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Judging Others
Judging Others
Marjaine Satrapi in the Persepolis presents many issues that occurred during Iran’s revolution through presenting the mind of a little child. It is clear from the book’s words and imagery that Satarpi faced so much pressure in her childhood that formed her as a rebel at the end. Being forced to wear the scarf without understanding its meaning and purposes made her hate the idea of covering herself. For her it was just like taking her freedom away, and we see that though she puts the scarf on, she gets called for not putting it properly!
She presents how women were forced to wear the veil and cover themselves. As a result the veil becomes a part of their image whether they liked it or not. Satarpi also mentions that the way people dressed indicated their political views and religious thoughts. For example, the fundamentalist woman covered herself from head to toe but the modern woman showed her opposition to the regime by letting few strands of her hair show. Clearly, Satarpi conveys the importance of imagery in her book. In page 75, Satarpi’s mother comments on the dressing of one of her neighbors and says “Look at her! Last year she was wearing a miniskirt showing off her beefy thighs to the whole neighborhood. And now Madame is wearing a chador. It suits her better, I guess.” “chador” is a farsi word which means, a loose traditional dress that covers the body of a female except her face and hands.
The headscarf is not a social or a cultural issue, it is a religious issue. In the Perespolis, Satarpi presents how the scarf becomes a cultural issue, because no matter what you believed in, you had to put it on! It is interesting how imagery is looked upon in Persepolis. People are judged by their images, then their words and ideas. If images are more important than words, then we will end up judging others’ images not thoughts or thinking.
Do you judge people before you know their thoughts and ideas? Do you judge people based on how they look and dress or what they think and say? Image is important but does it mislead us and shape out thoughts? What do YOU think?
Unfortunately judgement, especially prejudgement, is a universal character of human society. No matter how much authority attempts to unify a people - whether through attire, culture, religion, or the like - the people will ultimately find a way to differentiate amongst each other. In Iran, the veil was an example of this. Although meant to unify all women, Marjane did not understand the religious significance and thus was able to focus on the differences it highlighted in its wearers.
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea of judgment is an interesting dimension to add to our comparison of the effects of words and images. We've discussed how images are often thought to appeal more directly to the senses and emotions, striking directly at the gut and prompting instinctive responses. This could explain why the way people looked (i.e. whether women wore the veil or men shaved their beards) was so important in Iran at this time - in the heightened tension of the revolution, image was a tangible and easily identified indicator of a person's political leanings, and a simple method of judgment.
ReplyDeleteJudging people based on the way they look or dress is unfortunately a large part of all human societies.I think this happens because if you don't know someone well enough to talk to them and learn their thoughts and ideas, you have no other way of thinking about them, or remembering them apart from the way they look and dress. Similarly, a change in the way one dresses can say something about that person as well. In the story, Satrapi's mother points out the lady who went from wearing a mini-skirt to wearing a chador. It leads one to question her motives for wearing the chador, and whether she actually believes in what she's doing.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that we tend to criticize those who judge based on image more harshly than those who judge based on words. If someone claims that someone else has a certain characteristic based on their appearance, one is likely to ask whether the claimant has ever actually "spoken" to the person being judged. However, if we make judgements based on what we hear or read, it is rare that anyone will ask if we have ever "seen" the person we are judging. Perhaps this is due to our awareness of how culture and politics affect appearance, as in Persepolis. The veil is mandatory, and thus making a judgement about a woman wearing it would be unfounded. However, I think it is important to note the effect of culture and politics on words as well. It is also important to determine the extent to which judgement is needed; for while judgement, especially based on appearances, is typically cast in a bad light, in many situations correct action is contingent upon proper judgement.
ReplyDeleteI also think that, while you are not supposed to "judge a book by its cover," it is an inevitable part of being human. That is why an image can be so powerful. While it is unjust to judge someone based on their appearance, I think that people consciously create an image for themselves through the way they dress, put on makeup, wear accessories, and style their hair. By doing this, people basically allow or invite others to judge them by how they create their image. In a way, people want others to judge them because they see others as a mirror. Their opinions reflect who the person is on the outside as well as on the inside. By forcing Iranians to change or cover their appearance, the government stripped the people's ability to express themselves and display their self-image. In a place where every woman is forced to wear a veil, it is unclear who chooses to do so and for what reasons. In a place like America where people have the choice, wearing the veil acts as the declaration of self-image to others, inviting them to judge the individual but also learn more about her opinions, beliefs, and decisions. Having appearance and images be such a powerful force may be negative at times, but it can also facilitate self-expression, curiosity, and education.
