Can too much respect be bad?

[Rev. Rye]

Do you think that there is such a thing as too much respect and/ or is it a bad thing to respect someone too much?

To me it seems that it is a bad thing and the best example are religious leaders or clergy. It seems that religious people respect them too much that they get away with taking their money, living in huge mansions and castles while saying that they are humble and even having sex with their kids.

So it seems it's not good to respect someone too much, to the point that you don't ever question that person, never look at that person critically.

Or maybe something else is going on?

I think the word you’re looking for is power. It’s power that lets them do what they want, it’s power that inures them to shit like this, and it’s power that makes scumbags gravitate towards positions like that.

[tackattack]

I think the automatic respect given to soldiers in the U.S. is troublesome. People and soldiers should be judged on their merit. While I agree that some of the best people who've given the most to others wore a uniform, I think the vast majority of soldiers are just normal people. Some of them are actually big, fat shitheads.

People should be judged on their merit. Soldier who volunteered to sacrifice risk life to support your personal freedoms voluntarily is a basic form of respect. Just as soldiers are afforded respect who were drafted and forced into a war to fight for freedom. I have no issue affording soldiers some basic level of respect, just as I have no problem getting up on a subway for the elderly, pregnant women. I think the problem lies when we afford respect to soldiers who were "just in it for a job" or benefits. I think intent and causality play a part, but that's hard to read on the surface of people. Why is this problematic? If their actions speak to them being a shithead, that should, be weighted against their default respect value. We can't lump all people into groups even thought that's how our brains work. I think the bigger problem is condemning a system based on outliers.

Respect is earned.


Believing in some invisible nefarious sky daddy (or even pretending to believe in one) really doesn't merit respect.


It baffles me that some people think it does.

I actually agree, completely

I may be a little looser with my decorum with my co worker than my boss. But there's not a joke I wouldn't tell to my coworker that I haven't told to my boss. There's not a status update or incident I've spoken with co workers about hat I haven't spoken to my boss about, even when the topic is my boss.

I think I tie respect to respecting another person's time. I respect my boss more than some people so I'm more frugal with his time and keep away from the frivolity I can be prone to. I don't consider that being less honest, just being a better steward of our time because of the respect. Same applies to other people in other areas of my life I respect. What do you correlate respect with?

So, are there jokes you know that you wouldn't tell your coworker? Maybe the issue isn't that you withhold from your boss, but rather than you withhold from everyone. Unless you're sitting there at your computer trying to convince me that you are 100% yourself and 100% honest and direct with everyone you come into contact with, regardless of context, power dynamic, social pressures, and everything else.... in that case, you're certainly one unique human being. They should study you in a lab somewhere.

So, like I said, it sounds good, I just don't buy it.

As I said before, respect is, to me, observing someone's personal boundaries, honesty, and having a sense of admiration for that person. Granted, I think respect can, like almost anything else, exist on a spectrum. I would not say I respect my boss, so much as I understand the power dynamic between us. The reason I say this is I don't necessarily have any sense of admiration for my boss, nor am I necessarily honest with them all of the time. Nor do I feel I should be honest with them all of the time. Sometimes, honesty will hurt you more than it will help you; that's a simple fact of life. One that's unfortunate, in some ways, but true nonetheless.

I would say that I respect my bosses personal boundaries, in the same way I respect anyone else's personal  boundaries. I'm not going to shove someone out of my way at a supermarket, I'm simply going to say, "Excuse me," and walk around them.

I do withhold from everyone a bit. Mainly because I feel most people can't have real discussion in person much anymore. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I try and be myself 100% of the time and try and be 100% honest and direct. It's called a filter. There's a time for speaking the truth, I just feel there's few instances where a lie is better. Honesty can, unfortunately, hurt your sometimes. My wife doesn't ask me how she looks in an outfit anymore unless she wants a real answer. I didn't used to be as honest as I am now, but I don't think I've changed terribly from when I first started here. That would be a question someone else would have to answer for me. Maybe, @Tiberius has an opinion on it?

[EgoDeath]

I do withhold from everyone a bit. Mainly because I feel most people can't have real discussion in person much anymore. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I try and be myself 100% of the time and try and be 100% honest and direct. It's called a filter. There's a time for speaking the truth, I just feel there's few instances where a lie is better. Honesty can, unfortunately, hurt your sometimes. My wife doesn't ask me how she looks in an outfit anymore unless she wants a real answer. I didn't used to be as honest as I am now, but I don't think I've changed terribly from when I first started here. That would be a question someone else would have to answer for me. Maybe, @Tiberius has an opinion on it?

That's all I was trying to get at; sometimes honesty is not the best policy. Therefore, we're forced to wonder about how much respect and honesty are related. I'd say they go hand in hand... but then again, there may be some situations where you withhold from someone because you don't want them to be offended or put off by your crass observations. That, too, could be considered a form of respect.

Either way, it's interesting to think about, and I've just been thinking out loud here, so to speak. I think people have their own definitions of what respect is and apply it in different ways. My main point, starting out, was that respect is often wrongly equated with power.

[tackattack]

@EgoDeath Fair enough. I don't think I equate respect with power or honesty. I think I would equate respect most closely with diligence. I work harder for people I respect. I'm more conscious of how I use a more respected person's time. I'm more earnest about topics of conversation. I feel the relationship is more steady when it's a mutual respect, therefore I'm more than likely going to defend that person. All those things to me sum up diligence.

