People often judge others harshly for two reasons: 1-) a lack of similar life experiences, often traumatic; and 2-) the belief, conscious or subconscious, that traumatic life experiences always owe to some personal defect, mistakes, or shortcomings. That is, a failure to appreciate the unique challenges that people face, often independent of choices they have made.
This view was common in the ancient world. Jesus’s own disciples, when confronted with a blind man, asked him “Who sinned, he or his father, so that he was born blind?”—before being corrected.
There is never any excuse for hurting others, period. But when we see people struggling, the least we can do is give them the benefit of the doubt, rather than treating them harshly and complicating any chance they have of getting better.
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