Children These Days

Couple of days back i was talking to a friend while having idli and coffee. He was an elderly gentleman and commented that my coffee was getting cold. I just smiled and asked him mischievously what he could say about people who were picky about coffee being hot.

He answered in a serious tone that you couldn't say anything about a person who preferred hot coffee. Some prefer it hot, he added, while others prefer to take it lukewarm. And that It was being judgmental if one were to venture to describe a person's character based on his (temperature of coffee) drinking habits. 

I let it go. He went on to tell me that (adult) children these days do not take care of their senior parents and that our generation took care of our parents. I suggested that we should seek our parents' opinion on our care taking ability especially since we are freely venturing our verdict on our children's care taking ability of their parents. He said his parents were no more, so how could we.

I asked him whether saying that the current younger generation does not take care of its seniors well wouldn't be considered to be judgemental. He was taken aback. He said, "No it's just an opinion". 

That begged my next question - how is an opinion different from a judgement? He stammered. And then we went on to other topics.

Now the question is: how is it that he found an opinion about coffee drinker's habits to be judgemental while an opinion about the current generation to be kosher?

My belief is this: my opinion about coffee drinkers (i didn't even tell him what that opinion was, just that there could be a pattern) was too strange to digest and hence he dismissed it as being judgmental. While the opinion about the current generation is oft repeated and hence could be mentioned without having to prove it.

Either of the opinions (his or mine) could have been faulted or been faulty. 

He didn't want to discuss the truth of either opinion. Mine was dismissed. His wasn't to be questioned. The entire conversation was very polite. But underneath the politeness.. 

Feeler  (MBTI) definitely. 

Both judgments (mine and his) come from our S1. Mine would have used S2 (conscious rational thought) but could have jumped to a wrong conclusion because of S1 without sufficient data analysis. Each of us is quick to point out quirks in someone else's faulty judgement while being nepotic towards our own.

Wow.

For an intro into S1, S2 read https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/10/thinking-fast-and-slow-daniel-kahnemann.html