What is Respect?

I agree. To me, in that context respect would be something like:

A: “*Something crazy*”
B: “It’s interesting you say that. I would have thought x instead. Why do you say y?”

I think the profanity is unnecessary, but the sentiment is correct. Telling someone you think they’re wrong means you respect them enough to care about what they think and that you respect them enough to think they’d change their mind if you discussed it.

You would want a friend to care enough about you to point out if you were making a mistake. You’d never bother trying to sit down with Sarah Palin to try to explain why you disagree. Trying to change someone’s mind means that you respect and care about them.

Leah @ Unequally Yoked

I interpret as respect means that I think highly enough of you to be totally honest and don’t think you’re either actually crazy or so reactionary that you wouldn’t consider my point of view. And ‘you’re out of your fucking mind’ is very different from ‘you’re fucking crazy.’ One implies a transitory state, the other a permanent one. Plus I’ve definitely heard the former in relatively friendly tones amongst good friends, though usually as a question

Well, confronting someone is more respectful than pretending that everything’s fine, he’s got that right. But he chose a disrespectful way to do it.

If someone held crazy beliefs in my presence, I would have asked him why he believed it, and then seen if evidence would persuade him otherwise. I consider that TRUE respect.

I think the point he was making is that you have to have respect for the person and their ideas if you actually take enough interest to interact with them (even if the actual language he used is a bit over the top.)

If you can just say “that’s nice” and walk away, you think the person is not even worth taking seriously.

Actually, I like his point. True, you would certainly have to frame it less harshly than “you’re fucking crazy” if you wanted to continue a dialogue. But the point is that direct confrontation shows that you recognize that the person you’re engaging is an intelligent individual capable of meaningful, rational discussion, and that his or her opinions are valid enough to confront. Saying simply, “That’s nice,” shows that you don’t even respect the person enough to challenge him.

I think there is a difference between courtesy and respect. Courtesy tells you to smile politely and be tactful. Respecting someone is being honest and forthright, even when it is something they might not want to hear, because you believe they have the character to take it.

There is a reason respect must be earned. It takes effort and observation to know wether someone is deserving of it.

Tiptoeing around being fully honest—in an attempt to blunt the truth—is not showing respect toward the person you are talking to. It is implicitly acknowledging that you don’t think they can handle forthrightness; and how can that be called respect?

Ayesha:

I think Peen would disagree with you there because B is lying to A (assuming that B is not crazy as well, of course). B thinks A is crazy, but won’t tell A that because A might not be able to handle it. If B thought that A was worthy, B would tell it like it is, knowing that A can take it in as well as dish it out. B might do so with fewer swear words and exclamation marks, but still.

I say this because it’s what I think, and I think Peen may have a similar idea.

Jeff P:

Fucketty fuck!

They are just words that have, in an almost entirely arbitrary manner, being labeled as “bad”. Don’t confuse your personal gross-outs with universal moral imperatives: that never works.

@Silent Service,

It’s OK to use your full vocabulary when you are among friends. It’s just counter productive when talking to those you have never before interacted.

Penn, being an entertainer, uses profanity as part of his act… although he often does have good things to say. But when you tune into him, you expect him to talk like that. Without that expectation, he would just be rude and ignore by many people.

I really don’t get how Hemant can publish this when just HOURS earlier he called Bill Brady a “crazy.”

Seriously, “friendly” atheist, take a step back and look at what you write sometimes. Every time I come back to this site it’s “religious morons murder another baby” or “the crazies are at it again,” punctuated with “woe is me why won’t they engage us” or “stop being pricks, everyone-but-me.”

@Ayesha

It is a lie to omit a truth. It is in fact called a “lie of omission”. If you think someone is crazy and don’t tell them so, you are now working with an assumption they don’t know you have and don’t know to disabuse you of, thus perpetuating your own possibly incorrect assessment and leaving them at the disadvantage of being “the crazy guy”.

Keeping with the idea of forthrightness being a key component of respect, if you think there is a good chance they are not crazy but that you are misinformed, then of course calling them crazy wouldn’t be respectful. It would be a lie.

There’s no functional difference between “You’re crazy” and “You’re wrong”. There’s a difference of tone, of course, but I strongly believe that people really overemphasize the tone, when it’s really the content that offends them.

Personally, I don’t respect religious beliefs. How I mean that, is that when someone tells me that they beleive in God, my response is “No you don’t”. Because usually they don’t. They might believe in some shared emotions or some vague mysterious and entirely ineffectual “higher power”. But the idea of a interventionist deity? No. More of then than not they don’t.

Because it’s a really stupid idea.

Folks, a bit of self-reflection here. Take a given belief you hold deeply and now imagine that when you tell someone about it they opened with “You’re out of your fucking mind! That’s totally ridiculous.” If you were asked, could you honestly say that you felt you were being treated with respect? Honestly?

However if you were to get “I’m afraid I disagree with you on this because….” you would be getting the same message and yet you probably would honestly say that you were being treated with respect.

Tone does matter, and it is in fact possible to have a respectful tone without compromising your core message. Of course, sometimes we don’t want to convince the person we’re talking to because we think they are beyond our help and/or we don’t like them very much, but then that just shows that we don’t really respect them. If you want to convince someone of something, or at least get them to think about their assumptions, then tone matters, whether you like it or not.

Remember, take it down a notch, for America 😉

He’s just totally wrong. You may need, at some point, to note that your opponent is insane, particularly if they are. But opening a respectful conversation does not involve that on the front end. It’s more like, say, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnUfPQVOqpw

Assuming that Mr. Jillette did not go to the Rally to Restore Sanity, it’s really too bad he missed it. I agree with his underlying point that an honest response might come from a deep root of respect, while shining someone on with “that’s nice” is a very shallow kind of courtesy. But it sounds like saying “I’m doing this for your own good” just before you give someone a brutal beating.

