Is it an over used term which has lost all meaning? Heard everywhere today – respect. Respect other’s rights, opinions, attitudes, and behaviors pushed at all levels from media, government, corporate, and union alike.
The current concept of respecting others seems to have began with multiculturalism in an effort to create tolerance and acceptance. Unions and activists groups took on the term and further pushed it into respecting rights often to be loosely translated as “Allow us to do as we please.” The woke movement further perverted the term to be the one sided situation where an individual or group is afforded status, rights, and an elevated position without the need to return the same to any other.
The type of respect in these cases is something that must be earned. Those seeking this kind of respect must behave in a manor that is respectful. It requires a minimal integrity which is something else that seems to have been lost. True respect comes from morally right behaviors which really only come from God Himself. As much as man kind would like to believe he can generate morals, it simply isn’t possible as evidenced by all societies that have abandoned a biblical view. Behaviors become worse while expectations of tolerance increase (often for only the few) until overwhelming chaos produces poverty, war, and collapse.
There are other types of respect yet those too come from a biblical approach. Respecting elders, dignitaries, and authorities – the very basis of a just, fair, and democratic society come directly from this source. They produce the model for respect in all other situations and is the reason integrity is demanded of those seeking it, yet today even children are demanding unwarranted respect.
Those violating the moral high ground biblically established are operating in a manor making it difficult and often impossible to respect. What they really want is tolerance of their ill behavior and this is what most have come to think the word really means. In denial and rejection of the source of respect, the term has actually become more of “Do unto me NOT as I do unto you.” There is nothing mutual in today’s cries for respect nor does it come from a position of integrity which is why those demands can not and will not be met.