Updated 19 January 2023 to incorporate ideas David the Barbarian presented in the comments
Today I’m thinking about Respect. What even is Respect?
There’s a lot of thoughts out there about what respect is, and who ought to get it. Here I will be offering my thoughts on respect, and elaborations on what disrespect looks like.
So, before I get into my framework, what is respect? Respect is an umbrella word for decent, civil behavior. People frequently say “respect has to be earned” or they’ll use language like “I don’t respect you unless…”–I am sure you can think of numerous examples from your own experience.
First, let’s be crystal clear on what respect is. To respect someone does not mean to hand them a Medal of Honor, distinguishing them among mortals as someone you look up to. Basic respect means you behave decently and civilly towards a person. It is more like an open-mic night. Anyone may approach the microphone–everyone ought to get your basic respect. When they spend their time at the microphone proving themselves foul and unpleasant, you have license to remove them from the microphone and to avoid them. To respect someone is to treat them with basic decent, civil behavior. To disrespect someone is to treat them with indecent, uncivil behavior. There is no neutral territory here. You are either respectful of others, or you are not.
An outlier case in how the word is used, is sometimes respect is used to connote admiration or appreciation. “I really respect how you raised money for those orphans.” Admiration or appreciation is a medal of honor you get to hand out for extraordinary deeds. Not everyone gets to have your admiration and appreciation. The confusion of Respect (basic decency and civility) with admiration and appreciation has caused people to think that Respect is a treasured gift and ought to be handed out sparingly. My argument here is that Everyone deserves your basic respect. Continued respect is earned. Disrespect is never permissible.
Let’s get into the framework.
Basic Respect is the minimum respect everyone gets by virtue of their humanity. Every individual, no matter how fair or foul, was created by God. Treat them as you would treat a special and unique creation of God, because that is what they are. Respect, as decent and civil behavior, means that you ought to behave decently and civilly to all people. Disrespect of this kind means to be a jerk to people because they have not proven themselves to you yet. “My respect is earned, not given” means that your basic approach to people is to be disrespectful until you are given a reason to respect them. This is backwards, and belies a high estimation of oneself: “People ought to clamor for my respect, which is highly valued, and if they do not clamor for it I shall deny them this respect.” No–Respect must be given to everyone and anyone, you must treat everyone with decency and civility, no exceptions.
Respect Authority is actually a conceptual inversion of obedience. Rather than owing a unilateral duty of obedience to some authority, you instead frame it as “respecting authority” to comply with their mandates. Obedience is both voluntary and mandatory, and however you frame it, respect of authority entails obedience and deference to that authority. We ought to behave with decency and civility to our authorities and we ought to give them some measure of the benefit of the doubt. Our default reaction ought to be compliance with their mandates. Disrespect of authority means to flout their mandates, to not treat them with decency or civility, or to assume ill will unless proven otherwise. It belies a preference for ones own decisions and a begrudging disposition to any imposition contrary to ones own preferences. Authority must be given respect in order to have a peaceful and stable society. This includes any kind of authority.
Respect Relationships–this can be broken into three levels. Relationships between authorities–like a husband and wife, a mentor, parents, Governors, etc; relationships between peers–like colleagues, teammates, siblings, business partners, diplomatic partners; relationships to ones subordinates–like children, students, mentees, soldiers, etc. At all three levels, basic decent and civil behavior must be the baseline upon which the relationship is built. If a husband tries to bulldoze his wife, if a teacher doesn’t listen at least sometimes to his students, if two negotiating parties at a peace conference fail to treat each other with civility and decency, everything breaks down. Relationships bind us together. And this is the first level where we get a sense of respect “down”–where not only must we have a sense of decency and civility, but also custodial care for those subject to us. Respect is, at this level, a duty. A parent must give his children the respect of clean clothes and hot food and a roof over their heads. Disrespect of relationship means a failure to behave with basic decency and civility; a failure to take seriously the duty of custodial care; a desire to be deferred to first before respect is given to ones counterpart.
Respect Age because respecting ones elders is a component of basic decent and civil behavior. Unfortunately, Age does not automatically mean wisdom, so remember the open-mic analogy. Everyone–especially elders–may approach your open microphone. If they prove themselves unkind, immoral, unjust, or otherwise unpleasant while at the microphone, that is not license for disrespect. Prefer silence or separation to argument. Disrespect of age may mean ignoring an elder who is pontificating, or being impatient or rude with an elder who may have trouble speaking or moving or thinking. Just because they are older does not mean they are unworthy of our respect.