“You’re fucking crazy” immediately expresses so much anger and so much intent to hurt and humiliate, that it overwhelms the receiver’s ability to appreciate the sender’s root motive, assuming that he really was practicing respect, rather than deliberately humiliating and alienating the receiver.

Very often an insulting attack is nothing more than what it appears to be. Jillette may claim that he’s being respectful, but such a method is self-defeating.

It’s like the difference between the two basic motives I see in people’s comments on this blog. Some want to persuade, and others only want to express.

If you want to persuade, try something like, “Wow, what you just said doesn’t make sense to me. Let’s talk about it. If you don’t mind, here’s why it doesn’t make sense to me…”

It’s in the third definition of the link you provided (only got that far before spotting it, so it might be part of more of the definitions).

“esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability”

If you think someone is wrong and don’t tell it directly to them, it’s either disrespectful or plain evil of you.

It’s disrespectful if you do this because you think they hold their position out of stupidity (a.k.a. lack of reasoning) or tradition (equivalent to calling someone a bigot). One or more of these might be true, but if you go around assuming such things, it’s disrespectful.

It’s evil if you shut you mouth because you think the other person has a point or lacks evidence – the first is evil because it makes you a liar, the second is evil because of you don’t correct his/her mistake, you will leave them ignorant (and ignorance is a bad thing if it can be corrected).

Anyway, I agree with Jillette on this one.

Adding, that it’s perhaps a disrespectful tone, but is tone really a problem compared to lies? I think the truth is more important than how we tell someone what’s true.

I see Penn’s point.

I don’t think he’s talking about polite v impolite. Instead, he seems to be asking if we should conceal disagreement.

The smile-and-nod option often seems to come with the subtext, “that person is so loony that there’s no point in talking to them. If we matched wits on this topic, they’d be entirely disarmed.”

By contrast, “you’re fucking crazy” seems to be Penn-speak for, “I disagree entirely with everything you’ve said.” Perhaps Penn is ‘too’ bombastic. The key isn’t that he’s rude. It’s that he’s disagreeing openly with the person. The only reason to say anything is if the person might have a worthwhile reply.

“You’re fucking crazy” is not respect – it’s an attack, hard to be interpreted as something else. IMO it would be better to simply say “that opinion has no basis in reality – why do you say that?”
As for myselg, I’ve mostly got the best results by simply looking astonished and saying “so… that sounds really interesting, do you have any evidence?”

I agree with Penn completely.
@ Don

I don’t agree with Penn’s definition of tolerance. Intolerance in this context would be religious discrimination, tolerance would be welcoming someone else as an equal member of the community despite their (crazy) religious views.

Yes Intolerance is religious discrimination, but your example seems of tolerance seems to be the same kind of condescending attitude that Penn was describing. People say or believe crazy things. While you say, “you are an equal member of the community, (that’s nice.)”
No one ever said their not equal members of the community, but if they are shouldn’t you treat them as an intellectual equal of yours. So when they say some crazy you don’t shy away from telling them so.

He exaggerates to make a point: respect includes taking someone else seriously enough to tell them when they’re wrong.

Presumably that is indeed the point he was attempting to make. But telling someone they’re wrong is hardly respectful if you are not then prepared to explain why you think they are wrong. And if you kill the dialogue at the very start you are clearly not prepared to do that.

Could the people defending Penn Jillette explain how killing the dialogue with an insult is an improvement on killing it with an evasion?

I think this shines a light on the “dick” debate in our community: We all know there is a time and place where confrontation, rudeness, or whatever you want to call it is justified, and needed.

Gay rights, for instance, is one of my pressure points.

But the question is where do we draw the line? I don’t think every Christian should be called a moron, and I think every “God Hates Fags!”-sign-carrying Christian should be called far worse.

The line is what we are debating. I guess we all have different boiling points, which may be a good thing.

“But the question is where do we draw the line? I don’t think every Christian should be called a moron, and I think every “God Hates Fags!”-sign-carrying Christian should be called far worse.”

Sounds right to me.

I agree with Penn. Being forthright and balls-out honest with someone as opposed to patronizing them *is* more respectful by far. I personally would much rather someone say to my face “you’re completely fucking nuts” than “of course, dear.” One makes me want to further the conversation, and one makes me want to punch their teeth in. And guess what, the one that incites a violent reaction doesn’t involve profanity.

Claudia wrote:

Folks, a bit of self-reflection here. Take a given belief you hold deeply and now imagine that when you tell someone about it they opened with “You’re out of your fucking mind! That’s totally ridiculous.” If you were asked, could you honestly say that you felt you were being treated with respect? Honestly?

However if you were to get “I’m afraid I disagree with you on this because….” you would be getting the same message and yet you probably would honestly say that you were being treated with respect.

You nailed it Claudia.

I disagree with Penn.

The respectful way to deal with asomeone spewing “teh crazy” is not to tell them they are out of their fucking mind. Thats not helpful. Its to say “your ideas are wrong and heres why…..”

I agree with his point on tolerance though. Crazies should be met head on but you win by attacking the ideas and not the person.

Penn Jillete likes to exaggerate. I think a more appropriate response in that situation is “Well that’s your opinion, but facts don’t back it up” or “That doesn’t make any sense at all”.

It’s pretty much the same feeling that you are expressing, since you obviously think that the person is bonkers, but this way you aren’t being a prick about it. Respect is a two way street.