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You Can’t Demand My Respect
In a number of interviews on video, I’ve noticed recently that the Left is demanding the respect of their adversaries, that is, the political Right. I was baffled by this expectation, since everything I know about respect would be inconsistent with the positions of the Left. Given the unapologetic demands of the Left toward those who disagree with them, I was surprised at their call for respect, and decided to explore whether this new hope on their part might tell me something about the polarization in our country. First, I realized that I needed to clarify my understanding of the word, “respect.”
The most practical definition of the word from my perspective was: to feel or show deferential regard for; esteem or admire. These are descriptions of respect that I think would define what the Left expects from the Right. But the Left clearly has little to no understanding of what language and behaviors elicit respect.
The biggest mistake that the Left makes is that they believe they deserve respect for a number of reasons. They think their ideas are superior to those who see the world differently. They attribute to themselves the mantle of the intelligentsia or the elite that merits their being held in high esteem. They frankly don’t care whether you agree with their ideas, or support them or even understand them. But simply because they espouse these Leftist beliefs, they are entitled to your high regard. To them, that mindless regard is what they actually mean by the word “respect.” And that respect requires deferential acknowledgment of their ideas and goals.
The Left, in its current iteration (and I see no hope of its changing) can’t possibly earn the respect of its adversaries. Let me list just a few of the reasons:
- They ignore or discount conventional/conservative values. Morality, truth, integrity, honor, family, free speech, and respect for others are missing from their own belief system. It’s fascinating that they expect respect from those they hold in disdain.
- They put no value on telling the truth. If lying is required to meet their agenda, they will find a way to justify lying or simply ignore that they are telling lies. And lies can vary from the smallest lie to a whopper—if they serve the Leftist agenda, they are permissible. Whether they promoted Russian collusion or pursued the impeachment of Trump, the truth was irrelevant.
- Stereotypes are built into their system. People who don’t believe in their ideas are sexist, homophobic, transphobic, greedy, evil, religiously limited, and stupid. There are no exceptions.
- None of the ideas of the Right are worthy of consideration. If the origin of the idea can be connected to any part of the Right, it must not only be discredited but condemned. It will be seen as lacking any merit, and must be fully rejected.
- The Left lacks curiosity and the desire for facts and information. Unless an idea can be directly tied to the Leftist belief system, it has no merit. Information that contradicts their fully formed ideas is unacceptable.
- The very distasteful words and actions that the Left attributes to the Right are almost always descriptive of themselves. Their inability or unwillingness to reflect on their own positions and strategies manifests as projections on the Right.
Here’s an example of their condemnations of the Right that arose during election campaigns:
The Republican handbook used prejudice against racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities in cleverly packaged campaign ads that won elections. Bold-faced lies came shamelessly from conservative radio commentators, Fox news, and other outlets. The social media, which lacks the means of truth-checking, facilitated wide dissemination of these untruths. A result has been the splintering of the public into fractions who only get information from and communicate with those who agree with them.
This repugnant behavior was not condemned by religious leaders because many of the policies they advocate were supported by the offenders. Republican leaders generally did not admonish fellow party members because their own success was helped by this conduct.
Most people on the right would say this description actually applies to those on the Left.
The Left does not understand that respect garners respect . Its insistence on condemning the Right, almost without exception, has no chance of earning the respect of the Right:
Leftists cannot have it both ways, but they do not understand that, partly because they keep driving out their more gifted members. If you want free speech for the voices of sexual liberation, you must tolerate it for more traditional, sexually temperate voices. If you want free speech for BLM and other pro-black activists, you have to permit speech for dissident rightists too, including white advocates. That is, if you want to be morally and philosophically consistent. The Left wants to have its cake and eat it too. That just does not work long-term. Those terrible, self-serving standards tend to boomerang back on the standard-bearers.
In effect, the Left has brought this “lack of respect” on themselves:
If gay and pro-gay teachers can no longer express themselves on campus, it is their own doing. If you do not respect the voices of your adversaries, your adversaries and the standards you establish for censorship, are liable to come back to haunt you. Censorship is not consistent with a free society. It never has been. Until the Left demonstrates a commitment to the free speech rights of everyone, its own rights to speech will, and perhaps should, remain imperiled.
I also believe that the Left doesn’t really want the respect of the Right; it would be a step backward from their view. They actually want the Right to simply accept their ideas without protest; that would substitute nicely for respect. Ultimately, though, they will never be successful in their efforts.
They cannot demand our respect. It must be earned.
Published in Culture
People are entitled to respect (until they prove otherwise). Ideologies are not.
The left always dishonestly twists language for malevolent purposes. “Respect” is a case in point.
There are two main aspects of respect, one of which is not covered by the OP. There’s respect from admiration and respect from fear. Most instances of respect are a mixture of the two. A show of respect is called courtesy. When you hold the door open for your wife, you are showing perhaps 70% admiration and 30% fear. The phrase, “Happy wife, happy life” is a polite way of saying there’s a significant element of fear in marriage, dormant but ready to rear its ugly head.
