Judged: The Value of Being Misunderstood

Description

Judging other people and being judged by them is an inescapable part of our social reality. There is no occasion in which we can be a social being in the world without participating in acts of judgement. Our increasing preoccupation with online 'selves' only serves to intensify and extend this experience of constantly having a reputation to maintain and protect. Ziyad Marar's provocative and thoroughly engaging exploration of judgement in our contemporary world is an urgent work responding to the fragility of reputation - when one careless tweet can destroy a career or one foolish image can damage a life - and our determination to judge at every available opportunity. This book traces our journeys in judgement using examples from the everyday and popular culture including Breaking Bad, Shakespeare and the works of Philip Roth. Ziyad Marar accepts that certain judgements are inevitable but questions whether judgement can continue to exist without social empathy and whether, in the end, our reputations are as important as we think they are.

Ziyad Marar has published three books and is Deputy Managing Director and Executive Vice President Global Publishing at SAGE Publications.

"Marar writes in a lively, narrative style. Careful readers will be struck by the subtle distinctions Marar draws between various forms of judgment and the various representations of both social and personal identity. The discussion benefits from helpful endnotes and figures, references to pop culture, and autobiographical insights ... Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates, professionals, general readers." - CHOICE "Philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, moralist, cutting edge cultural commentator: Marar reveals he is all these, through writing as insightful and stimulating as it is entertaining and accessible. Marar richly describes how we all swim, sink, even drown, in oceans of each other's judgement. Judgement is heaven and hell, craved and loathed, it makes us fully human. Our being-for-others is a primeval existential truth, and social media is its new and disturbing dimension. Marar's analysis of how e-judgement is redefining us is timely and brilliant." - Gary Cox, author of 'How to Be an Existentialist' "This is a lovely book, extraordinary in its range of reference and yet written with a wonderful lightness of touch. It's also refreshingly disorientating. You will find yourself re-examining your judgement of others. More disturbingly, you will end up reappraising your own actions and motives. Do not expect to emerge unscathed!" - - David Edmonds, author (with John Eidinow) of 'Wittgenstein's Poker' and co-host of the Philosophy Bites podcast (www.philosophybites.com) "Ziyad Marar is a humane writer and thinker, realising that grappling with our own nature, and reaching for objective and subjective insights, makes for the very best philosophy." - Mark Vernon, author of 'The Idler Guide to Ancient Philosophy' "This is a deft, forgiving and very helpful account of how we can avoid some of the messes we invariably get into when we are judging others and being judged by them. We feel compelled to judge other people but often do so in deeply flawed ways, all the while hoping that others will judge us in ways most flattering to our needy egos. You cannot read it without stopping to think a little more reflectively and generously about what really matters in life." - Charles Leadbeater, author 'We Think' and 'The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur'