How judgmental are you?

Yes....sigh...

Yep! But I'd hate to come across as being sycophantic!

Oh yes, POGS know what you mean exactly.

Who is this sicko Fantic?

kittylester.

I looked up the word sycophant as I wasn't sure what it meant.

'person who uses flattery to win favour from people with power or influnence'.

I would say I would rather be known as a sycophant than the person who thinks they hold power or influence. They have names too but I will refrain, for the mo.

Greatnan - wonderful and hopeful news! I'm so very pleased for you.

Glad things went well greatnan had noticed lack of posts from you & guessed you were traveling!

Uriah Heep was a great sycophant..very 'umble!

Some people allow themselves to be manouvered into a position where they become sycophantic & then its hard to turn it around. It can be a bully /victim situation. We had a good programme at school to support children, that we identified as potential bully victims, to help them be more assertive and in control so they do not fall into the role of victim.

POGS - one of its meanings is also quoted as 'deference', implying a yielding or submitting to the judgment of a recognized superior out of respect or reverence.

On the other hand the non-judgemental thing may have gone too far.

No one seems to judge anyone or anything nowadays - and, socially and ethically things do not seem to be getting any better, maybe worse!

I know what you mean, specki, but in real terms we have improved socially and ethically. There is a much greater acceptance of social mixing across class and ethnicity now than ever before, and there is much greater tolerance of cultural difference where it does not confer advantage or disadvantage. These things are even, to some extent, enshrined in law now. Think of, say, people's attitudes to the education of females. Definitely an improvement from Jane Austen's time. And think of attitudes to homosexuality nowadays compared with back when it was regarded as a crime. I know some people still have retrograde ideas about such things, but they are a minority, thankfully, and laws are still changing in a positive way.

Yes, when you look at the facts, things have definitely improved socially and ethically.

Hey Bags it was not just in JA's day, my father firmly believed that women should be pregnant and in the kitchen. I was supposed to be grateful I was allowed to stay on for O levels but he wouldn't let me do As. Different for my 3 brothers though. He still wouldn't let me speak to anyone called Campbell because of their alliance with the English!

I think that everything else probably depends where you live, cities are a bit ahead of the countryside. I have seen one person here in the rural place I live who didn't know what to say when I said DS1 was married to a girl of Pakistani origin, DS" married to a Dutch girl and DS3 engaged to a girl who was born in Trinidad of Trinidadian father and Turkish mother. Another person once said (but only once because of my reaction!) that they (black people) should all be sent home. I think that some people are still a long way behind the times but I am very happy that things have improved as much as they have and I look forward to the time when my GC grow up and everyone accepts that there is no difference between any of us.

Poor you, with a father like that.

Re not knowing what to say about your sons' marraiges, I'm afraid I wouldn't say anything either. What's to say, other than "Oh"? Let me explain. I had a friend from Ecuador when I was in Oxford. He was not of 'typical' South American looks, nor Hispanic, so I wondered, just out of curiosity, what his roots were. Turned out he was the offspring of a Spanish Catholic and a German Jew. When he told me this, I just said "Oh", or maybe it was "ah!" because that filled in my information gaps.

He said, "Is that all?!!!"

Puzzled, I said, "Yes".

It was the first time someone had simply accepted his delineation without "further complications". I think that meant he had experienced some negative feedback previously, though why is beyond me.

However, I do understand your reaction to obvious racism, and quite right too.

We're you a McDonald then?

What, when I was in Oxford? Not that I'm aware of. Will ask DD, who is making a family tree if we have any McDonalds in the family. We have McIntoshes. You need those in the west of Scotland climate.

Think jeni's query was to Alison, Bags!

I can never keep up with jeni

Jeni I think you might have been asking me. I was (and still think of myself as) a Mackenzie.

No surprise that I let my sons do just what they wanted for careers after a parent like that. They may not now be particularly highly paid but they have had a good time doing what they wanted to and the 2 who have moved on to second careers are happy so far.

Bags I can assure you it wasn't that kind of 'oh'! But I just let them get on with it and hope that they like me enough to think about it and realise it is irrelevant.

