The disrespect It is the anti-value also called lack of respect, and understood as the attitude of those who are not willing to abide by certain minimum standards for healthy coexistence among all members of society.
Disrespect is usually defined by opposition to respect, which is the feeling of appreciation and recognition to the people and institutions that deserve it. If respect is the cornerstone of harmonious social interaction, disrespect is failing to do so, that is, collaborating with the breakdown of social ties.
Offenses between people
The first form in which disrespect can manifest itself is the known individual disrespect, which occurs with the offenses that one person can do to another, be it a close person or a complete stranger.
In this way, it is not enough to behave in a respectful way with the people you know in order not to incur disrespect: you must do so even with those oblivious to their circles. Especially when it comes to people with whom one does not share likes, interests or opinions, disrespect can come in the form of intolerance of the opinion of others.
Consequences of disrespect
When a person carries out an action of individual disrespect, that is, an action that results in a damage For another, it is common for the person who received it to feel offended, and even injured.
However, it is often the case that acts of disrespect they are not sanctioned as the facts liable to legal sanction, but are simply moral conduct imposed by society. There is no regulation that stipulates disrespectful acts, but it is in the person’s own socialization.
Offenses to principles or institutions
The second dimension Disrespect has to do with the offenses that a person can do to the institutions or to the ways of life that society understands as valuable at a time.
Over time, society establishes guidelines on how to live, some of which have a logical foundation and others that are manifested only by the reproduction of a custom or habit.
Institutions such as the family, religion, the Government, the Judiciary, are examples of these forms of organization that establish their own ways of organizing, and therefore invite different forms of disrespect.
Can disrespect be good good?
As said, the guidelines established by social institutions are not absolute, and are passive of criticism or transformation. In this way, the total respect these guidelines can be considered a kind of submission to a regulation that is not always logical and prudent.
Lack of respect for these principles, then, in some cases can be a combative attitude, which may be the seed of certain changes that favor ending unjust regimes: many of the social changes, such as the end of monarchies or many racial or cultural segregations, included episodes that were initially considered disrespectful against current regulations.
Examples of disrespect
- Throwing garbage on public roads.
- Abuse public property, such as the streets or squares.
- Enter some religious institutions with your shoes on.
- Taking advantage of a child’s weakness.
- Stepping into a common space instead to wait.
- Not knowing the outcome of a democratic election.
- Make noise in a space that requires silence, such as a library or hospital.
- Raise your voice to impose yourself in a conversation.
- Consider that the roles in the family are established, and it is the woman who must take care of certain things and the man who must take care of others.
- Take actions that tend to harm nature.
- Dressing inappropriately for a formal situation.
- Entering a place and starting to act without first greeting others.
- Breaking with a tradition of a family or a culture.
- Do not give the seat to people of legal age or disabled in public transport.
- Being considerably late.
- Defame or mock a coworker or schoolmate.
- Interrupting a person while they are speaking.
- Occupy the head of the table, in some classic families where that place is reserved for the father or the oldest.
- Sharing a public transport with a white-skinned person if one has black skin, in the South Africa of the apartheid.
- Wearing long hair in most of the world’s armies.