Jesus and Jung Warned us Against Labels and Quick Judgments
Humans are tempted to label and judge each other quickly. The social media algorithms encourage this trait among us by rewarding and promoting posts which are “engaging,” because name-calling, labels and judgements are effective in generating attention by mudslingers, trolls and bystanders. It’s good for the new economy of attention getting by “attention-merchants.” Yet, the more we use labels, the more hypocritical and self-delusional we become.
The problem with using labeling humans and having prejudicial thoughts is that it distorts our view of the world and our own problems, as if looking through a tinted crooked mirror. I explain the concept in The ROGUE Brain and in (Masks, Crutches and Daggers: The Science of our Self-Delusional, Addictive Homo economicus Brain). Quick labels and prejudices make “us” prone to self-delusion, and allows psychiatrists to “label” us as “schizophrenics,” a label I don’t like. In general, I don’t like many of the psychiatric, psychological and medical labels that pigeon-hole and stigmatize humans and ignore their the integrity and dignity.
To avoid self-delusion we need to have a clear vision as we read in the Bible1: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ..You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Years after Jesus, Jung also warned us against quick judgments2 because they would lead to formation of unconscious herds:
"The instinct for wholeness requires for its evidence a more highly differentiated consciousness, thoughtfulness, reflection, responsibility, and sundry other virtues. Therefore it does not commend itself to the relatively unconscious man driven by his natural impulses, because, imprisoned in his familiar world, he clings to the commonplace, the obvious, the probable, the collectively valid, using for his motto:
Thinking is difficult, therefore let the Herd Pronounce judgment!"
Matthew 7:1,5
Carl Jung, Flying Saucers, Page 38