Are You Keyhole Judging? (An Edward de Bono inspired scenario)

[mrsmac]

Great post Bath amd so relevant too. I have become less judgemental as i got older but I think sadly I was at my MOST judgemental when i had one child! I used to look in horror at mother's of little boys who were completely wild and, I felt, undisciplined, I felt that as a mother I had the right to judge cause I was obviously doing such a great job and my child was sweet and well behaved. Now that my journey has included a severe dose of karma (I call him Riley LOL) I realise that boys and indeed all children are different and I wasn't necessarily a great mum I was just a damn lucky one!
I think its harder to be empathetic without a lot of life experiences behind you. Sometimes i think the people with the least life experiences are often the most quick to judge sadly.

[Rouge]

I'm one of those strange people that gets offended and defensive for others but not so much for myself unless I am feeling unheard or misunderstood. And yes sometimes I shouldn't, and yes sometimes I should keep my mouth shut LOL! But I always seem to justify it at the time by saying I'm doing it for the greater good, and sometimes even that is not necessarily a good thing. So thats something I have to work on.

[Maruschke]

I'm one of those strange people that gets offended and defensive for others but not so much for myself unless I am feeling unheard or misunderstood. And yes sometimes I shouldn't, and yes sometimes I should keep my mouth shut LOL! But I always seem to justify it at the time by saying I'm doing it for the greater good, and sometimes even that is not necessarily a good thing. So thats something I have to work on.

Yep I used to do this too . I try not to though because I've realised that different things offend different people.

Recently, I was having a friendly debate with a close friend. We both know each other well, know each other's opinions, and use debate to sharpen ourselves (iron sharpens iron). In this case he was playing devil's advocate with me. Another friend who didn't know us as well, came into the debate and got mad at my close friend for saying something that she considered would have been offensive to me. But of course it wasn't!!!

I found it annoying. The statement wasn't offensive to me. It interferred with a debate that had good intentions (to sharpen our thinking) and then it took awhile to explain. It also made an innocent debate between two friends into an overly emotional event. Even if I did find his comment offending, I would have wanted to choose for myself how to respond. Sometimes it's easiest to just let it slide, ignore it.

I understand there are some situations were it is very appropriate to defend another against offense, but I try (and often fail) to pause and consider first whether or not I know enough to be able to do so.

[Trillian]

Trillian, I should explain - I've had a LOT of people in the last few months telling me to CC Liebs because I "look tired". And when I politely say no, I don't agree with that, they then tell me they did it from birth and the child doesn't know any different (how sad!) and you "get used" to hearing crying and ignoring it. They have NEVER gone to their baby, toddler or child at night, no matter what. Some people from birth, some from 6w old, some from 3m old. But generally too early, even in the pro-CC books. And I'm sick of hearing that they deprive their baby (because overnight feeds are still needed at this stage) because they can't be bothered with looking after this little life they created.

Now, if you're going to push your philosphy so much at me even when I say no, I disagree, then I figure you KNOW I'm right and just want to drag me down to your level! So yeah, I do judge then.

But I think that's about the only time. And only because I have it pushed on me so much to do it.

Oh no, I didn't mean anything by it, just that if you were told a one-off comment like that, without knowing all the stuff behind it, then I wouldn't think less of them for it, but when there is a lot of other stuff going on, manipulation by trying to force you to see it their way and constantly being told that it is the right and the only way, then yeah, I'd be thinking less of them for that too because they aren't showing you respect and agreeing to disagree.

[Bathsheba]

Bumpity bump!

