Although I wish I could say that people always judge others by the content of their character, I can’t. If I were to say this then I would be lying because people are always judging others by their appearance. You would think that by now we would have evolved into a human race that is more than capable of determining the value of someone’s worth by their moral values, intellectual capability and empathetic understanding, but this is simply not the case.
The irony in this way of judging people is that most of the people who judge others by their appearance have good moral values, are intelligent and seem to be empathetic. So why is it that these people still judge others by their appearance?
It is my personal belief that people continue to judge others by their appearance because they have been conditioned to do so. For instance, when you think of a lawyer how do you picture them?
More than likely you picture them in a suit. How about when you think of a business person, a priest, a rock star, a geek and a jock. When you think of these titles you probably see a person in a suit with a tie, a person in a black suit with a white collar, a person with ripped up jeans and piercing, a person with pimples and glasses and a person who’s muscular and wearing the team jacket. I think this type of thinking is why people would see a person like me, with lip piercing and gauged ears, and think that I’m not intelligent.
I’m not implying that everyone is like this but from my experience thus far, the majority of people I’ve met or been around judge this way.
Lets say, for example, that we changed the appearance of the business man, the priest, the rock star, the geek and the jock.
Would their change in appearance change the fact that they are a business man, priest, rock star, geek or jock? The answer is no, and to say otherwise would be ignorant. As long as people continue to judge others by their appearance, we will remain segregated from each other and will never achieve living in a world as one.