Respect Experience because experience of any variety can contain valuable lessons. Listen to someone who is more experienced and who is trying to teach you something. It behooves us to be open to any information that might aid us on this common journey of life. Those who are more experienced than us are like trail-guides who can warn us of common obstacles. However–some people are experienced in immorality, indecency, or injustice. If they prove themselves to be experienced in these things, again–it is not license to be disrespectful. Prefer silence or separation to argument. Disrespect of experience may mean thinking that we know it all already, or that we’ve heard it all before. It belies a high estimation of ourselves, and not the humility to listen and learn.
Respect Illusions–this may be my most controversial addition to this list, but bear with me. When people tell you who they are, listen to them and do not correct them. When people tell you what they believe, they are telling you about the world they live in. It will, more often than not, be a different world from the one you occupy. Let people be wrong. If you try to disabuse them of their illusions, they will resent you immediately. If you have a privileged relationship with your interlocutor, then you may gently–respectfully even–educate them and guide them towards the straight and narrow. But do not take it upon yourself to tear down other people’s illusions–they will neither appreciate it nor accept it, unless your relationship, perhaps even their respect for you, allows you to guide them to truth. Disrespect of illusions is like telling children Santa isn’t real–it might be true, but it isn’t nice. Choose to be nice. Choose to behave with decency and civility.
Respect Yourself–this means both that you ought to respect yourself enough to behave with decency and civility, and to not accept indecency or incivility from others. It should mean that you prefer silence and separation to confrontation, and that your respect to others is freely given, and your admiration is a rare treasure. Disrespect of yourself means that you do not behave this way, you react with disrespect when faced with disrespect, or that you don’t consider yourself worthy of basic human dignity.
Respect Sex – Men, respect women because they are women. Men, respect other men because they are men. Women, respect men because they are men. Women, respect other women because they are women. You don’t need to know anything more about a person other than their gender to know that you ought to respect them. This covers two kinds of respect: behave with decency and civility towards your interlocutor of any gender; behave with deference to the opposite gender. Men, treat women with deference: they are the fairer sex, I think, because they are both gentler and literally fair. Women have a very strong sense of justice and will remember injustice and rebuke it to your face. Women, treat men with virtue and dignity: they are the simpler sex, because they are stronger and more direct in their thought and speech. They ought to give deference and respect to you and may remember to if you remind them. Don’t presume they are trying to slight you until you know for sure. Disrespect of sex means treating men like women or treating women like men, in a way that is insulting or degrading, and certainly doesn’t lift them up.
Respect Neighbors of their various varieties. Neighbors here I am using to mean “people you encounter in daily life”. Neighbors come in a few varieties. Friends, Allies, Strangers, Foreigners, and Enemies. Friends are people we like; Allies are people we have to work with; Strangers are people we don’t know; Foreigners are people we don’t understand; Enemies are people we don’t like. This is an extremely wide swathe of people, certainly a broad brush with which to paint generalizations. But it is important: Christ said to love our neighbors. Friends and Allies help us–treat them with respect because we need them in our lives. Strangers can become friends or allies; or they can become enemies–we don’t know and we should treat them kindly so if they do make the choice we know it’s not because of anything we did. Foreigners–people we don’t understand–should be treated with respect while we seek to understand them, and while they seek to understand us. Enemies we should respect in their human dignity but also in their capacity to harm us–custodial care of others requires respect of enemies. Christ said specifically to love our enemies, too. Disrespect of neighbors entails treating friends as enemies; strangers as friends or enemies–both ways unbefitting of someone we don’t know; foreigners without understanding, and not working with our allies.
There are, I am sure, exceptions to every rule, and I am sure there are more holes in this framework than a broken sieve, but I hope it is illustrative of my thoughts on the subject. Please, let me know what you think, and help me improve this framework.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 
I was reflecting how this has a lot of crossover with the Chivalric codes and manuals. The Knight was in many ways the respectable and respectful warrior, rather than the disrespectful warrior, so the difference was respect.
With that in mind, I wonder if it might deserve its own heading to add: Respect Sex and Respect Enemies.
I think to Respect Sex is large enough to have its own category. It is not quite authority, because a man in a subordinate position to a woman can respect her sex, and there doesn’t need to be a real relationship, one can respect a perfect stranger as particularly man or woman. And of course, it is an essential difference from basic decency.
