grahamg
Old codger
- Location
- South of Manchester, UK
I posted this questionnaire on another thread but felt it needed or deserved its own thread as it was being ignored, (the answers and views given are not my own though I'd endorse them);
" Q: “Why does everyone just assume that parents deserve respect?”
A: They don’t. They are just sloppy about telling you that you must respect your parents STATUS as your parents, as a part of the structure of society. They don’t “deserve” that, it comes with the job, so to speak. It’s like the fact that you don’t DESERVE to have whatever eye color you do: you just have it.
Q: “ Aren't you supposed to respect to be respected?”
A: No. Each kind of respect is entirely separate from the other kind. If someone SHOULD respect you, but they do not, that doesn’t mean that you should not respect them, as a sort of punishment or revenge. It means instead that you need to deal with them differently than you would with people who DO show you the correct respect. This is a part of the overall idea that if it is wrong to be disrespectful, it is wrong to be so whether someone else is or not. Just as if it is wrong to steal, it is wrong to steal even from a thief.
Q: “What should you do if your parents don't respect you, but think they deserve your respect?”
A: This is not possible to answer without knowing the details, especially since I can’t tell whether you have used the term “respect” correctly and consistently here. It may or may not be true, that your parents are behaving inconsistently with you. But having been both a child and a parent, I know first hand, that many times, this sort of thing is a matter of the details, and is more often misunderstood, than is correctly understood. Again, see the above description of how sloppy most people are about word usages.
Q: “Also, does respect mean obey everything they say?”
A: No, and yes. Again, there is more than one meaning to the word respect involved, but even more to the point, the reasons why you must obey, most of the time, isn’t connected to respect of the “looking up to them” kind, it is connected to the respect of the role that the parents play in your life.
It’s the same as a relationship with an external authority, such as a teacher, or an employer. You don’t have to “respect” your boss or your instructor as a human being, before you have to obey their instructions to you. The two things have nothing to do with each other."
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-ever...so-does-respect-mean-obey-everything-they-say
" Q: “Why does everyone just assume that parents deserve respect?”
A: They don’t. They are just sloppy about telling you that you must respect your parents STATUS as your parents, as a part of the structure of society. They don’t “deserve” that, it comes with the job, so to speak. It’s like the fact that you don’t DESERVE to have whatever eye color you do: you just have it.
Q: “ Aren't you supposed to respect to be respected?”
A: No. Each kind of respect is entirely separate from the other kind. If someone SHOULD respect you, but they do not, that doesn’t mean that you should not respect them, as a sort of punishment or revenge. It means instead that you need to deal with them differently than you would with people who DO show you the correct respect. This is a part of the overall idea that if it is wrong to be disrespectful, it is wrong to be so whether someone else is or not. Just as if it is wrong to steal, it is wrong to steal even from a thief.
Q: “What should you do if your parents don't respect you, but think they deserve your respect?”
A: This is not possible to answer without knowing the details, especially since I can’t tell whether you have used the term “respect” correctly and consistently here. It may or may not be true, that your parents are behaving inconsistently with you. But having been both a child and a parent, I know first hand, that many times, this sort of thing is a matter of the details, and is more often misunderstood, than is correctly understood. Again, see the above description of how sloppy most people are about word usages.
Q: “Also, does respect mean obey everything they say?”
A: No, and yes. Again, there is more than one meaning to the word respect involved, but even more to the point, the reasons why you must obey, most of the time, isn’t connected to respect of the “looking up to them” kind, it is connected to the respect of the role that the parents play in your life.
It’s the same as a relationship with an external authority, such as a teacher, or an employer. You don’t have to “respect” your boss or your instructor as a human being, before you have to obey their instructions to you. The two things have nothing to do with each other."
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-ever...so-does-respect-mean-obey-everything-they-say