R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Posted at November 25, 2010

I am going to suggest something particularly outlandish in this post. And that is, maybe that part of the Declaration of Independence that is so often quoted, you know the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” part, is a little off. Maybe missing from that list is another thing we humans are endowed with, or at least should be, respect. If you think about it, most of the bad stuff that happens in the world comes from either a flagrant disrespect of people, their property, or the planet. A group of high school kids use Internet social network sites to bully a classmate to the point where the latter take his or her life….disrespect. We drill holes in the bottom of the ocean too far down to deal with the consequences should something go awry….disrespect. A husband decides to cheat on his wife of eighteen years and the mother of his children and the person who has given him the better part of her life….disrespect. One nation decides to dredge a border river and cast the resulting sludge onto an environmentally sensitive and protected area of their neighbor country….disrespect. It seems this whole “pursuit of happiness” thing has become nothing more than an excuse to disrespect. The pursuit of happiness has been reduced to a supposed “right” to be wealthy, to live the “American dream,” the “good life.” So, the arguably “smartest” among us flock to Wall Street in order to figure out ways to “rig the system” and get obscenely wealthy in the process….at the expense of an entire economy and millions of jobs…..disrespect. Sure I could go on and on. Maybe what the world needs is a healthy dose of respect. Respect these days has become something we are told we have to “earn.” Or, something we have to “pay.” To “pay one’s respects” connotes a zero-sum game whereby I have to give up something myself in order to give you the respect you deserve. However, quite the contrary, respect is reciprocal….that is, in order to get it, you gotta give it. Aretha Franklin demanded it, maybe you and I should to….Life, Liberty and Respect….now there’s a declaration worth fighting for.