I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of respect lately, mainly because it has come up in a lot of different contexts recently what with all the political shenanigans, media that I’ve watched, and as people start coming to grips with the looming spectre of facism rearing its ugly head once again across the globe.
Just like so many terms in the popular discourse of today, I believe that the term “respect” has become devalued and twisted away from its original meaning. We are taught from a very early age - at least here in the US - that there are certain professions or offices that automatically confer respect onto those who work within them, and at the same time we are not taught that those “title holders” need to be held up to the standards of that position in order to be given the respect that comes along with it. More on that later.
In Christian theology, a German, Lutheran theologian by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts forward the idea of “cheap” and “costly” grace. “Cheap grace” means justification of the sin without the justification of the sinner; it is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. “Costly grace”, on the other hand, is the gospel that must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a person must knock; it requires daily reevaluation of the spiritual self and seeking to change oneself to match the grace that is given, not merely let the grace leave them unchanged.
With that in mind, I submit that there is the notion of “cheap” and “costly” (or alternatively, “weak” and “strong”) respect. Let me show you what I mean.
Cheap/Weak Respect
I’ve recently watched a British superhero drama called Supacell. It centers on 5 relatively average people that all suddenly get superpowers and all of the high drama that ensues. One of the “supers” is a young man in a gang that has the mantra, “Money, Power, Respect”, the premise being of course that money and/or power = respect. And for a very, very large part of the population, that equation is true. The easiest way to power is by gathering large sums of money, but power can be attained in other ways as well (usually with a lot more work at a much slower pace). Just having money confers a certain level of power in just about every society, and we have been (erroneously) taught that “being rich is worthy of respect”.
Ironically, even with money as the primary driving force, I consider this to be cheap respect. It’s weak. Why? Because this is a respect that is bound to a tool, not the person wielding the tool. We usually have no idea how this person actually got all that money that put them in their position of power, so we “fill in the gaps” and end up attributing respect to them that they didn’t earn. Gathering enough money to attain power isn’t really an action worthy of respect, in my book.
And the respect that is given is entirely focused and dependent on the tool itself. Take that tool away, and suddenly the power goes with it, and that person is somehow no longer worthy of the respect that they once were because we see that best case, they’re just like us; in the worst case, they’re worse human beings than us.
Let me also say that fear is not the same as respect. Gaining respect by exploiting another’s fear is essentially extortion because they are saying, “if you don’t respect me, I will hurt you”. But I’m going to say right now that if someone shoves a gun in my face, it’s not the person holding it that I respect - it’s the firearm itself that I “respect” because it’s the tool itself that can take my life. Any fool can wield a weapon. Fear is not the same as respect.
"Respect" gained through fear is no respect at all. Don't mistake fear for respect.
Respect gained through the emotional extortion of fear is tenuous and brittle. We see this all the time in politics, gangs, companies, family relationship, and elsewhere. Once the person being extorted overcomes their fear of whatever tool of power is forcing their “respect” of the wielder (either because they get angry enough that they challenge the extortionist or they are confronted with a conflicting tool that they fear more than the one currently being used against them), they will rebel and that weak respect evaporates. Law enforcement agencies use this all the time to cause accomplices to “roll over” on their co-conspirators (at least if TV is to be believed).
Weak respect must be constantly maintained by applying ever more force and making sure that one has the most powerful weapon. That kind of “king of the mountain” mentality has to be utterly exhausting. There’s always someone who wants to knock off the king.
Costly/Strong Respect
Costly or strong respect is something that is earned and built over time. It is something that is sought after every day, and the person who possesses strong respect is continually changed into a person that is worthy of the respect that the tools they use have afforded them. They use those tools properly and with care and usually (but not always) for the good of others as much as (if not more than) themselves.
Let’s take the legend of King Arthur as an example of this (mainly because I saw a cheeky news story earlier this week about a 7-year-old girl that found an old sword in the same lake where Arthur supposedly received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, and was now being touted as the new “ruler of Britain” as per the legend). According to the myth, whoever possessed Excalibur was the rightful ruler of Brittania. But in this case, possession is only part of the story, because Arthur needed to not only learn how to rule a whole kingdom, but he also had to learn how to properly wield the very sword that conferred upon him the title of King. If he just carried the sword and never learned how to use it, how could he ever earn the respect of battle-hardened knights and prevent any of the more ambitious ones (lookin’ at YOU, Sir Lancelot) from just lopping off his head one night and taking it from him? No, in order to be worthy of the respect that the tools conferred upon him (the sword AND the office of King), he both had to learn to use the sword and also make good and just decisions worthy of his status as leader in order to hold onto that respect and keep receiving it. If he only learned to use the sword, and solely ruled by fear, it wouldn’t be long before someone better than him at swordplay would decide that they should be king. So by living up to the principles of the office, and being a good leader who knew when (and how) to fight and when not to, and a man worthy of the title of King, he gained strong respect that engendered fierce loyalty not only from his closest associates but from the entire kingdom.
To use a more modern example, a police officer isn’t worthy of respect just because they have a badge on their chest and a gun on their hip; they need to live up to the principles that the badge symbolizes in order to receive that respect even when they are not wearing the badge or the gun. And they need to live up to those principles every single day. The badge is just a piece of metal; the gun is just an instrument of pain and death; it is the person wearing them that must bring that continued respect to those tools day after day after day.
