Category Archives: Musings

A few weeks ago I asked my newsletter subscribers* to chime in on this question: “What is respect, to you?”

I asked the question because the topic of respect had been much on my mind based on some newsworthy events. In particular, I wanted to find out if very many people would agree with me that our society seems to be lacking in respect these days.

I was pleased to receive some very thoughtful responses. I don’t know if “pleased” is the right way to describe my feeling about the fact that nearly everyone who responded agreed that respect is in short supply in our current society.

Several friends (everyone who gets my newsletter is a friend, in my book) presented ideas for why respect has fallen out of fashion. We discussed it back and forth (I always try to reply when subscribers take the time to write back), and in general we thought the observed level of disrespect generally didn’t have to do with people being less respectable than they used to be. That is, everyone is still worthy of being respected. Instead, we discussed whether it might be a combination of two things: parents not teaching their children how to display respect, and adults in general not modeling respectful behavior for young people. Since respect seems to be something we learn (like manners, which themselves are indicators of respect), that led to the question of whether respect is something we need to practice lest we forget about it or start to ignore it.

One friend made an excellent distinction between “simple” respect and what he called “high” respect — the difference between the most basic respect we pay to someone as a fellow human being (or even that we pay to the uniform they wear or the office they hold), and the higher respect that they earn by … well, by acting respectable. I contend that we do people a terrible disservice if their failure to earn (or keep) our high respect leads us to deny them even simple respect. Furthermore, I think it’s possible to withhold a measure of respect without blatantly disrespecting someone — though it may be difficult, and uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, as another friend pointed out, some people have used respect as a shield — or perhaps a bludgeon — by demanding or expecting it rather than actually working to be respectable. She suggested that “the whole concept has been cheapened” as a result. I find that idea just as sad as the generally high level of disrespect I see every day.

I was interested in one friend’s equating respect with trust, and he’s right: it is very difficult to respect someone if we don’t trust them. That’s quite a contrast with respect as the foundation of manners, which can be thought of as the way we ensure that people are comfortable being around us: as one friend wrote, displaying good manners demonstrates that you respect someone. (One of the things I learned long ago about manners — in a talk given by Tony Campolo at a National Youthworkers Convention — is that they may be most needed when we least want to use them. When thought of that way, showing manners to people we may not respect very much demonstrates the difference between simple respect and high respect.)

As another friend wrote, “You don’t treat someone else with respect so that they treat you with respect, or even because you think they are ‘worthy’ of respect — you do it because YOU are worthy of respect, worthy of self-respect, able to meet your own eyes in the mirror.”

(Image: “Respect,” by Martin Abegglen, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

I deeply appreciate everyone who offered their opinions and ideas. The more I think about it, the more I’m not sure we can overstate the hazard to society from being unwilling to treat people with simple, basic respect regardless of whether they have earned or squandered any deeper respect. That’s how debates boil over into arguments, arguments boil over into disputes, and disputes boil over into violence. The issue reminds me of an old Robert A. Heinlein quote about the loss of politeness (again, coming back to the question of manners, which themselves demonstrate respect), and how it’s “more significant than a riot” in identifying a dying culture.

I wish I knew how to fix it. I hope it can be fixed.

Do you have any insights? I’d love to hear them.

Thanks, as always, for your time!

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*If you’re not on the list already, you can subscribe to my newsletter at this link.

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A thought experiment: What if literally no one — not you, not anyone — had any desire whatsoever to be a doctor, nurse, emergency medical technician, or any other healthcare worker?

Imagine, for the purpose of this thought experiment, that no one had any interest in anatomy, physiology, or the like; and no one studied fields like radiology, oncology, pharmacology, or whatnot; such that the entire medical profession was unknown and therefore unavailable.

Then, under those conditions, you get sick or injured.

How would you obtain care? Upon whom would you rely?

If you were alone, you would have to treat yourself as best you could; or, even if you weren’t alone you could make the attempt if your symptoms or wounds were slight. Maybe you remember some First Aid from the Boy Scout Handbook, or some folk remedies from one of the Foxfire books, or maybe your parents “doctored” you when you were young and you recall what they did. (In this modern era, you might even try to pull up a YouTube video in hopes that someone had documented their own ordeal.)

If that failed, or your case was beyond your (or the Net’s) abilities, you would likely try to find someone else to help you. You might first ask someone you know, who you know cares about you, to treat you as best they can. If they couldn’t help, you would have to venture further afield and ask someone outside your immediate circle if they might deign to treat you.

Does that sound about right?

How would you ask them? What would you offer in exchange for their trying to help you? Would you promise? Would you plead? Would you threaten?

