do about it? Concretely? Where do I turn myself in to be arrested and convicted and punished by the As of the world?
My parents will be like "you should give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they're not out to get you," and it's like...this is me giving people the benefit of the doubt, by assuming they're not stupid. If you think I'm an insufferable know-it-all now, you do not want to see me unchained.
But of course, it's the autistic people who are bad at reading between the lines and inferring things.
no subject
Date: 2/25/26 05:10 am (UTC)At my church, we get a lot of stuff along the lines of combatting these kinds of things. (Partially because when I was growing up, my church was extremely judgmental about SO MANY Things and a lot of us grew up feeling like we weren't good enough as a result, and I think they have realized they needed to be a LOT better about it.)
Related to this: oftentimes, the seriousness of good/bad actions seems to be linearly ordered. Example: A tells B, "you shouldn't eat meat, because cows are bad for climate change." C, who drives a gas-guzzling SUV, overhears that conversation. Technically, A didn't say anything about SUVs. But the marginal carbon footprint of B's hamburger is probably less, overall, than that of C's car. C can deduce, from context, that if B is failing to live up to A's standards, then C is failing even worse.
So: well, sure, A, maybe you could judge B and C for their meat/SUV choices, but B and C could also judge you because you, idk, don't foster animals, which B and C do. At the same time, maybe A was brought up by parents who were really involved in climate-change activism, whereas B was brought up by butchers who consider their work to be crucial to the local economy (and maybe it is!), so their worldview is at the start completely different, and it's not really quite fair (in either direction) to expect the two (three) of you to be thinking about things in the same way. And so in all of these cases the strictures "judge not, that ye not be judged" and "man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" apply.
With a side of "I certainly do believe that you should do thing X but I could actually be wrong about it, and/or it could really not be as important as I think it is, so really I ought to have a sense of humor about the whole thing." (I've changed my mind about enough stuff through the years!)
and so if someone is judging you then you can judge them for being judgmental which they ought not to bejust kidding! but actually not completely kidding. As a Christian we try to give each other grace as we would like grace to be given us. And actually for all the above reasons trying to give each other grace is more important than whether A or C think the same as we do (of course, assuming I am B!), sort of the same way that the idea of free and fair elections is more important than whether any particular candidate is much better than another one. (I mean... recent events are testing my faith in this, but I actually do believe it's true.)
And from the other side, it's not just that we're all sinners but that we're all in this together (mind you, I think this mindset might be more prevalent at my church, which is a really community-focused church) and are some of us along a certain path more so than others? Sure -- but the idea is that the more we all help each other along the path to getting better, the more we all benefit, and the more we judge each other and make value judgements that what B and C do are bad, the less we're helping each other.
It's taken me almost 50 years to get there (hi fellow autism brain!) but I am finally at the stage of "if A is judging me for this thing, this is actually A's problem. But at the same time I need to try to be gracious to A because I also am a judgmental person and I have not got that out of my psyche as much as I probably should have."
(although: I'm not entirely sure I'm engaging exactly with what you're saying, and if so I apologize)