I'm prejudiced against prejudice! I get very cross with racists and homophobes etc.

But I was brought up to hold any form of prejudice in contempt, by parents who were way ahead of their time in these matters.

Mind you, I have to hold myself in check because I could well be prejudiced against people who are thick, so I tell myself it is not their fault. Trouble is there are people who refuse to think about anything with any depth, so they do not use their brains and it eventually becomes obvious.

But - I accept their right to live, think or not think, as they choose.

You could say I'm prejudiced against the Tory party, but that isn't prejudice; it's experience!!

Prefudices are irrational. I've never thought of you as irrantional, joan, so I doubt if you have any real prejudices. Not liking something for proper reasons is not prejudice.

Surely being cross with racists and homophobes isn't prejudice in itself but the appropriate response to prejudice.

I do dislike the term homophobe as, strictly speaking, it means "fear of the same" which, in context, is pretty meaningless. But then that comment should have been in Pedants' Corner. Shut up absent!

Somebody I love dearly is horribly racially prejudiced. I have tried rational argument, pointing out the absurdity of lumping billions of people together because they share a common culture/race/religion but nothing I can say makes any difference. I thought her sons might have had a benign influence through meeting different types of people at university, but I have a feeling they are not much better. I have given up now as it just causes bad feeling and I think she is too old to change. I have, of course, pointed out that I am an immgrant and so are my daughter's family but apparently that doesn't count because we 'fit in' with our adopted countries.

Alison, I think your multi-ethnic family sounds interesting and your grandchildren will grow up knowing so much about different cultures.

I am aware of my own irrational prejudice against people who have had a privileged upbringing but having known several of them personally I now accept that they are just as diverse as those of us who had impoverished childhoods and they are just as likely to suffer 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'.

It is not prejudice to be opposed to someone who is trying to impose unjust laws or turning a blind eye to abuse of any kind - it is common sense.

Joan, yes I know exactly what you mean. I am totally intolerant of intolerance.

Our grand-children have 3 races, and about 10 nationalities and countless religions as part of their genetic heritage over the last 4 generations. But it makes no difference whatsoever to other people, as it does not 'show'. They look typically Anglo-Scottish-Irish - but they are much more mixed race that most so called 'mixed-race' children.

My husbands father's family were split into three separate groups at the time of apartheid - arbitrarily and solely on skin colour. His father was the only one to be deemed 'white', most of the others 'coloured' and 2 of them 'black'. My MIL was labelled coloured- so they were no longer allowed to live together (:
As the father was English, they were allowed to come and live in England, my OH was 2 at the time.

Stuck for something to read recently, I have started to read 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' and am thoroughly enjoying it. (I thought it was a book I would just dip into.) I had heard a few of the Radio4 programmes on which the book is based.
In part one, of the section, 'Making us Human', the author (Neil Macgregor) concludes:
'Listening to the news on the radio, or watching it on television, it is easy to see the world as divided into rival tribes and competing civilizations. So it's good, in fact it's essential, to be reminded that the idea of our common humanity is not just an Enlightenment dream, but a genetic and cultural reality'.....
People who are intolerant, on racial grounds, would perhaps benefit from considering this.

From a different point of view how about being judgemental..of yourself..I have had a very basic education,and I read your posts with envy at all the interesting subjects and books that you are reading,and judge myself.I should take an interest in reading these for myself ,but where do I start,and with what,I have had said to me many times that I am intelligent,and once said of me that " had I have had the benefit of a good education,I could have gone far" from a professional colleague,I didn't realise until reading The threads,how basic and uneducated I am,and I judge myself because I should have known that there was more to learn,but other things got in the way,I know that this is probably low self esteem ,lack of confidence,inferiority complex,so I am judgemental of myself....does this make sense..

Nell Don't give in to the "low self-esteem" gremlin. You have a lively brain and a superb imagination, you deal sensible and lovingly with your family problems, and you are appreciated on this forum

The books people mention on here are probably available on amazon, and even free to borrow from the public library. If you phone the library they will reserve them for you, or get them from another branch, and you pick them up when you are next there. If you find you don't like the one you chose, don't worry, return it and try another - nothing lost.