[Liz]

oooh Bath has spied some keyhole judging... I wonder where LOL

[Cassius2]

i think this is a great topic, especially when we consider the forum environment. in a way forums like BB etc can promote and seek keyhole judging. like bath in her OP, not everyone shares all information, making the 'advice' or support that we give, inevitably some form of keyhole judging...but does this necessarily equate to a negative thing? i guess EDB's story is awesome in that it does make us think outside the square, but we also need to remember that in an isolationist society (like most western societies) we do tend to put on the blinkers and *pretend* that we dont see or hear other people (like NOT giving pg women a seat on a tram or train, because you have an ipod on and therefore 'cannot' see her; or hear a smoke alarm next door but are too hesitant to call the firebrigade in case it's nothing and you look over zealous IYKWIM).

i guess the key (pardon the pun LOL!) is that while we judge...i reckon everyone does (or am i speaking only of my own guilt at having done so..hmmmm lol) we also need to judge with empathy. the same way that awhile back we had the horrific story of the tragic death of those twins in QLD that died through starvation. it was horrific and initially people were outraged as we vented and expressed our horror, but as the thread progressed and we began to develop empathy for all those people involved in the horrific situation we realised how it could of happened and possibly why. i still believe that that thread ended up being one of the most powerful on here in BB land for that very reason.

[Moondance]

It's interesting that this topic is here in BB Forums...
As I really did feel like I was a victim of Keyhole Judging last night in the BB Chat of all places...

It's like, 2 people in the chat, who I've spoken to ONCE, seemed to think they knew everything about me and were telling me how to live my life, based on what was a half hour long chat. I ended up in tears. They kept telling me, "you need therapy, you need help" ra ra ra, when I was trying to say to them, that the past 4 months I have been doing well up until about 3 days ago when my emotions went a bit shonky (which I am currently thinking may be hormonal, as AF is due any day now), but they couldn't seem to grasp the concept, kept telling me how to live, how to think, how to be, until I got upset and said I didn't want to discuss it anymore. How was that for taking control, topic over.
So then they started getting uppity saying I couldn't control other people and one of the girls wanted to continue it until I ended up just getting very upset and saying stupid things to make them go away. They got angry with me and left.
One of these 2 people had added me as a facebook friend, and they've already deleted me this morning.

Based on ONE conversation from what little they learned of me in that conversation.
Yeah, I understand the person going on at me has a wealth of experience, more than me, with kids and a divorce, etc etc, but her situation isn't MY situation and all she wanted to do was push her way on me without listening to my side of things.
I still have a splitting headache today from crying so much. She dredged up a lot of crap, my therapist doesn't even make me cry like that.
I've never felt so judged, or pushed down in my whole life.

[Bathsheba]

I'm sorry you had a hard time of it last night Moondance. Forums do generally require a fair bit of resilience at times. I find that when Im feeling fragile it's better to avoid forum discussions unless you know and trust the members well. Maybe contact Admin if you felt they breached BB Guidelines which include posting with tact.

When you say it's "interesting" that this thread is in BB what do you mean though? Is it useful or hypocritical? I find that it can be useful and if I find myself in a discussion which I feel contains keyhole judging I sometimes link to this thread

I hope your headache passes soon Moondance and that those hormones settle or you find someone that you trust to have a more positive discussion with *hug*

[Moondance]

Well I imagine this thread was around before last night, yes?
But then my incident happened last night in the CHAT, not the general forums...

Some of the girls there said that what happened was wrong and was really against everything BellyBelly is about... I don't know much about that, I haven't been here very long...
But I seemed to get the idea that BB is supposed to be the kind of place thats about helping each other and not judging each other, I mean, I've always found forums to be a good place to ask questions, get help, etc.
But the incident last night had me feeling like I shouldn't even be here on this site if someone would be so judgemental and harsh....
Everything else I see on BB is always so nice, this thread included, I thought that this kind of thread was essentially what BB was really about... But I definitely didn't feel that in the chat last night until after the people got angry with me and left and I was back to the few people I consider friends here.

I don't think I'm saying this right at all. I'm really tired right now.

[Astrid]

I think this is interesting. Whilst we need to be aware of when we are keyhole judging, but also of when we let others keyhole judge us. We need to be aware of the picture we give out and how that will affect the behaviour others show towards us.

For example, if only put forward a happy front, the people will assume that we have no problems and maybe not see that you really need help right now. The same if we always complain, then others will just keep on telling us to do something about it, when if fact you may be happy with your situation, just grumpy about parts of it.

