On Respect

A couple of posts on a couple of blogs caught my eye and my mind over the past few days.

OldNFO talks about how being in the military changes you, and how you never completely leave the uniform behind.

The military, for all its flaws, is a comfort zone for anyone who has ever worn the uniform. It's a place where you know the rules and know they are enforced; a place where everybody is busy but not too busy to take care of business. Because there exists behind the gates of every military facility an institutional understanding of respect, order, uniformity, accountability and dedication that becomes part of your marrow and never, ever leaves you.

Brad Torgersen, who will be going up on my bloglist next time I update it, talks about what it means to be a gentleman:

I think this code can apply anywhere, at any time, and it’s a shame to see so many males advance through adolescence and into adulthood without receiving either a proper role model — or proper guidance. Because the honest truth of it is this — and I speak comfortably as a man who knows his limitations: women civilize us. Left to our own devices, we are selfish, brutal bastards. We need the women in our lives to remind us of a higher responsibility, beyond our own carnal lusts and the rumbling of our stomachs. A gentleman rises to this challenge like a falcon rises to the morning sun. He does not shirk it or shrink from it, or cast it off as old-fashioned.

Go read the entirety of both articles.  What I have to say can wait while these two gentlemen have their say.

What I believe both of these articles boil down to, and my own personal views go along with them to a large part, is respect.  Respect for yourself, respect for another, and respect for your group as a whole.

NFO talks about how people in the military tend to work together towards a common goal with a lot less of the societal grease that you find in a civilian organization.  In a corporation, there is a lot of stroking of egos, both individual and collective, in order to get cooperation.  In the military, while it is also a common phenomenon, it's not absolutely necessary.  If you give a group of professional military people a goal, explain the goal to them, and let them know what resources they have to achieve the goal, they will tend to maximize each others skills to achieve the goal.  In the civilian realm, where power relationships aren't as cut and dried and personal gain is usually more important than collective success, a lot more convincing is necessary to get coordinated work accomplished.

Mr. Torgersen makes excellent points about how a gentleman (or lady) acts.  He boils  these down to a few maxims, but again, it's all respect.  A gentleman respects the women he comes into contact with, and treats them accordingly.  A gentleman also doesn't stand for someone else acting disrespectfully to others. 

I'll admit it, I sometimes oggle.  I have to concentrate to not look down a woman's shirt.   I use rough language in mixed company.  But if I ever catch myself crossing lines, I'm quick to throw it into reverse and apologize without prompting.  I never use my position, knowledge, or privileges to get away with outrageous behavior.  In fact, those who do make my stomach turn. 

To bring this down to a point, those of us who miss the military miss it because it is an organization based on trust and respect.  Members of that organization are exceptionally good at policing themselves and correcting or ejecting those who can't work within that framework.  While it's not codified anymore, "An Officer and A Gentleman" is still part of the ethos, for officers, NCO's, and privates who took the oath of enlistment last Thursday.  "Conduct Unbecoming" is still one of the worst things that can be said about you. 

As for why the general population has lost this to at least some extent, I believe it has a lot to do with how you were raised.  If I ever show disrespect to a woman or an older man, I fully expect the ghost of my sainted German grandmother to rise up and bring Gotterdammerung down upon me.  Men who are younger than me or my age are expected to correct me themselves.  Women are capable of doing this, and I've had my butt kicked by enough older men to know they can too, but they should never have to.

Example:  This evening, I stopped at Walmart to buy a new power supply for Little Bear's laptop.  It had one of those strapped-on electronic alarm gadgets on it, and the elderly lady working the register had trouble taking it off with the proprietary magnetic tool.  She took it to customer service for help after a few fruitless minutes of trying to remove it.  I stood and waited quietly, and when she'd left, I turned to the teenager behind me to apologize.

His answer, which caused the hair on the back of my neck to raise up, was "Dried out old woman shouldn't be doing this anyway.  Guess it's a too complicated for her."

As I counted to ten in Serb under my breath, a hand appeared in the air behind his head, and smacked him hard enough his glasses came off.  You guessed it, it was an older, female family member who was in line behind him.  He stammered his apologies to her and stood there silently while the cashier returned and finished ringing me up.  All this time, his Auntie was watching him with a look that would turn most men to stone.

If more young men were raised by women who weren't afraid to beat some sense into them about how to act, maybe the gulf between those who know respect and those who don't wouldn't be that wide.