Before You Judge Someone, Walk a Mile in Their Shoes

In my final year of high school, my debate class teacher gave us the topic for debate practise. It was ‘Walk a mile in someone’s shoes before you judge them’. She told us that this adage emphasised empathy and that we should not judge anyone before we have experienced their trials. As soon as we heard the meaning, all of us chose to speak for the proverb, and there was no one to speak against it.

The teacher was forced to pick a few of us to speak against it, despite the fact that we all agreed with the proverb. Our teacher explained that we need to broaden our thinking and see what all can go wrong with this attitude, and make good arguments. She threw this challenge to us to prepare us for a future where we will need to go against our attitude paradigms to find new and better solutions.

For the sake of this debate, we sat and brainstormed on the topic to find things to negate this proverb. We came up with a few convincing points which we did not fully comprehend at that point in our lives. At that time, we were arguing for the sake of the debate, yet now, with some life experience behind us, I can understand the truth behind our arguments.

We had argued that to accurately judge a situation, while one needs empathy, that alone cannot do the job. Too much empathy will cloud one’s objectivity and distort the facts. For example, poverty and destitution do not justify robbery and looting. A person cannot say that his need for money to feed his family drove him to steal from another family and get himself acquitted.

Another argument that we made was that each person can learn a different lesson from the same experience, and hence there is no guarantee that everyone will come to the same conclusion. Our attitude makes the biggest impact in all our experiences. A pacifist will avoid conflict no matter which situation they are in, while a person who loves confrontations will do the exact opposite.

Our clinching argument in the debate was that truth and facts cannot and should not change based on empathy and perspective. A wrong should be a wrong, no matter who does it or their reason for doing it. Thievery, murder, lying, etc., are crimes, and that should not change under any circumstances. Certain cornerstones of civilised society should not be compromised for anything.

Back in my school days, we spoke on this topic without comprehending the gravity of these statements. Nowadays, when one sees a world where social media justice and trials in the court of media and public are commonplace, a person’s empathy can easily be weaponised and used against the truth. In such situations, walking in someone’s shoes will only take one farther away from justice rather than closer to it.