Spot on. It’s ridiculous how some people claim to not judge others. Everybody is judging everybody else all the time. Here’s a few examples.
A. An old woman is walking across the street. A man runs up, tears her purse away, kicks her in the stomach, and shoves her in front of an oncoming 18-wheeler.
B. An old woman is walking across the street. A man runs up, stands in front of the 18-wheeler with his hand out before him. When it stops, he then offers his arm to the old woman and helps her to the other side of the street.
Did anybody make any judgments? Do your judgements of the man differ in cases A and B? Here’s a couple more:
C: You’re walking around the alleys behind Shi-Da, and meet an English teacher from Canada. You stop into a little stall to get a bowl of noodles and he asks how you can eat that bunch of crap. He then tells you Taiwan is a stinking shithole and can’t wait to get back to Canada.
D: You’re walking around the alleys behind Shi-Da, and meet an English teacher from Canada. You stop into a little stall to get a bowl of noodles and he asks how you managed to find such a wonderful noodle stand. He then tells you how much he loves Taiwan, but misses his family back in Canada.
Make any judgments yet folks? How about…
E: A foreigner is wandering the streets of Taipei when a dog runs out in front of him. He immediately reaches into his backpack and draws out a pellet gun. He aims for the ribs but the dog jumps at the last second and the pellet penetrates the dog’s eye. A week later you are treated by the sight of a dog with an infected eye. It dies a slow and painful death. The foreigners sees this happening and tells you, “I care nothing for the likes of strays.”
F: A foreigner is wandering the streets of Taipei when a dog runs out in front of him. He immediately reaches into his backpack and draws out a can of dog food, which he opens. The dog eats hungrily and gratefully, and afterwards the foreigner pets the dog and the dog wags its tail in happiness. The foreigner then takes the dog back to his home, gives it a bath, some more food and some fresh water, and then takes it to the vet for an examination. The dog has heartworms. The foreigner, though poor, withdraws all of his savings for the long series of treatments. Six months later you see the foreigner walking the dog on a leash. The dog’s coat is shiny, he has gained weight, and appears happy and healthy. The foreigner smiles at you and says, “Aren’t dogs just wonderful?”
Bobepine, just continue to stand by your principles. Yes you are going to be insulted for doing so, and the most effective insult is to paint you as “judgmental” or coming off as morally superior. But the truth is that by championing the rights of animals, you are not simply “coming off” as morally superior, you are morally superior, just as the man who risked his life to ferry down a truck to save an old woman then helps her across the street is morally superior to the man who robs her then throws her in front of the truck. Likewise the person who feeds and cares for an abandoned animal is morally superior to a person who shoots it with a pellet gun and stands by while it dies of infection.
The supreme irony is that the people who are so quick to defame you, bobepine, as putting on an airs of superiority, believe themselves to be morally superior by virtue of their supposedly non-judgmental nature. Those who claim not to judge others believe this places them, ipso facto, on a higher moral plane than everybody else. But the reality is that they we all judge others constantly. It’s just part of how we think and interact with other people. I think the charges of faux moral superiority begin when you start presenting people with uncomfortable facts about themselves. Keep up the good work man.