Respect continued .... You see, there are billions of people on this planet & even if you live an insular life in a small town, you are going to meet quite a few if them. And each person is going to be different, have different roles, beliefs & feelings... & each one will have different criteria for earning respect. Whats more is that criteria will not be tattooed to their foreheads, nor will they thoughtfully hand you a list of them....in fact, if asked, they will likely be hard pressed to even articulate what it takes for you to earn their respect. & if they really thought about it diligently, it is most likely that one of the critical criteria would be that YOU show respect to THEM. You are no different. You have some nebulous concept rattling around in the back of your brain that defines what It means to earn your respect. & you hold countless #s of complete strangers to this amorphous, undefined criteria in order to EARN your respect, without telling them or even being able to articulate it yourself. This is grossly unfair. It is setting a standard to which you expect others to measure up without ever telling them what the standard is. It virtually guarantees you a conscience-free pass to be rude & disrespectful to majority of people you meet ! If they dont earn your respect why, should you treat them respectfully ? This attitude is the most basic underpinning of bullying. If you dont respect someone because you believe they have to earn your respect & you have made it impossible for them to do by creating an impossible invisible set of standards, then you dont need to respect their rights or feelings, do you ? If further create some gates that a person has to pass through in order to even try to earn your respect-like must be straight or Christian or Politically liberal/conservative or a certain race ethnicity or gender-you further create a situation that you feel absolutely justified in not respecting those who are unable to pass through those gates. If they cant jump through the hoops & avoid the obstacles you set up, then you feel perfectly justified in disrespecting them. To be continued....
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 01:02:09 +0000