I think responsibility does go both ways with judging, it just cannot be lumped on the judger that they only looking through a keyhole, when infact that is all they are being given to look at.

ETA: Just though I would add that I am talking in general about the concept of keyhole judging. Not directly about any posts or situations on the forum.

[Bathsheba]

I see what you are saying Astrid and agree that it goes both ways and that we have to be mindful of the kind of situations we are portraying. It involves a degree of objectivity to your own situation though which many people can struggle with. That is also a general statement.

One thing that Moondance seemed to allude to though is that all of the members in BB should pull the party line. That every thread is written as if under-written by BB policy makers and that's just not possible. BB isn't like other community services like say, LifeLine, where there is a certain way of doing things. Whilst there are BB guidelines and (volunteer) Mods who do there best to make sure that everything that is read here in BB complies to an Ideal it's impossible to eliminate human nature. There are no guaratees that your feelings won't get hurt in here so you really do have a responsibility to yourself to turn away from your monitor if you are finding that you are becoming
upset. The Mods do their best but they are only human and can't get to every thread. I'm sure only a small minority of BB members have even read this thread.... And even if they have they are free to disagree

Moondance: I recommend contacting Admin if you need to debrief about last nights incident any further darl. I can't recall the wording of BB guidelines but discussing sensitive discussions in other threads is
discouraged in BB.

[Tinsel]

I like that a lot!

[BellyBelly]

I don't know what's happened, I will check the logs, but I don't think it's fair to label the actions of a few as the philosophy behind BellyBelly. If we don't say it, it's not our philosophy.

It's impossible for everyone to conform to everything. We have report features for problems, we log all chats (yes even the private messages between two users in chat, so keep it off the site if you want it private). If you can't say something nice or constructive, don't say it on BB, simple.

We do our best, as mothers, as full time workers, as workers with several jobs... we can only rely on members pointing us to what we've missed, and for members to take responibility for their contributions and acting like adults - that means making comments and also being able to react as one too.

More investigation is required, but I am sure you'll find BB is much different to the other sites out there, we do our best, but we cannot control what comes out of people's mouths... we offer services which do not have 24x7 live monitoring, that would be impossible and unfair to our mods. So we have to deal with issues in an appropriate way.

[nickle730]

This is an interesting thread, and I'm glad it has been resurrected!

In regard to the original post and EdB's key hole scenario - doesn't the world need people who are prepared to make a decision and act upon the information which is available to them?

To use EdB's scenario, the bloke looking through the keyhole could step back and think... "hmmm, hang on a minute. Do I have ALL the possible information here? Perhaps I should hang around here outside the door and keep watching, and I'll not take action until I'm certain that I know everything there is to know about this situation." Or he can accept the information that has available to him and choose the best and most appropriate course of action based upon that information, which in this case is to break down the door. After all, his information leads him to believe that a life is in danger. He must act, and quickly.

Now, as it turns out, the bloke in EdB's story had drawn an inaccurate conclusion from the information available to him. But what if his original assessment of the situation was correct? And here he is, hanging around outside the door, waiting for more information whilst the woman he saw is stabbed to death?!

Sometimes, it is necessary to make a 'keyhole judgement'. Sometimes, the only view we have is what we can see through a keyhole. The danger is in not being capable of reassessing a situation, of not having the flexibility to change our opinion and assessment of a given situation as more information becomes available. Certainly, we should strive to further our knowledge of a situation, we should gather as much information as we can before making a decision and formulating a plan, but we must also be prepared to be decisive in our actions. The trick is to keep an open mind as we do so. I reckon EdB's bloke did an awesome job; he observed, he made a decision, he acted, he reassessed and he made a new decision based on the new information available to him. Can't ask for more than that!

Just to be very clear... I am referring to the original post and EdB's scenario. I am not in any way referring to other BB threads, or to Moondance's experience.

