"Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay."

-a 15yo autistic girl experiencing ABA therapy

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  • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
    241·
    8 months ago

    Tangential, but relevant I think.

    “And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

    “It’s a lot more complicated than that—”

    “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

    “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—”

    “But they starts with thinking about people as things…”

    ― Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

    All too often, people who identify as an authority do so because they think of people as owned things. An ugly situation somewhat ameliorated by Celine’s Second Law “Effective communication is only possible among equals.”