(Image: “Doctor,” by Matt Madd, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

If asking didn’t get you the help you sought, would you demand it? Would you — could you — force someone to help you? Would you recruit others to do so? How far would you go, if you had the power?

Thankfully, we don’t live in the world of this thought experiment. We can be grateful that so many people choose the caring professions and study the medical sciences, so that we don’t have to treat ourselves when we’re in distress.

Their numbers, alas, are relatively small; and whenever limited supply meets significant demand, economics can deal heavy blows with its invisible hand. But even though their numbers are small, their impacts are tremendous. How we show our gratitude for their knowledge, skill, and dedication, of course, is up to us.

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Apropos of nothing, other than the fact that this is my blog: If you missed the announcement, I’m running a series of giveaways for Audible downloads of the Walking on the Sea of Clouds audiobook, which includes what I’ve been told are rather realistic emergency response and medical scenes. Sign up at this link!

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I understand that, in the interest of enforced equality, a judge with an unfortunate first name has ruled that selective service registration is unconstitutional if it applies only to men. The reasoning is that since we now allow women to operate in combat roles, we should require women to register for the draft, and if we don’t register women then we should not be able to register men for the draft.

This has been billed as an “equality” thing, but that’s garbage. Equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of responsibility or requirement. It’s one thing to have opened up combat roles to women who have the ability to fill them (both the physical attributes and the requisite viciousness), but it’s another thing entirely to require women who would never willingly choose such roles to have to sign up for them.

Imagine the difficulty of training drafted women — conscripted, non-volunteer women — for combat roles. But that in and of itself is not my primary concern. Nor is my concern that the proportion of women who can effectively fill combat roles — by dint of either physicality or temperament — is likely a good deal lower than the proportion of men who can do so.

My concern is what forcing women into combat, into life-threatening danger, when there are capable men who could serve in that capacity, may mean for our society.

Used to be, if a ship was sinking and the passengers were directed to lifeboats, women and children would be given the first spots. Any man who took a seat when there were still women and children waiting to board would open himself to general condemnation and charges of cowardice. Given the state of our society these days, I’m not sure that holds true anymore — especially since the court case that resulted in the ruling mentioned above “was brought by the National Coalition for Men, a men’s rights group, and two men who argued an all-male draft was unfair.”

Boo-freaking-hoo. Life’s unfair, cupcakes. If this is representative of their approach to life, that group may as well be named the national coalition for poltroons.

Thank God I still know people other than myself who believe, like Robert A. Heinlein, that

All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “Women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal.

Unfortunately, some people these days seem as if they would welcome genocide. A philosophy professor from my own alma mater not long ago published an op-ed in which he pondered the question of human extinction — and whether it would be all that bad for our race to go extinct since we’ve been so bad for the planet. I confess that I’m selfish enough to say that genocide and human extinction would be bad for me and the people I care about, so I’m not in favor.

The sculpture, “When I Grow Up” by Darren Jackson, depicts a boy who wants to save lives — a noble calling, and one in which “women and children first” remains an important consideration. (Image: “RNLI Statue,” by Phil Parker, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Along less drastic lines, I’ve heard plenty of people declare in triumphant tones that “chivalry is dead,” because after all wasn’t it just a tool of the nebulous but hated patriarchy, meant to keep women in their place? Notwithstanding that any good thing can be misused, modern chivalry couldn’t possibly be an indicator of how highly men value women, and the lengths to which men would go to protect women and ensure their safety, security, and comfort — could it? It certainly couldn’t be an unconscious (but in the end perhaps effective) instinct to preserve the race, could it?

Some people have gone so far as to point out that modern chivalry bears little resemblance to the medieval codes governing knightly combat, and so, even if it’s not exactly dead, it should be. How utterly barbarous. Remove that muzzle very carefully, zookeeper: the bear has teeth, even if you’ve filed down his claws.

Perhaps this historic period of peace and plenty has something to do with these new societal mores. We are not in extremis, so as a culture maybe we have the luxury of devaluing those people among us who are most precious. The emergency will come, however — emergencies always do, and most of us are caught unawares — and holding to these modern sensibilities in the confusion and chaos may spell our societal doom. Not only witless, as Heinlein said, but genocidal. Or, to coin a phrase, genosuicidal.

I hope I’m right that most people, deep down, are fully in favor of “women and children first” — even if they won’t admit it. I certainly am. And I think (and hope) most people would still look askance at any man who intentionally saved his own life knowing that in doing so he was placing his wife or child, or any woman or child, in jeopardy.

But, “call me a relic,” as Bob Seger sang. Please, observe my actions and accuse me of being chivalrous. I will take it as a compliment.

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