respect and breadcrumbs

[rm]

The ex and I used to fight about the idea of respect. Or rather, my desire for respect from him that I felt I wasn't getting.

The central topic of the argument was the way he behaved towards my engagement with activities that had no moral value one way or the other, but that he didn't care for my participation in when he was absent from the relationship (I was too scared to alienate him to engage in them when he was present): mainly, my going to nightclubs, and, more secretly back then, my participating in fandom (reading ST:V and X-Files, to give you a sense of when this was).

"But I don't have respect for these things or you when you do them. I don't admire them. I don't see them as good, so why should I respect them?"

"Admiration and respect are two different things. Respect doesn't mean looking up to me and my choices. It means acknowledging I'm a full-fledged human being with the right to make choices that no matter how little sense they make to you are reasonably considered according to the standards I'm perfectly allowed to set for myself. I deserve respect, because like you, I'm a person."

"Well, sure, if you say respect means that, sure, you have that sort of respect from me."

No, I didn't, not really, but that's not the point of this story, nor particularly worth rehashing.

My point is that people should have your respect as fellow people until they un-earn it, and that your criteria for that sort of business should not be light.

I was, more or less, a person in that relationship, but I was a lesser one, and, in that matter, it was a think I consented to and colluded with because I thought my life could only be lived on the basis of what was enough.

While an entirely different issue, the Prop 8 situation has -- for weeks now, for years -- made me think of that conversation and those years over and over again. Because I am, it so happens, a person, but a lesser person, in the eyes of the law. Although a little bit less so today than yesterday. And one day, maybe even one day soon, maybe this mess will all be but a memory too.

But the point is I'll never be -- and you shouldn't be either -- satisfied with breadcrumbs.

Never ever.

It's a terrible business.

Comments

[trinker.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Oh this hit home today.
I'm quite sure our neighbours were wondering which bodies were going to be buried today the way things were going in my household.
Regarding this subject.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[the-epic.livejournal.com]

Being satisfied with breadcrumbs is something I've never understood.
And personally I really do like what you've written here.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Do you want to understand?

[the-epic.livejournal.com]

Oh, maybe - I mean my big deal has been the fact that I can't just be satisfied with what amounts to nothing.

If my life isn't wonderful and beautiful then I'm doing something wrong.

But sometimes I want to know what makes people satisfied with less than that...you know?

[trinker.livejournal.com]

For many people, settling for breadcrumbs is something they were trained into. Whether by their own parents, or by society at large - for not being in one of the protected categories. You'll be unsurprised to hear that straight white men are about as protected as it gets. (I don't mean to imply that straight white men get everything they want.)

Being abused makes people abjectly grateful for whatever they get, or at least so despondent by habit that they don't strive for more than breadcrumbs. This is why oppression hurts society as a whole, rather than just the individuals oppressed - who knows what we've lost?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I'm writing down that last paragraph to save. And will probably be quoting it.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Note, in case you care: "writing down" => in my personal Commonplaces file. And "quoting" => verbally, with attribution.

[the-epic.livejournal.com]

I think you're on to something.

As someone who's been abused and who broke out of it, and mostly (-mostly-) recovered I think that might be something I picked up...

No breadcrumbs for me, the best or I keep trying.

What do you mean by protected category?

[eredien]

makes people abjectly grateful for whatever they get.

I would add to this that it makes people abjectly grateful for whatever they get--even if they don't want it, even if they detest it, even if getting it is actively bad for them. And when people are told and believe that they should be grateful for getting things that are bad for them over and over again, they generally end up not being able to articulate what it is that would actually be good for them, because they have never had the opportunity to have something that was good for them, whether they got it for themselves or had other people give it to them.

Further thoughts in my lj.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

*standing ovation*

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

This reminds me so much of my relationship with the horrible UK ex. Oh, sadness and anger.

But you're exactly right. It's so much talking out of two sides of the mouth, lip service, and bastardry at work in the Prop 8 thing, and DADT, and ENDA. Fucking monstrous.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

It's particularly monstrous when you consider that Canada is 300 feet away. Or orbiting another star system, apparently.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Oh, Canada. With your Tim Horton's and gay marriage and sensible health care.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the spudnuts.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Potato flour doughnuts? I'm in.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

So much like the larger doughnut population. Yet not.
Much like the U.S. and Canada.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

No. You mustn't settle. Not ever.

[eredien]

Admiration for another person seems to be: I think that what you are doing--going to nightclubs, reading fanfic, etc.--is good in and of itself. I like you and the things you are doing, intrinsically, for their own sake.

Respect for another person seems to be more like: I may not like the things that you are doing in and of themselves. I may even dislike them. But I can agree with you that you like them for their own sake, and do them for your own sake, and have a right to like and do the things you do, even if I don't like them or care about them.

I think they are linked, but not tied.

[schmidtybooger.livejournal.com]

I really needed to hear this today. As always, you're much better at articulating what I'm thinking/struggling with. Thank you.

[lokiale (from livejournal.com)]

You could say settling for breadcrumbs is quite crummy.

Though all horribly bad puns aside thank you for typing up on how you've grown as a person. Being able to demand respect for yourself while respecting who you are is a tricky business, but it's nice to be reminded sometimes that it's tricky business for everyone. Tricky but far from impossible.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

"people should have your respect as fellow people until they un-earn it, and that your criteria for that sort of business should not be light."

Yes!

Yes

[100wordspermin.livejournal.com]

For a couple of years now, I've been retreading the respect argument in these terms: "You don't have to agree with me, but you don't get to be an ass about your disagreement."

Your way of putting it is much more articulate, and helps to define exactly my issue with this sort of verbal shenanigans: My choices may be different than [insert person or group of people here]; that doesn't make said choices (or me) bad. I deserve to be respected, and I resent the hell out of being told otherwise.

Thanks.