I know this is a hard concept to get ones head around, but let me try one more time.<\/p>\n
The word is called respect<\/b> and I have a trivial story to tell that may speak of its importance.<\/p>\n
I was a young teacher in a poor Brooklyn high school when a freshman (first year) student walked into my empty room one morning between classes. He pulls out a gun and tells me that he is going to shoot this student and would I please tell his parents so they do not find out through the police. I ask him why he has to shoot this student and he tells me that this senior had “disrespected” him by stepping on his new shoes and not saying he was sorry. Needless to say I talked him out of it and escorted him and his gun out of the school. I did what I could to get the two of them talking without violence and the happy ending is that he became fast friends with this senior within a week.<\/p>\n
Even in this country, filled with righteous upright, God-fearing Christians, people will go to war if they feel they have been shown disrespect.<\/p>\n
I believe part of why this is such a hard idea for the ruling class to understand is because they do not have to deal with the concept in any substantial form. If they are faced with disrespect they often have a viable alternative path to walk. When your only path for advancement is being blocked by someone who is “disrespecting” you, your world view changes substantially. All of a sudden, a normally trivial thing can take on exaggerated importance. When a pattern of disrespect is shown by a single “group” of people towards a “group” you identify with (say, for example, “Western Society” vs “Islam”), the fight can quickly spiral into “insanity”.<\/p>\n
The great thing about respect is that it works in the reverse. When you respect your opponent you are less likely to do horrendous things to them. The Geneva Convention is set up to show respect for human life. While it is not perfect, it is designed around the concept of respect specifically because without respect people can do all manner of crazy things to each other. I think it is not an accidental coincidence that the USA (Western Civ Representative #1 at the moment) no longer observers the Geneva Convention and the trigger has been those in the Muslim World.<\/p>\n
Another interesting thing about respect is that you often have advocates from unlikely sources. Plenty in the Muslim world are arguing exactly these points AGAINST killing in response to these cartoons. “How can we ask the West to respect us if we do not respect their forms of expression?” People “get it”, I mean, they are not stoopid or anything. Folks can feel passionately about a thing but still have the sense to juggle logic.<\/p>\n
And finally, you can build up “respect points” over time. The problem is, that the West has shown little interest in depositing in the Bank of Respect for People of the World recently. I am sure if Gandhi and King were alive today and sent out as ambassadors to the Muslim World, this would have blown over quickly. The problem is that we are lacking people of good will who are in high standing within the non-white communities of the world. It is only a matter of time before this deficit will come to truly harm us.<\/p>\n
When will the freshman come with the gun to kill us for stepping on his shoes? And will there be a teacher standing in between pleading for understanding and calm? How long do we think we can stand on top of the world without acknowledging the feelings of those we have power over? Do we really believe this globalization machine will grind on without the oil of respect for local communities?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I know this is a hard concept to get ones head around, but let me try one more time. The word is called respect and I have a trivial story to tell that may speak of its importance. I was a young teacher in a poor Brooklyn high school when a freshman (first year) student … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-or-so-it-is-called","category-politics","category-random-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yvod.com\/ulan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}