identification

To judge is to not accept something as is, and as humans, we consciously or unconsciously reject certain parts of our intimate existence. For example, we keep clutter in control to be able to stay predictable and organized. That is an example of how we are, and it encompasses many different lines of quality that we draw upon for our society to function. At the very core, those lines become numbers in spreadsheets, separated by their value and position. So we do need to judge, and we do judge. But why is it sometimes frowned upon to be a judgmental person?

Judgement is a blade that can cut presumed right from wrong. But this distinction is not absolute, and the majority of it is based on experiences we had in different scenarios of life, which made us make a system of mostly generalized thinking about the world. For example, we feel free to think about a country and have opinions about it when all we have experienced from it has been the location of it on the world map or some news about it. Not a single living person from that country has been in our close vicinity in our whole existence, but we do have opinions about millions of people and millions of square kilometers of land. We may find depths in certain areas also. For example, for one person, a car might be summarized as a four-door vehicle with wheels that consume fuel and move, and for another person, the details of the mechanical and electrical design of it might come to mind when they think about cars. 

We face a manifold for the world around us, making a shape in our mind, allowing us to understand what the world is and what we want and do not want from it. Luck if we have that sense. Understanding comes before judgment, and understanding itself doesn't give us the ability to have an opinion or choose. For example, if there are two different cuisines that we can choose from, it is not trivial to choose even if we know everything about their origin and ingredients. After tasting them and spending time, sometimes multiple times, trying the food, we can build a relative opinion about what we want to have. Even then, sometimes it is not easy to decide between two different things. 

So the mental image is a dynamic image, like a terrain map, which gets shaped by how we feel about certain experiences.

For us, other humans are also parts of this picture. Whether or not we want them in our lives becomes a similar thing. The difference is that it is a more mutual experience to be with a human. There is a lot more of us, and the volume of information and the spectrum of feelings which can be experienced with a human are richer and more multi-dimensional than a food or a trail, for example. Sometimes it is easier to think of people who are too different from us as a race. This can help anticipate cultural behavior and how people act in certain situations for the majority of individuals. For example, it is expected that a person from India would like spicy food. This should never mean that everyone from India consumes an ass burning amount of spice in their food. There are certainly people who like more bland food, and that makes a distinction. But are these statistical measures a good tool to work with this world?

It becomes extremely difficult to work with the unknown if we can't have a first guess. And it is not wise to start from scratch every time. This is because, at the end of the day, if you end up analyzing everyone from a certain culture, you will find that the majority of them will converge on the expectation.

The flaw with the oversimplification and generalization is to block communication and assume knowing a person with presumptions. This will cause friction, especially if that person exists in our immediate life. Communication is important to sculpt the generalizations into identifications.