Reengineering the Thought Process

I came across a very interesting story in my English textbook, that got me thinking some about some serious stuff. 

The basic premise of the tale was that judging people based on physical appearance is wrong, and that people we judge to be "good" must be of great mental strength, and have a "good" personality. 

But why?

These adjectives that we are supposed to attribute to "good people" (like honesty, character, etc.) are, at the base of it, completely arbitrary. (The truth of the matter is that most of us would prefer style over substance, but that's not what I am interested in, now)

I am asking a more basic and fundamental question, "Why are these qualities called desirable, and others undesirable?" I mean, why do we think of Lincoln and Gandhi as good, and Hitler and Napoleon as bad? 

The obvious answer of course, is "because of what they did." In other words, their actions. 

But what makes these actions good and others bad?

Why is freeing a country good, and massacring people bad? (Pardon the sentiments, I feel rather psychopathic at the moment) 

Why do we assign these "tags" to people and to actions?

I don't know. (If I did, I wouldn't tell you about it)

Back to the story, there is no solid, concrete reason for saying that judging people on appearance is wrong, or in any case, there is no justification for saying that it is any more wrong than judging based on character. You can say stuff like "Appearance is natural, but character is built by the person and is the result of his efforts," but to that I say, "As appearance is natural, isn't it nature's way of endowing "good" people with a nice appearance?"

Please note, I am not for judging based on looks, I am playing devil's advocate and am trying to learn something about humans as a society. 

It appears that humans have come together, and have quite randomly assigned certain traits to be good, and others bad. We have been programmed to think that roses smell enchanting, but sewage should smell appalling. Why?

(Note: If you've followed this until now, you should be proud of yourself. Cause I haven't. I seriously have no idea where I'm going with this, as you could tell by my rephrasement of the same question about six times)

That brings me to my topic, Reengineering the Thought Process. We need to ponder over what we think is "good" or "bad", and live our lives by those criteria. Even Hitler would have considered his actions to be "good", for else, if there was even an iota of doubt in his conviction to carry out what he perceive to be his duty, the guilt of his crimes would have driven him to suicide. (He did end up killing himself, but for other reasons). 

But what Hitler forgot is the basic definition of liberty- freedoms that you can avail, so long as they don't infringe upon the freedom of others. So you'd better keep that in mind, or else you too could join his elite league of People You Don't Want To Defend While Blogging. 

People advise not to be judgemental, but I disagree. You are completely entitled to judge others, as long as you are perfect in those criteria you judge by. You know what they say, "People who live in Glass Houses shouldn't urinate in the basement", or something like that. 

So in conclusion, have your own definition of good or bad, or else you become as pathetic as one who depends on some random internet troller to read your blog, and trust me, it's not a pleasant experience.