Perception

I don't know how people can perceive someone without judging them. To perceive someone is to become aware of, notice or understand them through the senses. Maybe for a split second we are "just" perceiving them, but when our mind takes over, there is a whole lot more that goes on without our knowledge. We perceive what the person is wearing, doing, saying, and (in some cases) if they smell nice or not. As soon as their attributes hits our sense, our cultural beliefs and norms take over.

They have a Louis Vuitton bag, which signifies money. You catch them mid-sentence talking about clubbing seals. Someone bumps into your car, leaves a dent, and then walks aways. There doesn't necessarily have to be an interaction with an individual to judge them. Judgements are not always right, and our cultural beliefs can trick us into judging someone wrong, or unfairly.

So, let's go through the list, one by one, and see how perception and judgement go hand in hand, shall we? (By the way, all the examples above either happened to myself or someone I know.)

1. Louis Vuitton: initial perception is observing in the bag, which your mind then relates to money. People get angry and assume this person gets everything they want. In reality though, it was a gift from a friend. The real kicker? It was a knock-off.

2. Clubbing seals: My friend and I were talking about a documentary we saw about people clubbing baby seals for their fur, and I said, "Yeah, let's go club some baby seals!" What they did hear was the discussion of "who the hell even tells someone about that? Do they say 'wanna do something fun?'" ... this girl thought I was being serious then yelled at me for being insensitive. I didn't have time to explain that I was against it and couldn't believe that people actually do that.

3. Car dent: Walking my friend to her car during a break at work, some person slammed into her car, then took off. She, of course, yelled obscenities at the guy, called him a jerk, then we saw that he was chasing a run away shopping cart with his kid still in it. Yea, we felt bad about that one. The kid was alright though. No worries.

See, we might be able to perceive someone without judging them, but in order to do that, we cannot have any cultural knowledge what so ever. Our knowledge is what allows us to judge others. Even if we are saying that they are nice, we are still judging them.