THE RUSH TO JUDGMENT

As the incomplete and conflicting stories come in about president Bill Clinton and former intern Monica Lewinsky the tendency to judgment grows. Clinton's supporters judge the Starr investigation as a political witchhunt, a right-wing conspiracy. Clinton's detractors delight in the fact that Starr is homing in on serious violations of the law. Some think the violations will eventually be proven and that the offenses are impeachable. Maybe Clinton will resign, allowing Gore to run for re-election as an incumbent in the year 2000.

The cloud of judgment hangs over the morass. Some judge the independent counsel as going beyond his original directive, costing unnecessary millions of the taxpayers money, and seeking only to bring down the Democratic administration. Others judge the purported sexual behavior of the president as unseemly, if not an arrogant abuse of power.

The phenomenon of judgment goes to the techniques Starr used to get personal and private information about the president. When a former White House insider, Linda Tripp, gave information to Starr, he wanted more than hearsay evidence, and so he had her 'wired', so that she could converse with a relatively vulnerable and talkative Lewinsky, who it is said had an affair with the president.

There is a tendency to judgment about Starr's surreptitious technique of getting what could be construed as personal and private information. Another article about Justice Department investigations stated that surreptitious recording is simply standard practice nowadays, as organized crime figures and clever §crooks easily evade prosecutorial attempts to convict them. Some people feel our private lives and private peccadillos should be sacred, sacrosanct, a right and freedom which should never be violated by the government.

The understanding is that we are all guilty of some sin at one time or another. Therefore, anyone whose privacy is being invaded, is being singled out for some nefarious reason, never a valid one. No person should have to undergo governmental and media scrutiny. Do 'the people' really want to know what goes on behind closed doors? Does it matter what the president does behind closed doors?

When the subject is sex, the subject becomes 'hot'. So the Clinton-Lewinsky affair is a hot item, inducing this media frenzy. Why is this? It is because of the latent wish of the child to know what goes on behind closed doors in his home. The parents go in their bedroom and close the doors. There is a time the children are not invited. Sometimes the door is locked. Children develop an intense curiosity about what is going on there, when there are strange sounds.

This child is still in all of us, buried in our unconscious. That is why we have a tendency to be glued to the television set or avidly interested in newspaper and magazine stories or listening to Talk Radio. Before any of this hit the headlines, many people followed the soaps and the daytime talk shows, where forbidden sex was the lure.

The Old Testament does not seem to judge the biblical standard of slavery and concubinage. The lovely and romantic 'Song of Songs' is King Solomon's erotic poetry to his beloved mistress. And in the New Testament, Jesus said to the people who were about to stone to death an adulteress, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." If one were to obtain a lesson from this famous quote, it would be that God tells us not to judge. Or He may be saying not to punish, because punishment is His and His alone on Judgment Day.

If there ever develops a higher consciousness, a transcendental understanding, that utopian world might look back on ours as unduly judgmental and punishing. Can you conceive of a world of universal unconditional love?

That is the picture we get of heaven, not of earth. As mere earthlings, we tend to judge and punish, because otherwise, most think, society would be in chaos and people would regress to primitive values, where might makes right and money talks and lines are drawn in the sand.

It is too bad that millions of our citizens are incarcerated in prisons, while other millions who have committed crimes roam free. But life isn't fair. Or life is hard, but fair--- fair because anyone and everyone is going to have to struggle and suffer; no one is exempt.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Judge not lest ye be judged.

Dr Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is Life Fellow of the APA and member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. Comments can be emailed to him: vbloom@comcast.net.