# Why do people tend to judge a persons character from one belief that they hold? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2016, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980 "2016-05-17T10:42:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/41 "2016-05-19T08:16:59Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Well, are we talking about the 8 million actual party members, or the 70 million Germans who voted for them, fought for them and supported them? The actual Nazis > [@](#): > > These people were mostly victims themselves, going along to get along under a shitty totalitarian regime. Like fuck they were. > [@](#): > > Yes, they could have risked their lives in a heroic effort to stymie the Nazi elite. But is that what is expected of an average “decent” person? Yes. > [@](#): > > Or is it considered “heroic” precisely because we don’t expect the average person to take those risks? No, it’s my threshold of “decent” not to join the Nazis, not “heroic”. “Heroic” is the Jazz Kids. > [@](#): > > Is every last person who voted for Bush literally evil, because they enabled his violent, stupid war against Saddam? Not _just_ for that reason, > [@](#): > > Or do you think most of them are just normal, albeit misguided, people trying to do their best based on the propaganda they’ve been inundated with since birth? Not examining your own life and motivations doesn’t make you a decent person, or innocent. “Ignorant” should not be treated as a synonym for “Innocent”. > [@](#): > > Is every last NSA employee evil for spying on their own citizens for no other reason than to enhance their power and increase their budget? Probably. Don’t even get me started on intelligence agencies. > [@](#): > > Is every soldier who fought for a bad cause evil? If that’s all they did, then yes. > [@](#): > > Even if they were drafted? Draftees have the option of not showing up/refusing to serve. People have done it for [even more evil armies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Conscription_Campaign#Group_of_23_refuse_military_call-up) than Bush’s. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/42 "2016-05-19T10:56:34Z")
> [@GlowingDarkness](#): > > why does society see rapists or murderers as evil cowards? If it is just once how can that be judged? I am so judging you for asking this question. Even just once. There are two types of people: those who rape and murder and those who don’t. Those who’ve done it just once are still completely in the first category. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/43 "2016-05-19T12:39:53Z")
I know everything I need to know about a person if they have Truck Nutz on their vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/44 "2016-05-19T12:55:54Z")
> [@GlowingDarkness](#): > > Why do people tend to judge a persons character from one belief that they hold? It’s way easier than taking the time and getting to know the person. Never mind that a belief (not action) can change over time. Maybe they felt that way once in the 60s for twenty minutes, but it takes so much less effort to just assume that’s still the kind of person they are today. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/45 "2016-05-19T13:04:08Z")
Obligatory applicable joke that everyone has heard a thousand times so I’ll only post the punchline: “But you fuck \*one \* goat!” ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/46 "2016-05-19T22:42:28Z")
> [@Casey1505](#): > > It’s way easier than taking the time and getting to know the person. Never mind that a belief (not action) can change over time. Maybe they felt that way once in the 60s for twenty minutes, but it takes so much less effort to just assume that’s still the kind of person they are today. It sure does. How many people do you spend time getting to know each day? Every day I walk past hundreds or thousands of people on my way to work. I spend zero time getting to know them. I don’t even spend a second making eye contact. If that stranger had made some really offensive comment, I’d wish I could spend even less than zero time getting to know them. Unfortunately, less than zero is physically impossible and would violate the laws of physics. Does one offensive or horrible comment reveal you to be irredeemably evil? No, but it does reveal you as someone who probably isn’t worth my time getting to know better. Maybe I’m wrong, and you’re really a swell guy, but the odds are against it and I’ve only got so much time on this planet before I die, and figuring out if people who seem to be jerks are really most sincerely jerks is a big waste of time. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/47 "2016-05-20T03:13:58Z")
George Carlin weighs in [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fnX7HA58l3k/hqdefault.jpg "George-Carlin-rape-CAN-be-funny") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnX7HA58l3k) ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/48 "2016-05-20T12:56:05Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > How many people do you spend time getting to know each day? Every day I walk past hundreds or thousands of people on my way to work. I spend zero time getting to know them. I don’t even spend a second making eye contact. Agreed. I spend even less time than that judging their character, so the hundreds or thousands of people we walk by every day and ignore aren’t really relevant to the question being asked. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/49 "2016-05-20T14:22:53Z")
One thing to remember is that things that may be abstract political or theoretical discussions for you are practical threats to other people in day to day life. Rape and abuse survivors tend to take something like Daniel Tosh’s ‘comedic’ statement of “go get raped” a little more personally than a muscular young guy would, for example. Someone opposed to trans people using the correct bathroom might see their position as ‘just politics’ or a theoretical discussion, but to an actual trans person it’s a direct and personal threat, and something that emboldens bigots to commit actual violence against them. What I see a lot of times is that someone complains that they’re being judged for ‘just one bad belief’ when the bad belief both indicates a whole slew of other bad beliefs, or the belief is an outright attack on the person judging them (or people the judger is close to). ---
