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There's a lot of confusion over the word "respect." It can mean two things: courtesy and honor. What is honor? How does it differ from courtesy? Well, let me tell you.
I realized some time ago that there are 3 levels of respect.
Courtesy - How you treat everyone, stranger or best friend. You are polite to them. You don't insult them. You don't talk badly about them behind their back. You don't argue with them in public. You don't try to make them look bad. It's mostly about what you don't do. You don't disrespect them.
Disrespect - There are two kinds:
Feeling of disrespect - How you think about people who prove that they are not worthy of courtesy.
Action of disrespect - You might also sometimes "disrespect" someone, by doing the negative things listed under courtesy, even if you respect them. When you do this, you are likely to change their opinion of you and they are likely to start to disrespect you, both in feeling and in action.
Honor - How you think about someone who is wise. It's deeper than just treating them with courtesy. Your thoughts about them have grown. How you treat them is related to how you feel about them. You are much more likely to be obedient towards someone you honor than someone you are just courteous towards. You think higher of someone you honor than you think of yourself. But you might still disrespect them (action) from time to time.
You know, you hear this a lot:
"Respect must be earned."
And in the same paragraph the same person will say:
"I treat everyone with respect."
Here is where the confusion between courtesy and honor really surfaces. If, when you say "respect must be earned," you describe courtesy, you have it backwards. We must by default treat everyone respectfully... with courtesy... until they have demonstrated that they don't deserve it. It's only until you think about respect in terms of honor that you are right to say "respect must be earned."
I see a lot of people do this in forum discussions. They are clearly thinking one thing: courtesy. But they are describing honor.
Is this important? You BETCHA!!! If you are thinking and describing courtesy when you say "respect must be earned" then you are advocating treating every stranger you meet with disrespect until they have proven that they are worthy of courtesy. Maybe this is why people treat each other so badly. They buy into the "respect must be earned" philosophy and treat each other with dis-respect until that person proves they deserve respect. It's backwards. How is someone going to earn this courtesy if you are treating them with disrespect? Are YOU going to treat someone courteously if they are treating you disrespectfully? If they don't treat you courteously, are you going to start to respect them? No. So you must understand how important this issue is.
Of course in general we do often "treat everyone with respect." But the effect of "respect must be earned" still manifests itself quite a lot too. Far too often I feel.
So I think it's time we recognize the difference between courtesy and honor and we start to treat EVERYONE with courtesy, irrespective of our beliefs on the phrase "respect must be earned."
Indeed. We really must treat everyone with respect.
Courtesy is a given. True Respect AND Disrespect is earned.
Take someone who busts into the office as a new employee with that sense of entitlement and demanding to be 'respected' because of thier title and not their performance. It hasn't been earned. Respect of this kind is earned. Courtesy is a given.
Word meanings vary with context. I do not believe in your "Treat everyone with respect". Respect is earned by being responsible and honorable. It is more than treating people politely that is the beginning basis of normal people to people contact. Being disrespectful is treating others poorly regardless of their behavior to earn it. Thus it is a action thats its onus is on the practitioner and not on its victim. A person does not "earn" disrespect though they can earn being treated with the bare minimum of politeness or total ostracism. Respect can be granted for position and or past accomplishments such as having honorably served in the Military or being someone like Albert Einstein.
So yes respect is earned. Dis-respect is bad behavior.
Respect in general is earned. Though I would say there are modes of respect, similar to what you state.
There is base human respect, then respect of a close friend/relative. The former is not often earned, but the latter often is.
Exactly. The meaning of the word respect depends heavily on its usage. I can show respect to a total stranger who asks me what time it is. But since he's a stranger, he hasn't yet earned the level of respect that would cause me to hire him for a job.
Everyone deserves basic respect initially as I expect people to be decent human beings, but beyond that, the degree of respect I have for them depends on their behavior over time. They "earn" more or less, but no matter how badly they conduct themselves, they still deserve basic human decency even if they do not return it. Otherwise, how can you regard yourself with respect and good self-esteem if you treat anyone poorly? Better to avoid those you do not respect.
A lot of you confuse the words Respect and Admiration.
Respect for others is simple courtesy, a due regard to fellow travelers in life, as in their feelings, rights, property, automotive right of way, or what have you. Period. End of story. Admiration is when you actively esteem someone.
I hear a lot of people say, "Well, you have to earn my respect." It's one of those phrases that sound cool and kind of badass, so that's why people like to say it--like they're bit players in some gangster movie.
But when somebody says, "You have to earn my respect," what they're really saying is, "I'm not going to respect you until you do something for [or prove something to] me." It reveals a pretty self-centered and transactional view of the world. People who say, "You have to earn my respect" basically don't give anything of themselves to others unless there's some kind of quid pro quo involved, which means they're typically not very nice people. They view respect for others as something conditional, when in truth its something that all decent people should do in life, whether they are encountering the CEO of a large company or their waitress at the local greasy spoon.
So when you hear, "You have to earn my respect," watch out. You're dealing with a self-centered person who will take and take from you, expecting you to perform like a circus act, and never give you anything of substance in return.
People have to work very hard to earn dis-respect.
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