That sentence has been bugging me for ages since it essentially reeks of hipocrisy - in my eyes, at least. You can respect the person you're disagreeing with, but you can't respect an opinion you disagree with. Essentially, it's against human nature as such, from my point of view. You can acknowledge it, you can accept that the other person is perfectly entitled to an opinion of his own rather than accepting yours or you can argue til both of you turn blue to change nothing, but respect as such is an earned value generated through positive experiences - or experience. You can't respect a momentary opionion that comes up through a conversation. So today, I opened a dictionary and what do I find? Definition for the word "Respect" that suddently explains the whole thing with it. I'm overjoyed.
1: a relation or reference to a particular thing or situation: respect to an earlier plan
2: an act of giving particular attention: consideration
3a:high or special regard: esteem; b: the quality or state of being esteemed c: plural expressions of respect or deference:
Respect has several meanings - and when you say, "I disagree with you, but I consider your opionion", it suddenly makes a lot more sense than saying "I disagree with you, but hold your opinion in esteem regardless". Because this is what we do. When we disagree, we regardlessly (hopefully) think on the opposing opinion's factors - sometimes ending up having it in esteem indeed - but often, merely considering it as a valid option alternative to our own. Which, in a way, I suppose, is respecting the conversation counterpart - but not respecting the opinion in the 3a, b or c fashion.
Yay, semantics.
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Respecting an opinion because you respect the person who speaks it is, like I've stated before, a fallacy. It's just as bad as not respecting a valid opinion just because you dislike the speaker.
ReplyDeleteThat too depends on the definition of "respect", like you said. For me, "respect" in this context means "it is possible that your opinion is valid and it will be examined like any other."
If the opinion is found to be complete rubbish (eg. "The only path to salvation is through [insert]", "video games/comic books/rock music corrupts the youth"), there is no point in respecting it just because your cuddly plush bear holds it.
I mean, I've heard people with freaking PhDs speak complete nonsense about subjects that weren't covered in their university studies. Do I have to respect the man just because he holds a PhD in say, physics, while he's saying obviously stupid things about, say, gay people?
Nope. Sad part is, people whose language by default isn't English - and thanks to the Political Correctness movement, even the native speakers - forget the "consideration" meaning and go for the more obvious meaning of "respect" being the face value, most commonly used respect - a banner in Political Correctness. Y'know, mutual respect, absolute equality and all that sort of thing.
ReplyDeletePolitical Correctness is like sweeping your junk under your bed, like I said in our discussion of the word "nigger".
ReplyDeletePretty much, yeah. You can cover xenophobia with fancy words, but... A rose is a rose by any name.
ReplyDelete