We are innately gregarious. We seek out others. Being alone for any length of time can overwhelm us with a debilitating loneliness. It is this gregariousness that causes us to cluster together in supportive communities. The fact that these communities are often riven with strife is due, in part, to two seemingly innocent, but almost universal human characteristics--an inclination to criticise others and an enjoyment of gossip.

Criticism

      We criticise others who excel in areas in which we are competent because they may surpass us. We avidly devour gossip about people who are unlike us because we envy and are threatened by their differentness. We can be critical of those who are close to us--parents, siblings, friends or neighbours--because we live with them. Our responses are also conditioned by previous encounters. Our irritation builds like compound interest.

      This inability to accept others, as they are, is a form of censorship.¹

Why?

      Why do we react to others by criticising them, or by retailing gossip about them?

      The reasons are legion.

      We sometimes feel incompetent when we compare ourselves with others. The comparison may be accurate or it may be biased by our depreciation of our abilities.

      We may feel ourselves overwhelmed by what we experience as the strength of others' personalities. We may be disempowered by the bombast of the extrovert or the silence of the introvert.

      We are often jealous of others because they are a threat to our self-worth.

      Communities can be threatened in the same way. For many [229] years, White Australians suffered a sense of inferiority. Our convict origins were regarded as shameful and we realised that our nation was young. Partially as a consequence of this inferiority, we attacked what we regarded as pretension and extolled the virtues of egalitarianism. We took the knife to our tall poppies.

      There are occasions when others threaten us because they undermine our security. We fear their real or imagined ability to separate us from opinions or structures that support us.

      We are also threatened by an accumulation of differences we discern in others. The strangeness of others, who look different to us, who speak a different language, who have different allegiances, who celebrate a different history and who eat different foods, can sometimes be so strong that it surfaces as racism.

      There are also times when others' actions evoke in us memories of past traumas. Their responses ring alarm bells and we are overcome with apprehension. It is even possible for us to be drawn to people whose personalities are similar to those of individuals who have abused us in the past, because of the fact that they have a familiar "feel".

      We sometimes criticise others because they remind us of aspects of ourselves that we do not like. We may be barely conscious, or even unconscious, of the fact that we manifest the same characteristics. Some argue that one reason for male homophobia is the fact that some heterosexual males cannot admit to their feminine responses or homoerotic desires. We tend to criticise in others what we don't like about ourselves, or what we cannot admit to possessing. Those we criticise become scapegoats.

      We also criticise people who have developed their potential, particularly if a similar potential remains undeveloped in us. Jealousy, or envy, drives our criticism. We are jealous of the acclaim they receive. We may even be envious of the material evidence of their success. As a result, we question their motives or criticise the means by which they have achieved their success.

      Our reaction may be further energised by a sense of powerlessness, a powerlessness that contrasts with the influence others appear to wield. [230]

      If we belong to a religious community, we may project our reactions onto those who affect us adversely; onto God or an image we have of God. As a consequence, our judgmentalism appears to have divine approval. God is conscripted into attacks upon those evoking our ire.

Responses

      Our critical reaction to others may encompass a broad range of responses. We may avoid them, consciously or unconsciously. We may subtly undermine their influence. We may be openly critical. We may solicit negative criticism of them from others. We may embroider and pass on gossip about them.

      Threatened by the differentness of others, we may also surrender to ideologies that promote sexism, classism or racism. If we are sufficiently seduced by our reactions, and blinded to what we are doing, we may even be caught up in acts of ethnic cleansing. In such instances, we surrender our personal initiative to powerful ideological currents and to noxious communal energies that represent the pathological underside of the quest for intimacy and relatedness that underlies our gregariousness.

Underlying Factors

      Beneath each of these reactions--which are indications that we are under threat--there are at least two precipitating factors.

Self-Acceptance

      The first of these is a desperate quest for acceptance, and ultimately self-acceptance. We accept ourselves on the basis of others' acceptance of us.

      If comparisons we make with others threaten to diminish our self-esteem, we attempt to avoid this possibility by questioning the reputations or achievements of those whose success unnerves us. We attempt to bring them down to our level by demeaning them. We seek to persuade others to endorse our criticisms.

      We may also attempt to conscript others into our crusade to demolish the reputations of those whose achievements threaten us. [231] This may involve us seeking to persuade others to see things as we do. If our friends are like us, or endorse our opinions, then we conclude that our judgement is correct. Our ugly stance is justified.

      In spite of this quest for allies, it will be obvious to perceptive observers that the strength of our criticisms reflects both our desperation and our impoverished self-esteem.

