Reflection Conondrum

The other day, a few of my associates got to arguing.  The conversation went something like this:

"...She's a neurotic ego-manic.  Everyone knows it" said one.

"Really?  People who live in glasses shouldn't throw stones" said the other.

"What?!  Are you serious?  You think I'm like that self-centered bitch?"

"Well, you do have a tendency to project your problems on to others, don't you?"

At this point, my friend who made the "neurotic ego-maniac"  accusation, was beside herself.

"Oh come on! Just because I pegged her for what she is, that means I am an ego-maniac?  That's stupid"

"You have to admit, it's pretty egotistical of you to judge her" he quipped

"Yea?" she paused for a moment, "well, its pretty fucking egotistical of you to judge me!"

They went on like that for another ten minutes, most of which time I was trying pretend like I wasn't listening.   But it got me thinking about what happens when we make judgements about people and their actions.

When judging or labeling what we see in people or their behaviors, we only perceive what we have experienced.  When we see a person frowning, we only know they are sad because we too have experienced the particular emotion that goes with that particular frown. This is not to say that we must be experiencing the conditions we observe in others; one can observe something they have experienced in the past and recognize it in another experiencing it now. 

What does this mean? In part, at least, it means that every crime of character that we label, we have also been guilty of  (though this also pertains to virtues as well--but that discussion is for another day). 

This admission-labeling aspect of our existence can manifest in various ways of being. There is the oblivious-accuser type, who sees fault everywhere except themselves; there are the limited-identifiers that sees one aspect of a thing in a thing (one they have experienced before) and assumes they have full knowledge of the situation; the universal-identifiers, who relate some compatible experience of theirs to every experience anyone else mentions, is yet another type. There are many, many more. 

The part of all this that intrigues me most is when admission-labeling aspect is applied to itself. Sometimes we observe someone labeling another, and cry, "labeler...admiter", or in some other way bring attention to the reflection conundrum someone else is engaging in. Yet at that moment, we too are participating in the reflection conundrum (perhaps on more than one level). 

This becomes particularly difficult when we label someone as unconscious of their own delusion, dishonest with themselves, or participating in some other sort of self-duplicity or ignorance. When we do that we are, at a minimum, admitting that we too have engaged in that behaviour--which is to say we have the capacity to believe our own "bullshit". At worst, we are attacking a flaw in another that we are currently guilty of. Either way, given that we have demonstrated an ability to buy-in to our own fictions, how do we ever know that we are not just engaging in our own delusions when labeling? 

Again, this conundrum is multiplied when we label someone who is  labeling someone else. 

How do you handle this? Do you think it's valid? Is there some aspect of this that is being overlooked completely? 

PS: be careful how you answer...you labelers ;)