Most of us dislike being criticized. We resent and react when we are openly criticized by friends, colleagues or even our enemies. When we are criticized we sometimes feel insulted and our defenses go up and we often retaliate in kind by attacking the one doing the criticizing.
The political world is currently in a crisis of criticism as political opponents engage in full-on assaults of each other's characters, policies and past history. Usually this is not helpful or productive, unless the criticism is seriously valid, and not just an attack on someone's character for the sake of political gain.
Many people have used Joshua ben Joseph's statement "judge not lest you be judged" as a defensive posture to deflect anyone from making any negative statements about anyone else, claiming that he was basically telling us not to judge at all.
Yet Joshua made all kinds of negative statements about friends and foes alike. He rebuked his apostles constantly for their wrong-headedness about so many issues. He blasted the Pharisees with a scathing rebuke that has never been equaled by any preacher to this day: "Woe unto you hypocrites...white washed tombs full of dead men's bones...blind guides!"
The apostles in turn leveled enormous criticism on their culture and made prophetic pronouncements on the moral downfall of both their age and the next:
"Oh you foolish Galations! Who has bewitched you?"
Our parents judge us constantly growing up. They judged our behavior when it is praiseworthy and scolded us or punish us when it is negative. They do this out of love and most of us if we had good parents will have to admit they were right most of the time.
Our society isn't good at taking criticism, constructive or otherwise; people are thin-skinned and often this is because there is so much bullying and dysfunction that people have been hurt by excessively negative words and verbal abuse. And what is worse, because of the increased freedom of speech online, people don't pull any punches with others and often let people have it with both barrels, especially on Facebook.
On the other hand, our society sure needs some correction, so there's that. Some of the things happening in the political and social arenas make it almost impossible, and perhaps morally wrong to stay silent.
We are taught by the carpenter from Nazareth to do unto others as we would have them do unto us so maybe an extra dose of honey is needed to help the medicine go down; some compassion and empathy is needed in our daily commentary with people. Joshua also taught that mercy triumphs over judgement.
Most of us are just doing the best we can with our current struggles and challenges. We ought to always try and put ourselves in each other's shoes to try and better understand each other. Understanding others is the first step in keeping the doors of communication open and in building bridges instead of burning them. Peace and love always.
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