[Bathsheba]

Nickel: great assesment can I build on that though? If, in the process of acting on what information is available you make a mistake... What then? What if the fellow in the story ( hypothetically) chose to shoot the knife wielding man through the keyhole and it killed him? What then? Do we still accept the act as virtuous and/or do we accept it when he says "but I didn't know..."?

It seems to me that people often act (judge) before it's quite necessary but still demand that people accept their "but I didn't know" as their fall back plan... Meaning they don't have to accept they made a mistake.

I believe also that we need people who are prepared to take decisive action... But in forums like this I don't think it's quite as necessary as having more people who are prepared to reserve judgement and most importantly if they do judge in haste make sure they make unconditional apologies... Not the dreaded "I'm sorry but". Because that's not being sorry at all... That's just perpetuating an argument.

Injured child... Back later

[Sopdet]

I try very hard to not judge on just what I see at a particular point in time. As somebody who has been judged for the small "keyhole" others have seen of me, I find that it can be hurtful, which is why I now actively try to look at situations from various perspectives.

If I post an opinion on here, I will preface it with something stating it is my opinion or my thoughts. People can then decide whether or not to "listen" to what I've said.

[nickle730]

Oooohh... Bathsheba, I like this exercise for my brain!

EdB's boy needs to make the best and most appropriate decision based on the information he has available to him. We are now assuming that our boy is armed with a gun. We know that to shoot the man through the keyhole would ultimately be a mistake, a poor decision in the given situation. But even without the knowledge that we (and our protagonist) learn further into our scenario, surely a better, more appropriate response to the situation would be to shoot the lock out of the door? This would enable him to gain better access to the scene, to gather more information and to formulate a plan for what would ultimately be a better course of action. In doing so, he would perhaps be placing himself in danger; entering the path of a man whom he believes to be dangerous and whom he knows to be armed with a knife. Raises an interesting question about endangering ourselves to help others!

In short, to shoot the man through the keyhole would be poor decision making (even if the intention was virtuous) and IMO our boy would be required to face up to the consequences of his poorly considered actions. A legal opinion at this point would be interesting?!

In regard to your statement about forums, I guess in entering and posting in a forum we are inviting people to peer through our keyhole. As in any community, a forum will consist of people of many different personalities, experiences and beliefs. In inviting people to peer through our keyhole and in soliciting the advice and opinions of such a diverse community we are bound to be exposed to personalities, beliefs and experiences which are far different from our own. This can be confronting and disconcerting. It can also be a magnificent opportunity to benefit from someone who has experienced the world from a different perspective. This new knowledge, this sharing of information, if we are open to receiving it, equips us to make better decisions in the future. EdB's protagonist might have made excellent decisions from the beginning if one of the crowd inside the door had come outside and told our boy what was actually going on inside the door, if only one of that crowd had shared his (or her) knowledge and experience.

Of course, the manner in which we all share our knowledge (and we ALL have something valuable to share) is paramount. Particularly if the subject matter is confronting. A lot is lost in forum communication; tone can be difficult, facial expression, body language... What I 'say' might not be what you 'hear'. I have read of members who say they are in floods of tears because of something which has been 'said' to them. Surely we need to stop and consider whether the communication directed their way has been gentle and respectful... even if it is not what they want to hear. But surely there is no point to a forum if you are not willing to 'speak' and I am not willing to 'listen'? And why solicit an opinion if we are not seeking the truth? If what you want is a 'hug' and a word of comfort, by all means ask for it. But we shouldn't solicit advice or opinion, in a forum or in life, if we are not prepared to hear the truth.

Ultimately, sometimes you and I will simply not agree... perhaps our experiences are too different, or our beliefs are poles apart. We are not necessarily 'judging' each other, we are simply recognising that we are different. And that's OK. To disagree is not necessarily to argue. If we have been honest and respectful, if we have listened to each other, then IMO neither one of us needs to apologise, even if I don't like or agree with what you have to say.

One of these days I will master the short post!

I hope your injured child is OK?