Fear of something demands respect.
7 comments
Common mistake people make, confusing respect with fear.
Ask them if they’d respect a gibbering drug addict lunging out of the shadows with a bloody needle pointed at them. They soon learn.
I feared my stepfather. I had no respect for him in life. Less so after no longer being able to control me through fear and other adults no longer taking his side in the wake of cruel abuses (save for my mother, which irreparably harmed my perception of her) caused him to completely fall apart and he chose to take his own life rather than face consequences. To this day even thinking about him puts me in a dark place and it’s cruel irony that standing up for my brother, who I now hold as being similarly wretched and toxic as a person, was what caused me to grow a spine because before I grew to fear and hate my brother I did respect him. No more. Respect is a much more powerful thing than petty terrorism, which loses respect very quickly. And even if it wasn’t? Fear bites back, and its fangs are poison the one who inflicts it distills in their victims until they return that favour. You don’t respect what you fear, you avoid provoking things you fear at best but ultimately you want it GONE.
There are two kinds of respect. You can respect someone as an authority, or you can respect them as a person having their own worth.
Neither one comes from fearing them. I am aware of the threat of a rabid dog, armed robber, kakistocracy, without respecting them.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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