Compassionate Candour Trumps Respect
Feb 10, 2017
In search of self evident truths...
Do you respect my truth and the same laws and values? Is respect freely given or is it something your status and ego demand? What does respect for others actually mean? does everyone deserve respect?
How often have you heard the words ‘I respect you’ or ‘I respect your view’- really? Are you sure or are you perhaps just saying that because it’s kind of polite and courteous or maybe the correct thing to say to avoid conflict and remain in favour? Being a fair minded individual you may actually believe every ones’ ideas and views are equally valid and should therefore be honoured with the same amount of ‘respect’ or perhaps you’re willing to say ‘no I don’t respect your views, but I’m willing to fight for your right to hold them’. Whatever your personal position, it’s clear the word ‘respect’ means different things to different people. That’s because respect and disrespect are personal judgement calls based on our own values and beliefs; they are in the eye of the beholder and therefore subjective.
“None of us can or should respect everything and everybody equally. To do so would be to surrender our powers of discernment, of evaluating the quality of one person’s views and actions as cleaner or better than another’s. Jeremy E Sherman Ph.D.
Surely our ability to agree to disagree, without losing respect, is the foundation of the democratic process and a civil society. Our laws and government are based on an adversarial approach where a dialectic process is used to test and refine ideas and judgements and where agreed protocols and procedures attempt to focus debate on the best outcome, regardless of competing views.
“I Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.” Bertrand Russell.
Disagreement and dissent are not in themselves disrespectful and yet we so often make that judgement i.e. if you disagree with me you’re actually disrespecting me, which is bad. But if you agree with me that is a good thing and you have my respect. The end result is compliance without thought, passive agreement without the refinement of constructive criticism.
That's why for the foreseeable future, I’m ditching respect in favour of 'compassionate candour'. Candour is not a judgement it’s an action; a way of behaving with frankness, openness, honesty and truthfulness. But it needs to be tempered with concern for others an awareness that kindness means having sympathy for another position and viewpoint. Candour without compassion runs the risk becoming of becoming a weapon to bludgeon others.
Compassionate candour requires we speak our truth with kindness and understanding. Not easy, but a preferable alternative to the current misuse of the word 'respect', in some circles, where conflict and polarising views have become more important than objective facts.
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