RESPECT

The Imus statement about the Rutgers basketball team was racist, misogynistic and totally unacceptable, but what really bothers me most about the statement is that we are so accustomed to the lack of respect for people in this society that Imus even thought for a moment that his listeners might find it funny.

While there seems to be a greater awareness of political correctness these days, I contend that it is not accompanied by an increase in respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. While most of us would loudly condemn the Imus remark, we are not above laughing at disrespectful humor or contributing to the biting and demeaning remarks that permeate our society. We are not above watching and thereby supporting, TV shows, movies, and news reports that fail to respect the inherent worth and dignity of people. Take the caustic comments of Simon on American Idol or the intrusion on privacy of the news media as they seek out the most intimate details about the life of anyone unfortunate enough to be of interest to the rest of us. It is so omnipresent that we don’t even see it, a bit like getting so used to the smog in a big city that you don’t realize there is such a thing as clean air. The only time we really notice the smog is when it gets so thick we can hardly breathe at all or we go to the countryside and view the sky without it for a change. That is what happened with the Imus remark, it was so disrespectful that it caused us all to gasp, but it certainly wasn’t alone in polluting our society with verbal disrespect.

A good way to get some perspective is to watch an adult movie from the ‘40s or ‘50’s back to back with a modern PG-13 or R rated movie from today or watch a situation comedy from the late ‘50’s or early ‘60’s before watching a current one. Even better yet, watch the most popular stand up comics from the late ‘50’s and early 60’s and compare them to the most popular comics of today. Even if, like me, you barely flinch at the “F” word anymore, you may notice the way the people show disrespect for each other. Much of the humor is at the expense of someone, not laughing at the paradoxes and foibles of our shared humanness.

When I decided to write a post about this topic, I looked for a definition of respect. What I found was the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/respect/ It did not give a simple definition of the word, but a full discussion of the topic complete with many of the philosophical questions people have had about respect throughout the ages. I found it very interesting. The concluding remarks are worth a direct quote here,

“Everyday discourse and practices insist that respect and self-respect are personally, socially, politically, and morally important, and philosophical discussions of the concepts bear this out. Their roles in our lives as individuals, as people living in complex relations with other people and surrounded by a plethora of other beings and things on which our attitudes and actions have tremendous effects, cannot, as these discussions reveal, be taken lightly. “

This is a warning going unheeded in this society, and it is having dire repercussions. Don Imus, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, are only the public face of a society that fails to respect people in far more ways than bigoted language and disparaging remarks.

So, what if Imus hadn’t said that on the air? What if he had just remained quietly misogynistic and racist? What if we managed to legislate or humiliate all the bigots and racists into keeping their mouths shut? It might keep the rest of us from gasping, but it wouldn’t end the pollution of disrespect that permeates our communal atmosphere. It is time for a new dialog on respect and a deeper understanding of what it means “to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person”. This is the first of our Unitarian Universalist principles, and an essential principle for any society to follow if it is to be healthy. Respect for our shared humanity comes from an understanding that people are not to be treated as objects, not objects to get a laugh, not objects to get us the material things we want, not objects to satisfy our curiousity or make us feel good in comparing ourselves to others. All religions teach us that we need to give others the respect we would wish for ourselves.