A lot of people do equate respect with power, or respect with honesty. It's obvious, from what I can see of you, that you equate respect with honesty. I believe respect is a social construct and tool, where honesty is a morality thing. Two separate spheres of work, from my opinion. I'm just as honest with my wife of her wardrobe choices as I am to the stranger on the street, so I don't think honesty is even in the ball park with respect for me personally. What do some other people relate respect with?

[The Grand Nudger]

You're comparing troughs and peaks on a two axis graph of moral desert, between action and respect. If the ideas that you're expressing can be formalized into a moral geometry - then they probably aren't separate spheres of work.

When we say that a person deserves respect for x we have already laid into a moral claim. When we assess whether or not they got less, exactly, or more than they deserved for that x, we are making an elaborate moral claim. When we assign modifiers to that x that would, acts being equal, change a persons position on the desert axis, we are making an even more elaborate moral claim.

You work harder for people you respect. You're more conscious of how you use their time. You're more earnest. If it's a mutual respect - you feel that a sort of mutual defense pact is warranted. You think that a soldier deserves respect, but maybe not as much respect as some of them get. All of these things are explicitly contextualized in your comments as issues of moral desert. What's interesting, is how profoundly you can alter those moral calculations by altering their implicit premises. All things being equal, is it best to get exactly what you deserve, better than what you deserve, or less (for any given x)? The answer to that determines where the peaks and valleys on your desert graph will fall - the places where there's a disparity between what a person got and what they deserved to get. We use different metrics for different circumstances.

[tackattack]

@Gae Bolga I seem to have misplaced my copy of "The Geometry of Desert" and "La Géométrie", so you'll have to man'splain it to me a little better.
I didn't think I was talking about people getting what they morally deserve. I thought I was epistemologically examining the theory of justification for people's definition of respect and the effects that the respect affords. I don't really want to get into a big morality discussion on this thread Gae, but yes I believe all of those things. Yes those beliefs can change, yes my individual moral calculations can be altered by changing variables. Yes, we use different metrics and methods at different times for different tasks. I just don't see how I'm that far along in the conversation to discussing person deserves respect for x when I'm still trying to figure out what respect means to different people in the group, merely as a definition. I'm certain we'll get there though, you'll have to give me some time to get out my TI-84 and brush off some dust though.

[The Grand Nudger]

I was pointing out that you had already made those sorts of comments.

You very explicitly commented on what a soldier does and doesn't deserve, and even the possibility of them getting the respect even though their act was not equally fitting with respect to some other soldier that joined for some other reason. Comparative desert. You even laid out what people who respect you and have your respect deserved from you, as you see it, as well. Deontological desert.

Thing is, it doesn't matter what values or variables any given person has. The "fittingness" metric is value neutral. It works no matter what we plug in. Even though you have a conceptual wall with respect as social construct and morality as something else™, your comments about respect were explicitly moral in nature. That's not exactly surprising, since we can't discuss what people do or don't deserve without making a moral claim.

---

-or, for that matter, the hypothetical distance between the proper amount of respect and too much respect.

[tackattack]

I get your point that I've already discussed a moral claim and that I have a conceptual wall dividing morality and respect. In reality all of those things are players in this desert. We all place conceptual walls with which to frame our understanding and make the landscape more utilitarian and homey. Yes I do have, and have expressed, views on who/what does and doesn't deserve respect. I'm not sure I laid out in this thread any blameworthiness to move us into a deontological desert, but if you say I did then I probably did. I thought I was sitting in an Empirical desert discussing principles of justice derived from the community's shared intuitions. I was asking what the communities shared definitions of respect were. You are wrong though in that the very values, variables ascribed do affect the landscape.

Since you obviously have a very clear understanding of my definition of respect, would you care to share your definition of respect and cite some examples?

-P.S.- I have missed discussions with you and appreciate your candor as always.

[no one]

Did any hear what Aretha had to say about this?

[The Grand Nudger]

Deontology encompasses duty and obligation, the sort that we both feel when confronted with a respectful person, or person we respect. That ties in with our (likely) mutual understanding ofrespect. The hypothetical value neutrality of desert isn't an issue of whether or not the moral field is different (because of different moral values, whatever that's taken to mean and if..and only if, they actually exist between subjects to compare)- but whether the same patterns of desert can, broadly, be identified in any moral field. If certain features of any landscape indicate the presence or suggest the course of water, to use an intuitively satisfying equivocation. It doesn't matter whether the values of our field are desert values, alpine values, lowland hardwood hammock, etc etc etc. If there's some underlying calculus that can compellingly describe and predict human opinions of the disparity between desert and outcomes - then that calculus can be used with any range of moral values. This is all that's meant to be expressed or taken by the use of the term value neutrality in context. I'm willing to bet five bucks that we actually agree, here.

I think that the common definition of respect is serviceable. Assigning value to and expressing due regard for a person; their qualities, abilities, and achievements. Same as you described. I may not assign the same values that you do. For example...I don't think that joining for a paycheck is a modifying criteria. All professional soldiers join for a paycheck, and it's not clear why a profit motive is disqualifying in any context. Still, I do think that joining holds a value, and I do hold a concept of modifying criteria that can decrease "due regard" for any act of value (and a complimentary one that can increase it). We may not agree on the exact specifications of "the wrong reasons" but we agree that there's a general shape of wrong reason™ at play, which modifies our sense of obligation towards that person.

Something interesting about our shared position, is the implicit claim that equality is not a uniform good. Two people did the same thing, we have equality of act...and yet both of us contend (or at least can contend) that any outcome that leads to them both enjoying the same level of respect, equality of outcome, is a sub-optimal product.