And this also means that a “few bad apples” should never, ever be accepted as a valid excuse for any organization. Either everyone in that organization lives up to the same principles - and is held accountable to them - or they don’t. You can’t have some do it and others not and expect people to respect “the office” over your personal actions while in that position. People tend to conveniently forget the rest of that saying, which is “a few bad apples ruins the whole bushel”.
Strong respect means being willing to do the hard things, make the hard choices, and give people a reason to respect you AND your office because you’re making the office better, not simply because you’re a part of it. Strong respect means letting the principles of the office change YOU, not you changing IT to cover over your deviations from the core principles - it’s a two-way street.
How Did We Get Here?
I believe that this misbegotten acceptance of weak respect as the benchmark definition is what results when society doesn’t equally respect other human beings for simply existing and being just as equally human as themselves. If that respect for individual personhood were the norm, I probably wouldn’t be writing this essay at all.
But most of us, if we’re being truly, brutally honest with ourselves, don’t confer this basic level of respect of person in equal measure. Deep down in our heart of hearts, we refuse respect on the basis of the silliest of demarcations - things like race, gender, sexual preference, economic status, religion, ethnicity, mental health, past mistakes, number of visible tattoos, height, weight, shoe-size, boxers or briefs.
And the powerful, who demand respect, turn their power on every “them” that’s not “us” and use that power to amp up this lack of respect for “them” into a high-pitched, keening fear so that they can extort weak respect from “us” because they’re telling “us” that it’s alright to feel that way about “them”.
Which then leads “them” to, at some point, do whatever they can just to get a basic level of human respect so that they are not marginalized into oblivion. There’s a bit from Phil Collins’ song “Both Sides of the Story” that sums this up rather well in just two sentences:
Phil Collins, "Both Sides of the Story"
Would you really respect me if I didn’t have this gun? Because without it, I don’t get it, so that’s why I carry one.
And the cycle continues, on and on and on.
Are There Any Remedies?
It is heartbreaking that we, as a society, do not respect other people for simply being human and many of us cannot fathom any sort of equity that also celebrates the diversity of humanity. It always seems that every society has to resort to stratifying its members so as to impart some level of control. But when we remove basic respect for simply existing, we also remove the dignity of personhood that the respect brings along with it.
How can we start to do that? Well, I’ve got some ideas:
- Stop teaching children that people who hold certain positions or job titles are worthy of more respect simply because they hold those titles. Teach them why being a doctor, or policeman, or firefighter, or soldier, or teacher should be respected - the good things that those professions are known for - but also teach them that the title itself is not sufficient to command their respect. Each individual must live up to the most lofty ideals that their vocation espouses.
- Stop giving preferential and undue respect that is simply focused on the wrong markers of “respectability” (i.e. money, power, genetics, etc.)
- Start looking at everyone else from the base level of being a human that has needs, desires, and wants, regardless of how society/business/politics sees them. I believe that a great way to do this is to just start talking - and listening - to people in order to, as Phil Collins put it, hear both sides of the story. When you hear someone’s story and really listen to them, you’ll see that they’ve pretty much got the same problems as you do.
- Start respecting yourself enough to not care about what other people choose to do in their own space. In other words, respect yourself enough to be proud of who you are and what you like no matter what others think or do in their own spaces, without crossing that oh-so-fine line into selfish narcissism that becomes the “us” vs. “them” virus. This is admittedly hard to do and requires constant work, but if you can’t respect yourself enough to be yourself and live up to your own principles, then how can you expect anyone else to respect you the same way?
- Reset the expectations of what is worthy of respect based on the application of “weak” and “strong” respect outlined above. We need to learn to look beyond mere words and see the actions underneath, and recognize when we give weak respect based on the tools someone wields vs. when we give strong respect based on who they are and what they actually do.
- Listen first and see if there is any common ground to be found before focusing on inconsequential attributes of human diversity to put the commonalities at the forefront of interactions with that other person.
- Realize that those in positions of power want to subdivide us down into as many granular substrates as possible so that they can control us and force us to give them weak respect instead of devoting our energy to giving strong respect to our family, neighbors, and fellow humans.
- Forget “us” and “them”. Instead, tune your mind to think “we” as often as possible. So often, in fact, that the idea of “them” becomes so rare that it is only used when there are absolutely irreconcilable differences and no commonalities of the human experience can be found.
And finally, I think that all of us could really do with spending some personal reflection time to rethink our definitions of what things actually matter when giving respect to someone. Ask yourself the question: “does what that person does really, truly effect me in any way?” And then as yourself a follow-on question: “is there anything I can do to mitigate or counteract that thing in my own life and my own life only?”
We’ve gotta get over our constant desires to control everyone else beyond the boundaries of our own skin. We’re all in this together. We’re all living on the same planet, living with much the same problems, and all worthy of dignity and respect. Power, pride, hubris, and arrogance want to rob us of this solidarity and divide us. But we’ve got this one life, and we’re so much more alike than we are different, no matter what Madison Avenue or Reverend Biblethumper or Governor Goodhair will tell you.
We sorely need much more strong respect in this world, just as much as we need to bin this idea of weak respect that we’ve elevated and propped up in its place. We’ll all be better off once we do.
