Respect

-- By MariaLaGumina - 19 Feb 2016

Respect Question Presented: How important is respect?

Isn't that the sort of question that has to be rhetorical? The reader doesn't expect you to say it isn't important. You could have said "respect is important." But the idea of the essay is something else, obviously, and it would be better to begin with that.

Throughout our discussions in class we have often circled back to the premise that being non-conformist is what is best for us as law students.

No, it's not a circle. The course is about creativity. That conformism and creativity are at odds goes without saying. We might be taken to have established a working hypothesis that willingness not to conform is a necessary but not sufficient condition for creativity.

After some hesitation I can see the benefits of not following the herd or sticking to the status quo but as I turned over this thesis and how it applies to me as a law student practically I kept coming across the same issue. The main stage to avoid the status quo is clearly in class, however every example we have discussed in our class seems to lack one thing, respect for the Professor. If I were to start cracking jokes in my Constitutional Law class it may at first seem like some levity but as I continued to waste time it would increasingly seem like I was disrespecting the Professor, and even my fellow students.

I don't think the point of the story is that the joke was irrelevant. Nor do I think that the point of the story was that I was disrespectful to Peter Schuck. The point of the story was that my fellow students responded with discomfort. As you are doing.

This premise then got me thinking about the other side of the argument, that is do these people deserve my respect. I believe that everyone deserves respect but if you subscribe to the definition of respect as a feeling of deep admiration for someone that is a result of their qualities then some may say that you have to earn respect. Then the question becomes “Have my Law professors earned my respect?” I believe that most people who go to the institution of Law School, especially Columbia, have trust in that institution and so trust the professors that work there to have earned their respect through their work and experiences. Thus, we should respect them as the experts in their field and the experts on how to teach us about their field. However, discussions that we have had in class have shown that Law School Professors are maybe not the most expert on how to teach.

This gets to an issue of where respect should come from. The two sources in my opinion are earned respect and inherent respect. In an ideal world all respect would be earned and warranted but more often than not inherent respect is more common.

What does this mean? I think the meaning of "inherent respect" is "social status" and the meaning of "earned respect" is "personal evaluation of competence, integrity or judgment." Using an adjective modifying "respect" to denote two different social or psychological phenomena is probably going to lead to more confusion than clarity.

Particularly at Law School the respect is inherent, especially at a place that is referred to as an ‘institution’ more regularly than as a ‘school’. This inherent respect can cause us to not give a second thought to the merit of the respect that we give to the members of this ‘institution’. If we were to give a second thought to the merit of the respect then we would be leaning towards the view of earned respect as the pinnacle of respect.

This is the problem it leads to. Respect for the intellect, character, professional performance as lawyer, writer or teacher of a particular individual is obviously different, not more or less, than hierarchical social status. How does trying to find a "pinnacle" advance the thought process. And, is this a digression from the subject of the essay? We still don't know what the essay's theme is.

Once we decide that respect should not be inherent we get into the issue of accepting that some Professors have not earned respect and so we do not need to give deference to them. Practically this poses a major problem. If Professors do not get respect then the class would devolve into a major time wasting session. Also, most Professors, especially here at Columbia, have a high regard of themselves and would not tolerate disrespect. The examples in class have laid out situations where the non-conformist behavior had happy endings, such as being hired as a research assistant, however it is just as plausible that the Professor would give you a C and effectively cut off many opportunities for employment in the future.

How do you know it is "just as plausible"? What makes you believe that the routine behavior of teachers is as unprincipled, arbitrary, and socially destructive as you hypothesize? I yield to no one in my critical evaluation of law school as we know it. But I think this claim about the likely behavior of my colleagues or other professional teachers is grossly improbable if not outright ridiculous. I wonder how you came by it and what evidence you think supports it.

But could it really be, in any event, that creative behavior is to be forbidden you because someone might respond in a hostile or offended fashion? Even if you thought: (a) that creativity is likely to be punished; (b) that you could not yourself sense in social situations how severe the penalty for creativity might be; and (c) that there is no offsetting likelihood that people will respond positively to your ability to invent and break social molds, would that really be a sufficient reason never to create? What sort of life would we be living under those conditions, and could we call ourselves free?

Even if good grades are not thought of as important to a student, the embarrassment from being berated in front of his or her peers could also be a negative outcome from breaking the mold in the wrong way.

Well, if criticism is to disable creativity, then we will never create anything, I grant you. But isn't the point of art that it enables criticism without disabling itself?

The benefits of respecting your Professor may seem small in that the main benefit is keeping things the same and not upsetting the balance. But I think there are additional benefits such as mutual respect between the Professor and student and also the respect of your peers in not insulting someone who has direct control over their job prospects. Even setting aside job prospects, mutual respect with a Professor could lead to future partnerships and even a potential mentoring relationship.

On the other hand, if we give respect to those Professors who have not earned it, then we are condoning their habits. They will continue to not merit any admiration and we will continue to not learn and things will never change. We would forever be stuck in a rut because of the fear of disrespecting someone who seems intimidating and superior to us. Because of this I think sometimes going against the norm, which may be disrespectful, is necessary. However, knowing that it may be construed as disrespectful shows the large risk that these actions require. The size of the risk means that not many people will take it but perhaps there is another way to not conform that avoids this risk.

I think that there is an answer in the concept of reciprocal respect. While it is generally accepted that students have to earn respect of their Professors and Peers, typically Professors have respect as soon as they walk into the classroom on the first day of class. I propose that Professors walk in the first day with the intention of gaining the respect of their students in the same way that students are anxious to do during their first cold call. In proving the respect of both parties the non-conformist actions will be less risky since they will be done with respect since the students have earned their respect and the Professors have merited their respect as well.

A final caveat on reciprocal respect in my opinion is respect in other spheres of life. In education, and Law school specifically, reciprocal respect can be conducive to both learning and substantive change but in day-to-day relationships requiring someone to earn their respect as soon as you meet them is unlikely to make you many friends.

There are two routes to improvement here, different but to my mind equally likely to be productive:

1. Back up one step closer to the start of the thoughtline. Creativity demands some degree of willingness not to conform. How does one cultivate the mindset necessary to create?
2. Do a second draft in which the same sort of development is applied, instead of "respect," to "courage."