No absolutes when it comes to humans

WHEN I penned an article and also spoke in a video extolling the five great characteristics that I admired about a politician who recently reached a centennial presence, I was surprised at the many negative comments I received.

The comments were negative in the sense that they all agreed with one view I had, that the particular politician hadn’t done well by Malaysia, but not with anything positive I said.

I had to explain that I never make it my practice – and it is never my spiritual stand – to judge anyone in absolute terms as I try to look at all people as flawed human beings who do some good and also some bad.

Both my academic training as well as my spiritual journey had come to the same conclusion about judging others; that we can only comment on what we know of the perceived bad deeds of a person but we have no right to consider such a person “absolutely evil”.

Are there people who are born absolutely evil? Are there people who spend their entire life doing nothing at all good for anyone? It’s hard to believe, and to me also scientifically and spiritually impossible, that anyone can be absolutely good or absolutely evil.

A similar thing happened at a talk I had given in Kuala Lumpur about Malaysian politics.

My message was that if we are to participate in the growth of our country while making informed decisions at the ballot box, then we must think like politicians and not like mere citizens thinking that we are right because of democratic freedom guaranteed under our Constitution.

I also said we shouldn’t judge any politician, whether just a representative or a minister or even a prime minister, as absolutely good or absolutely bad.

Academically, our judgement would be flawed on the grounds that we do not possess enough information since we have never held political office.

Furthermore, most of use don’t belong to a political group that has to work with different parties in a coalition made up of both allies and former rivals.

One person in the audience later suggested privately that I had erred in my statement because he thought that Adolf Hitler was an absolutely evil man, and so my statement about absolutes couldn’t stand.

I replied that yes, it was absolutely evil of Hitler to kill millions of human beings, including children and the elderly. But still, I said, before Hitler became this monster, he was a child, a teen, and a young adult and so I trust that there were at least some good deeds he had performed even if they were little things.

What I am most distressed about is the trend of judging leaders like the prime minister and ministers in absolute terms.

When these leaders do something that people think is wrong, the condemnation by columnists and influencers and ordinary people online is not only quick – often not waiting for all the facts – but also so fierce as to be irrational.

Oh this PM is totally bad or oh that minister tak tau buat kerja (doesn’t know how to do his job).

I mean, who the heck are these people to make such absolute statements when I know for a fact that 99.9% of the critics have never done the job of a PM or a minister for even one day – and probably wouldn’t survive it if they had to!

I have asked these people, since you do not like this PM then who should be at the head? There is usually no answer except sarcastic ones that I refuse to respond to. (Of course, members of political parties have their answers but I’m talking about ordinary people making noise online and in forums.)

So why the arrogance of judging in absolutes? How have our perspectives of the people responsible for the country become so intolerant and absolute?

I ask you, do we judge our wives, husbands, children, and close friends in absolute terms too? The answer is, of course not.

When it comes to family and friends we are generous enough not to deal in absolutes. There is tolerance for and understanding of the many different external forces that act on them to make them behave in a certain manner or make the decisions they do that we don’t agree with.

But when it comes to politicians, hey, there we go, flying off in absolutes!

Where does this flaw come from, this arrogance and intolerance in judging others in absolutes? Certainly, 11 years of schooling do not seem to able to teach us to relate to people different from us or who don’t think like us.

I remember reading a saying, perhaps from scripture somewhere, that says God will judge us all according to the judgement we put on others. We will surely fail this test when we judge others in absolute terms, and with complete intolerance.

It is always a popular thing to say that all things wrong in this country are because of bad and evil politicians.

After reading the comments made online about politics – allowed under our precious freedom of speech – I beg to differ.

I’m beginning to believe we deserve the nation we have because of our own actions and how we judge in absolutes with no room for tolerance or understanding.

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.