**Author:** ![Caldazar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Caldazar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caldazar)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/50 "2016-05-20T18:49:09Z")
> [@GlowingDarkness](#): > > Surely it is foolish to judge a person of one belief. . Quite the contrary, as some others have alluded to, it is an efficient way to evaluate people you don’t know well, but whom you need to gain some basic understanding of. Getting to know a person well requires meaningful time and effort, and it’s not efficient or effective to spend that level of effort on everyone you may need to know; there isn’t enough time to do so. So instead, people use relatively few pieces of known information to make quick evaluations about another’s character, which allows them to evaluate many people quickly. Sure, the evaluation will be dead wrong sometimes and have some undesirable consequences, but it will be good enough, often enough, to make the strategy worthwhile. You can then save your time and energy by getting to know only certain people well, for particular people you feel may justify the effort. Perfect is the enemy of good(-enough). ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2016, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/51 "2016-05-21T01:05:22Z")
Putting rape and murder aside, the shunning of practitioners thereof being a no-brainer in my book, very often people are judged and even avoided for “one belief” because they’re so fanatic about it. You can’t say boo to them without setting them off on a tirade about this one pet belief of theirs. “Good morning, Bob.” “GOOD? What’s so GOOD about it when we’re suffering under the oppressive yoke of (left-/right-)wing politicians?!!” Angry, overly opinionated people are always to be avoided. ---
**Author:** ![MrLee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@MrLee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrLee)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2016, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/52 "2016-05-21T10:21:32Z")
> [@GlowingDarkness](#): > > why does society see rapists or murderers as evil cowards? If it is just once how can that be judged? If someone rapes someone else, then it is not merely that one act which society condemns, it is the entire surrounding thought process and value system leading up to it. The same goes for many instances of murder. For someone to be _able to rape or murder, they must have some kind of abhorrent psychological constitution (sociopathic, psychotic, whatever…). For this reason, if I was having a drink with someone and getting along fine with them, and then learnt that they were a rapist, they would instantly plummet in my estimations. It’s not just the act that they have committed, it’s the person that they would have to be in order to carry out that act_. One can’t be ‘a good person except for being an unrepentant rapist’, the latter simply negates the former. Laughing at rape jokes isn’t the same thing, though. The vast majority of people who have done so (myself included, in my cretinous youth) probably find humour in it precisely because it is taboo. Rape isn’t funny, but - on some deep, murky level - our discomfort around it is. Rape jokes exploit the fact that we don’t like to acknowledge it flippantly in social situations. I don’t buy the argument that ‘rape humour’ evidences a social undercurrent of rape culture and acceptance; if anything, it’s the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/53 "2016-05-21T14:21:52Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > I am so judging you for asking this question. Even just once. ^ QFT. > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If they think “It’s okay, but not about my group” it’s stupid. This one of the strongest roots of the weed that is Racism. Its also why racism still persists in private between people of the exact same background and/or culture. The problem is that with the social media available today, this hate is also shared on private groups on Facebook, REDDIT, Paltalk, 4chan, etc. with handy captioned graphics for ‘instant gratification’, with each person egged on by the prior one. For those less PC literate racists, for a monthly fee, hate humor can be delivered right to their car every day… by satellite radio. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/54 "2016-05-24T20:18:27Z")
> [@MrLee](#): > > Laughing at rape jokes isn’t the same thing, though. The vast majority of people who have done so (myself included, in my cretinous youth) probably find humor in it precisely because it is taboo. There are many jokes and forms of art – including popular Rap and Rock music which are offensive to Liberals and are likely to be banned. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/55 "2016-05-24T20:21:04Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > There are many jokes and forms of art – including popular Rap and Rock music which are offensive to Liberals and are likely to be banned. nothing is “likely to be banned” (in the U.S. anyway). ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/56 "2016-05-24T20:23:54Z")
If anyone think rape is funny I would think that person is a rapist or capable of being one ! I know women that been raped and there wasn’t one fucking thing funny about it ! ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/57 "2016-05-24T20:25:58Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > nothing is “likely to be banned” (in the U.S. anyway). Action Bronson was recently forced to apologize for his Brunch music video. Does anyone keep track of how many Rock and Rap artists were muzzled? ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/58 "2016-05-24T20:28:09Z")
> [@purplehearingaid](#): > > If anyone think rape is funny I would think that person is a rapist or capable of being one ! I know women that been raped and there wasn’t one fucking thing funny about it ! As long as jokes [like this](http://www.amazon.com/Ran-Into-Vintage-Humor-Coffee/dp/B0016665ZG) are everywhere, laughing at anything is fair. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/59 "2016-05-24T20:34:52Z")
> [@purplehearingaid](#): > > If anyone think rape is funny I would think that person is a rapist or capable of being one ! I know women that been raped and there wasn’t one fucking thing funny about it ! But dead baby jokes are hilarious! What’s 18 inches long, purple, and makes women scream? ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980/60 "2016-05-24T20:38:38Z")
Judge my character, I laughed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-tend-to-judge-a-persons-character-from-one-belief-that-they-hold/754980.md?page=4)