In U.S. foreign policy, there is a mixture of both fear and admiration in how others treat us (not to mention contempt). The U.S. government uses both economic and military pressure to get countries to respect us through fear. Those countries that are dictatorships are ruled by fear, and the only way the U.S. government can influence them is through fear. Fear is a type of respect.
Progressives have openly stated that they want to be feared if they aren’t admired. Their fear campaign not only includes attempts to reinterpret the 1st Amendment so as to allow more government suppression of free speech, but also to successfully get Fortune 500 companies and colleges to limit speech in a variety of ways that involve fear. If you don’t abide by “preferred pronouns” it could mean a meeting with your employer’s HR department or disciplinary proceedings at your college. This could happen even if you abide by their rules when on campus and don’t when off campus. There are plenty of examples of social media posts off hours resulting in disciplinary or job loss.
Respect through fear should be a last resort, and in many instances is a short cut. Because when the fear is gone, so is the respect. And then latent resentment becomes outright resentment. That’s the problem the woke progressives are facing. The fear is beginning to recede.
My personal view is that Respect is an assignment of worth, of some degree of worth; as opposed to lack of respect which is a lack of regard for worth, or disrespect which is regarding someone as worthless. You hold a door for your wife due to your relationship: your wife is of value. You’re the man, when you walk with a woman you walk on the street side of the sidewalk to insulate her from what happens on the street; you’re a sovereign country, you regard other countries as equally sovereign, and of the same standing or worth that you deserve. That’s respect.
You may respect Trump as a president, but not as a husband. Or you may respect him as a father, but not as an entertainer. But nonetheless, if someone attacks him, you pull the attacker off. It’s about worth. That’s human respect.
When arguing with a nasty progressives you need have neither personal respect nor intellectual respect for what they believe or say — but this is not denying human respect . You may have personal respect for a civil and courteous progressive with whom you disagree, but no respect for his social or political views. Or you may see value in what he says, and have intellectual respect for his views, but no respect for his demanding that you conform to his views; his views are worthless.
But if that progressive fell into a sinkhole, you would still try to pull him out. Because as a human being, he has value. That’s human respect.
You’re a human being, and you have worth, and you regard all human beings as having worth. Even criminals being executed are given respect, and it is expected of you that you give the condemned respect. And no matter how evil his crime, before you pull the lever, you say, May God have mercy on your soul. That’s human respect even for those who are evil.
A good way to begin a discussion with a progressive that expects respect would be to ask them, what do they mean by the word “respect?” Progressives love to twist the meaning of words, so make them define what they mean. If they cannot, since it puts them on record with an actual position, tell them that you’ll treat them respectfully, as any polite person would. If they provide a definition that differs from your understanding of the word (i.e. our general understanding of its meaning), tell them that their position doesn’t treat you with respect since, by using a non-standard definition, they aren’t arguing from a position of sincerity, although you’ll still treat them respectfully.
Although I’ve never been able to employ this tactic, I’ve long thought that an appropriate way to deal directly with a progressive in person would be by using their tactic of responding in an unexpected way. For example, if someone were to call me racist or any other “-ist,” rather than get upset, it would be better to be the adult in the conversation and not give them the rhetorical “win” that they seek. I think it would be great to confidently respond something like, “So, you give up already? You’re admitting that you’ve lost the argument, that you don’t have a position you can defend, so rather than recognize the vapidity of your statement and admit to your loss, you’ve decided to use elementary school playground tactic of calling me a bad name. Please come back as soon as you feel like you have an adult mindset, one that has some logic and facts that support it, but especially one that respects other people and their lived experiences.” What do you think?
I haven’t tried it either, but I do have one friend whom I’ve told that we can’t discuss politics because her “facts” are anecdotes, which she thinks are a reasonable substitute. I simply can’t discuss ideas when a person is uninformed!
I think the best way to start a conversation with an intellectually honest progressive is to ask questions:
If you find an intellectually honest progressive to have this conversation with, let me know.
Conservative: I can get behind a ‘live and let live’ perspective. I do not wish to make you conform to my worldview, AS LONG AS, you don’t make me conform to your worldview.
Alphabet Soup Person: NO! You will respect me and affirm my worldview or I will destroy you!
Conservative: Okay. That is not acceptable to me. Being forced to affirm your lifestyle does in fact harm my lifestyle and actually yours as well. You force me to explain to you how your lifestyle is actually harming yourself.
Alphabet Soup Person: You are a horrible person and I will destroy you! Unleash the DOXXING!
Conservative: You do realize that you are the one with the offensive behavior that is disrespecting me. Right?
Alphabet Soup Person: Bake me my cake, bitch!
The Socratic Method can be very effective.
This needs to be a wallet card.
Put this on the back of the card:
But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
— Federalist Papers, No. 51