ReplyDeleteI would like to address the "you" part of Fatema's question, a.k.a. me. I do judge people based on their appearances. It is not only innate but I carefully learned capability that humans learn. We often make the blatant statement that judging someone based on their appearance is wrong, but I think part of what Satrapi is showing us is that we can learn a lot from someones appearance. Making hasty assumptions is rarely ever good, but people often have a reason or some cause for their appearance, and that should be taken into account when considering who they are. As long as you understand the origins or consider the different possibilities behind someone's appearance, it is often okay to "read" people, again, as long as you leave the possibility for mistake. In regard to the veil, I caught myself during NSO, when we all went around introducing ourselves, not interacting but only observing people with the veil. I realized that this was especially strange because one of my best friends here wears it and I thought nothing of it because I generally ignored it. The middle ground I have found is trying to understand what someone is saying by wearing it, while respecting alternative possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely agree with the point that you raise when you say that the image comes before anything when looking at other people and their specific lifestyles. I think that everyone at some point has an idea of a person when just a simple glance or an image ends up formulating that perception of a person. Sometimes it’s easy to judge other people based on the way the act or dress, even though we might not truly understand their lifestyles, and/or their religious background. I say images of people most of the time lead us to bad judgments. Just as in Persepolis, it seems that the images that Satrapi presents sometimes seem more powerful than what she says. However, breaking away from bad judgment can easily be overcome with words, for sometimes they are better at presenting actuality.
ReplyDeleteI think your concern with images, Fatema, is very similar to the Empiricists' concern with words. As I see it, you express a concern with how we perceive images based on our prior experiences, thereby judging them prematurely. This is similar to the concern with words shared by the Empiricists. As most of the comments here agree, we should aim not to allow our prejudices to color our woldview. Can we see this concern as being similar to the ones expressed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume? Satrapi's concern is both with the system and the people who judge and are judged. Will approaching the problem like the Empiricists did help us find a solution?
ReplyDeleteThe mandate to 'not judge a book by its cover' is one that's been bandied around so often, by PSAs and elementary school teachers and parents, that it's lost all its potency. And even in the beginning, it wasn't all that accurate. Social progress is usually marked and measured by our ability to do away with incorrect readings of those covers. We still judge people by how they appear to us. We always will. Our ability to categorize, to separate, to make assumptions that guide us in our interactions is one of our greatest strengths as a culture, a society, a species. So yes, we judge people by how they look. We also judge them by how they speak, act, walk, write, and argue. We judge them by their personality tics, by their overzealousness or by their apathy, by their bravery or their reclusiveness. If we didn't judge people based on anything, if we treated all people exactly the same and made no distinction based on anything we observed, how would we be able to relate to anyone? We should make it our goal not to avoid judgment, but to ensure that those judgments are accurate reflections of who that person is, of the culture or background that the person is a part of. To deny ourselves the ability to sort people based on how they choose to present themselves is to deny ourselves the ability to react to them appropriately. We should avoid evaluating others unfairly, or failing to give them an opportunity to change that evaluation, but flat-out denying the necessity to form some sort of judgment is unrealistic and often counterproductive.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have been known to judge people by how they look before talking to them. To a certain extent I believe it can be an accurate way of judging someone, but by no means should it be the first. I have been in many situations when I decide a person fits into a certain category and then after one conversation with them I realize they are completely different. However, that first impression tends to last and stay with me even though I know it has no basis and is false. So yes, I do believe judging by how people look can be a negative thing as it plants something in our mind that is not necessarily true and once it is there it is hard to get out.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sentiment repeated above: by human nature, we are predisposed to judge each other, perhaps because evolutionarily that would be advantageous in order to avoid danger. I do think, however, that this human tendency isn't insurmountable. That is, while we may be prejudiced at first glance, people can consciously override their subconscious judgments and, through free will, attempt to understand each other on a deeper level. While that ability may be problematic in fixing problems like job discrimination based on race simply because subconscious judgments are important in deciding whether someone is qualified for a job, for example, on the other hand, the human factor of willpower does give individuals hope to overcome the deceptive effects of immediate prejudice sparked through images.
ReplyDeleteI do think you bring up an important point: that images are not just the pictures Satrapi drew, nor the gruesome--or ordinary--scenes that occurred in the graphic novel. Rather, images also include broader types of information like impressions of others, taking on not only the limited dimensions of space and color, but also deeper, semantic dimensions like thought, intent, and beliefs. I hadn't really thought of images deeply in that way, and I'm glad you pointed that out.