Respect

Monica recently posted on respect. I started to add a comment but it got long so I decided to post on my own blog. Below is my comment. I don’t really want to split up the conversation though so feel free to comment on Monica’s blog about this entry. In some ways I would prefer you do that to keep the train of thought together. While this stands on it's own as an entry you might want to read her post and comments first.

Hmmmm….. I think more along the lines of WB but it seems to me that overall respect for a person comes down to a balance of smaller respects and the point at which the balance tips so fully one direction or the other. I have met many people for which I respect them for some trait and not another. For example, I may greatly respect someone’s programming skills but have absolutely no respect for their social skills. And so I would have no reservation about interacting with them for programming advice but will never discuss women with them. My overall respect would depend on how I weight the two different aspects. As you get to know people and see them in different situations you learn more about them and the different aspects of their person. So when you look at the whole person to decide if you respect them I think it is a conscious, or unconscious, tallying of many categories. If they come up to far short then you don’t respect them as a whole.

Like everything else it all depends on what we value as more important. You may not care that Fred is a financial wizard while maybe I do. And therefore your overall respect may emphasize social abilities, or another category, where I might balance the two more equally. And I don’t think respect should equate to liking a person. There are many people I have met that really I do not like at all but I still respect them greatly for various reasons.

There is one trait in a person that has a huge effect on my overall respect for them, open-mindedness. I can forgive a lot in a person whom I feel is open minded and going to at least seriously consider things I, or others, say to them. On the flip side it is extremely hard for me to have overall respect for someone who will not even consider that there are other equally valid views on a subject no matter how much I may agree with their behaviors in all other aspects of life.