Of course, there is a literal sense in which to Respect Sex is to acknowledge chastity as a universal virtue, and the intrinsic evil of non-procreative sexual congress outside marriage. And the Chivalric code is full of how men respect women. But it also goes both ways, and women more than ever fail to respect men as men in equal measure as men fail to respect women as women.
Respecting enemies is rather different. In a literal sense, one does not behave decently or civilly towards the enemy because they are by definition outside of the city. And this would apply to both internal and external enemies, the criminal in our midst and the enemy at war.
The criminal as prisoner or fugitive will mostly be respected as a subject because in modern times, without outlawry or exile, the State still owes them a custodial care. And in both cases, there is a minimum level of not treating subjects as objects, treating humans as humans and not things, which requires us not to kill without cause, torture, etc.
But Christ does command us to love our enemies. I think there is then a secondary meaning to respecting the enemy as outlined in Chivalry. We must respect the danger he imposes, in one sense, and have a particular acknowledgement that he is still that unique creation of God’s, as that is a vety hard thing to do. Robert E. Lee, the last bloom of Southern Chivalry, is a good example.
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This is excellent and additive, thank you for this David. Respecting Sex is definitely deserving of it’s own category–women deserve the greater part of our deference and decency by default, having no other information about them other than that they are women.
You raise good points about respecting Enemies–I described somewhere in a previous article that there are Enemies, Strangers, and Foreigners, which is shorthand for (respectively) people we don’t like, people we don’t know, and people we don’t understand. I think Enemies without and criminals within could fall under the “enemies” category, and all three categories deserve some kind of extra and/or basic deference.
There is a lot to ponder in this comment and I will have to think on it and if necessary post an addendum!
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I was thinking of just that previous article, Scoot.
To respect the Foreigner in our midst, I think, comes down mostly to Respecting Experience and Respecting Illusions, as well as Basic Respect. To add to it, perhaps there is something to the idea of everyone being an ambassador of their own nation, culture, religion, etc., so that particular respect is given and received as representatives of those groups. For instance, it might require one to be extra careful that the Foreigner’s impression of your beliefs, cultural habits and customs, laws, etc. is accurate and to accurately understand his insofar as possible.
With the stranger, I think particularly of stories like the Prince and the Pauper. Because we don’t know what we don’t know, it is better to err on the side of caution, to see the Stranger as potential Hidden King and potential Enemy. That might entail being lavish in politeness, generous as a host and more taciturn in revealing our weaknesses, opinions, etc.
Of course, Our Lord shows us the example of the Hidden King foremost.
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Brilliant, this is great David! I will definitely be amending the article to include your thoughts shortly. Theres some other ideas in here that I think merit their own discussion, so stay tuned!
God bless you!
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I have updated the article, I hope you find it to your satisfaction!
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That is great stuff, Scoot. You put it better than I could about Respect for Sex. And I like just how you say to treat the Stranger as neither friend nor foe. I have always been interested in the idea of hospitality to guests, in Southern, Afghan, Ancient Greek culture, etc. It’s the modern attitude to go too far in either direction, people are either very casual with strangers, which could be indecorous or dangerous, or they are overly hostile/rude/indifferent.
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I’ve been meaning to write about things I have learned about Filipino culture from my wife. Filipino’s are an EXTREMELY hospitable people. The way I put it to her, was that Americans (and perhaps Anglo-Saxon European Culture) are clan oriented. We have a people and we love them and we can be rather cold towards people who aren’t of our clan.
Filipino’s will welcome almost anybody into their home–they are perhaps “Community” oriented. My wife’s father was known to have a small meal and a big glass of water for garbage men as they went by. Many Filipino friends of my wife have accepted me into their home as one of their own. If a Filipino welcomes you into their house once, you are always welcome, unless you do something to prove otherwise. And if you ask for the shirt off their back, they are more likely than not to give it to you (I have experienced this–not the shirt, but other acts of no-hesitation, unquestioned giving, and it is absolutely staggering).
Yet, the flipside of this, is that many Filipino homes are made with tall fences around their property and mesh in the windows to prevent break ins. There’s a tremendous trust to invited hospitality and a tremendous fear of (or pragmatic preparation for) anyone not invited. It speaks to the cultural homogeneity of the Philippines, in part; it speaks to the Catholic roots of the Philippines, for sure.
The Filipino culture seems to strike the middle ground between being overly casual or indecorous with strangers. Filipino families are by invitation only and betraying the trust of an invitation–I shudder to think of how they might react.
But if you are in the community at all–a neighbor, a passer by, a smiling, friendly face–you would surely be warmly welcomed without hesitation.
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