Disrespect through Indifference

Disrespect is felt as humiliation. Humiliation is the violent or aggressive assertion of hierarchy. It is putting someone in their place, a place below the humiliator. Much violence, both that directed outwardly onto others and that directed inward onto ourselves, is a direct product of humiliation.

Disrespect through Indifference

Indifference and lack of attention send a message of not caring.

Avoiding indifference requires an active effort to pay attention and to express caring. It is not enough to say that you care, you have to show it on an individual level. Interveners of course assert that they do care, and they believe that their presence as interveners is enough to show people that they care. This is not showing caring on the necessary individual level, however.

People under stress often do not take enough care with their relationships with other people. They assume that others understand the same urgency that they do. Some office cultures even give positive feedback for being so busy that people do not appear to have time for anything so soft as human interaction. At the same time, those who show they do not have time for others are jealous of and extravagant in their free time, claiming a need to “blow off steam”.

The appearance of indifference can also be a result of fear. Being too nervous to open up to others. Masking the tension under overwork and over drinking. Narrowing the circle of interaction and believing this is where safety and security come from.

Indifference shows up in simple, everyday interactions. Not looking up from a computer screen when someone is talking to you. Not greeting people or making eye contact. Looking at your watch during a meeting with a community. Checking your phone while interacting with someone. These tell people that you are not listening to them.

It appears in an attitude of dissatisfaction with the current location. Always complaining about the traffic or the weather. Always talking about disliking the elements of the job. Never being happy to be there. Only ever talking to or spending free time with other expatriates. These tell people that you do not like where you are, that you do not like the place where they live and work, that you do not like them. They wonder why you stay.

Indifference also appears in the disregard of the local mores. Assuming they can disregard inconvenient rules, protected by their position or organization. Driving too fast. Loud parties in residential neighborhoods. Public drunkenness in general, but especially where alcohol is forbidden. Never learning much about the local culture. These tell people that you hold them in contempt.

The dividing mindset does not care about people from other groups. It ignores their concerns and disregards their grievances. It simply does not accord them their humanity. It thinks only of its own needs and pleasures. It is contemptuous of others.

A manager went to a community meeting to listen to people’s grievances. He kept looking at this watch. Later, when he pointed out to people that he had attended a meeting and listened to them, community members pointed out that he did not respect them because he clearly did not want to be there. They cited his looking at his watch as evidence.

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