Matthew 7:1-5

I saw Pasolini's The Gospel According to St Matthew recently, thanks to MUBI. Pasolini's Christ is not some wimpy angel of peace and love, but a hard-core revolutionary expecting to give up his life for the cause. Pasolini lets the original words do the talking, and maybe that's why the Vatican liked it: more or less all the key points from the Gospel in a movie.

At one point, Christ is handing out some random advice, including this...

1. Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Damn it's been a long time since I heard that sentiment. My generation grew up on this stuff. It sank into us, especially since it resembles the Commandment: Thou shalt keep thy nose out of business that is not thine, and having opinions, keep them to thyself lest other people think thou art a twat, and a busybody, and likely a grass, despised by all.

Look, of course we judge people. If we didn't, the same manipulative headcase could take us time and again. We need to learn who to avoid and why. But we also learn to say, with an utterly straight face: "just because you never pay your share of the bill and are always cadging rides but never paying for petrol, does not mean you are Bad Person". It just means we're having nothing more to do with you.

The point is that we don't judge publicly. Maybe privately, but that's always a risk.

Christ is telling us not to judge for fear of the consequences, and because we need a bit or work ourselves (the beam in our eye).

But there are other reasons not to judge publicly.

First, it keeps the air clearer.

Second, it lets the Bad People give themselves away, since they may not have the self-awareness to know that snarky tweets (for instance) are pretty much a turn-off.

Third, Bad People (as opposed to incompetent ones(*)) are not going to change because we say rude things about them.

If no-one tells the SJW that weird hair colours are a give-away, it's easier to spot SJW's.

The Twitters have never heard this stuff.

Two generations of people who never grew up hearing the basic wisdoms of the New Testament.

It's as good a way of understanding what we're seeing as anything else.

(*) We can correct people helpfully without making them feel bad, unless they really are horribly insecure, when nothing we say will be right, and silence is wiser.