The World According to Jet - ... V? VI? Let's Go With V. · 2:59am May 28th, 2020
Nobody deserves things. Nobody at all.
Let me back this up. I've been seeing on the internet recently some spirited discussion about whether certain redemption moments -- and "redemption" moments -- in a recent popular television series were "deserved." I also had this argument with someone on a fanfic, whether a character "deserved" to be forgiven for their horrible trespasses.
Let me elucidate a point of personal philosophy.
There are three things in this world -- that I can think of off the top of my head, there are probably many more -- that nobody has ever, or will ever "deserve."
1) Respect
2) Forgiveness
3) Love
Each of these things is a gift. You don't get them because you've earned them, or because you deserve them. You didn't fill up an XP bar and level up to girlfriend, or bygones-being-bygones. You got those things because the person you were interacting with elected to give them to you. And thought to the contrary, in my estimation, is the cause of more strife in the world that nearly anything else.
I'm sure you all know someone who's made a dick of themselves because somebody didn't give them the romantic attention they thought they'd earned. Or someone who thought their position as an authority figure or a parent entitled them to the respect of their subordinate and/or offspring. Well it doesn't. Those people elect to give those things, and that's based on their estimation of whether you're worthy of it. Your estimation of it doesn't enter into it.
This goes for people who talk about who they're not worthy of something they've gotten, too, but that's a matter for a therapist to resolve most of the time.
So yeah. You don't deserve stuff. Nobody ever has. I will die on this hill if I have to.
If you disagree, you might not just be an asshole, you might be that asshole.
Respect stands out as different from those others. Because it actually isn't given out arbitrarily. Respect is earned. Your examples of "bad assessment of the giving of respect" are not examples that support your thesis. Those are situations of a person demanding respect due to position of authority. They haven't earned the respect they demand.
To use your examples on love: some guy feels he has earned love and acts like a dick when he doesn't get it. We all recognize, intuitively, that that guy is wrong. Now apply that to someone with respect. If the person has earned respect, and doesn't get it, we intuitively know the one being disrespectful is wrong.
Depending on context or your stance, you may decide that it is fine to be disrespectful. Free speech and all of that. But you'll find much less support for disrespect towards someone who has earned respect than you'd find for someone who hasn't. Or, further contrast, someone who has earned disrespect.
A paragon of the community that serves their fellow human beings often has earned respect. If they're polite and humble, they keep that respect. It's only when they act in a way to lose that respect that we begin to accept disrespect towards them.
5272030
None of them are given out arbitrarily. That wasn't the point. You have to earn all three of them.
My point is, however, that just because you've tried doesn't mean you deserve it. Respect is no different. You can make every effort, but if you've already burned that bridge hard enough, or if you just fucking suck at it, then the person you want respect from sure as hell isn't obligated to give it to you.
My point is that it's not transactional. It's not, as a fic I read put it recently, a payment for services rendered. It's something that you get based upon whether the other party thinks you deserve it. And no one gets to say whether that person has a right to do it or not.