Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

In the Male Dominance Hierarchy, the coin of the realm is respect; the more you have, the more control you have over your own life. And like coins, respect can be both given and received, but it must be earned, people aren’t owed respect. The most important kind of respect is self-respect because if you don’t respect yourself, you will not be respected by others either. Courtesy is the handmaiden of respect, and often substitutes for it. Respect is also an important component of personal identity and interpersonal relationships, because once respect is replaced by its opposite, contempt, a relationship is over, which very often leads to violence; so it’s not actually respect we have to be worried about, it’s disrespect.

Unfortunately, respect has entered the realm of Social Justice: “People are due respect for the simple fact of being people. Equality is in balance.” If everyone supposedly has respect then no one has, which totally negates its personalized value. Since the word has been lost to mysticism, it’s important to replace it in our consciousness because real respect is very important. We could use one of the synonyms of respect in its place; perhaps “regard,” or “deference,” “honor,” maybe even “admiration?” However, the best word to use would be “esteem,” which is even closer to what we want; the sense of a person’s worth.