Security

      The second factor fuelling our criticism of others is our desperate need for security. This security is associated with two factors--our acceptability to others and the control we are able to exercise over our environment. Our emotional security depends upon our being accepted. Our physical security depends upon the control we have over factors that impinge upon us.

Control

      This dynamic is complicated by a further element. If we are secure in our identity we will not need to control our world, including other people. On the other hand, if we cannot accept ourselves, we will be unable to embrace our dark side. Threatened by internal discord, over which we have no control, we will seek stability by attempting to control our external world.

      The tragic irony is that those who are least in control of themselves, or comfortable with themselves, are the ones most likely to be driven by a passion to order the external world. As a consequence of this drivenness, they frequently attain positions of power and impose their pathologies on that world.

Facing the Issue

      To address the factors underlying our judgmentalism--a judgmentalism that is driven by lack of self-esteem and a sense of powerlessness--we need to attend to two tasks.

      We must work on developing self-esteem and inner security.

      The tasks are linked. The more self-accepting we are, the easier it is for us to acknowledge our dark side and to incorporate [232] it into the image we have of ourselves. Self-acceptance also enables us to integrate alternative energies, sub-personalities or centres of consciousness that reside in the shadow.

      Some elements need to be allowed expression. Others need to be loved and redeemed. Repressed anger and sexuality benefit from both approaches. They seek acknowledgment and expression. Where they have been damaged by abuse, they stand in need of healing and transformation.

Self-Love

      It is obvious that our ability to accept others, to treat them generously, to overlook their faults, is dependent upon the degree to which we are accepting of ourselves. If we cannot deal generously with ourselves, we will not be capable of treating others generously. It is impossible for us to love others unless we first love ourselves. We are only capable of loving others to the degree that we love ourselves. We may act in a manner that mimics genuine love, but others will discern that there is no real engagement. We may give all our possessions away, but unless love accompanies our helpfulness the perceptive will not be deceived.²

Two Tasks

      In order to address the critical issues of acceptance and security, it will be important for us to do two things. The first of these is to work on ourselves, to learn to accept ourselves. This will involve us working at healing our diseases by accepting and loving those parts of us that are diseased. The second task will be to explore the spiritual energies of the environment in which we live. We have already looked at ways of approaching this two-fold task.

Consequences

      Once we have begun to make some progress with acceptance and security, we will notice that we are not nearly so pre-occupied with ourselves, nor so defensive of ourselves. Others will not be such a threat to us, to our self-worth or our security. [233]

      Once this change begins to become evident, we will be aware of other developments.

      We will find that we will be able to be more open with others. When they engage us in conversation they will sense that somebody is at home. We will also discover that we are able to be honest with and about ourselves. We will be better able to tell it like it is. I suspect that we will also be surprised by the fact that we are becoming less judgmental. We will be better able to allow others to be themselves. We will not need other people to be like us, to share our characteristics and opinions.

      Part of this new ability to be frank with ourselves will involve us recognising that there are some people with whom we may never get along. Our personalities and experiences are too divergent.

      It may also involve us acknowledging the degree to which others irritate us. This does not mean that we will criticise them relentlessly. Because we know why we react immaturely, we will make allowances for others. We will realise that their difficult behaviour is the result of damage done to them.

      This new repertoire of responses, which derives, not from a heroic attempt at behaviour modification based merely on self-talk, but on a deep, long-term transformation of the self, will lead us to treat others more generously.

      We will have sufficient freedom from our own needs to be able to genuinely and empathically attend to theirs. We will be less likely to use our engagement with others to meet our personal needs. Whatever else we are able to do for them, or give to them, by way of gifts or support, we will offer others heart hospitality. We will be able to provide them with a comfortable space, within our hearts, where they can catch their breath, relax, and share their anxieties.

      As time goes on, and we become more accepting of ourselves, more comfortable with ourselves, our generosity towards others will become more un-self-conscious. We will take less note of what we are doing, because our generosity will not require heroic effort. It will not appear to us to be special. We will [234] be merely being ourselves. We will have lost the need to be special, particularly where specialness derives from comparison with others.

      We will celebrate our uniqueness, but this uniqueness will not need to be aggressively championed. At the same time, we will respect the uniqueness of others.

The Golden Rule

      The golden rule suggests that we should treat others as we would want them to treat us. The reality is that we do treat others as we treat ourselves. If we treat others poorly it is because we treat ourselves poorly.

      Jesus suggested to his followers that they should love others as they love themselves.³ In one sense, this comment was superfluous. They were already doing it! We all do it! We treat others as we treat ourselves.

      To love others more effectively, and generously, we need to love ourselves more wholeheartedly. In essence, this involves us discerning and intuitively appropriating the cosmic love that sustains the universe and expresses itself powerfully through those who are open to receive it. [236]

[LS 229-236]