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 Suspicion

A lack of trust is experienced by people as disrespect. It inhibits relationship building. Suspicion leads to fear and to avoidance.

Suspicion is also self-fulfilling. A lack of trust quickly becomes reciprocal, with events interpreted as evidence to justify and support that lack. Because people do not trust one another, they cannot communicate without further antagonizing one another.

Fighters and those inciting conflict use suspicion to create fear and to claim the authority to protect and defend some people against others. When intervening agencies succumb to suspicion and fear, they reinforce the messages fighters are sending that there is something to fear. Further, an organization loses the trust of local people when it does not trust them.

The dividing mindset perceives that much of the world is untrustworthy and deceitful. It assumes that everyone is out only for themselves and that they will pursue their ends by whatever means, including and especially dishonest ones. A person caught up in the dividing mindset often perceives that kind behavior will be exploited and that others will see us as foolish and naive.

The result is that the suspicious person acts in all those ways they expect others to act.

The barbed wire that mounts the walls of so many compounds is a not so subtle message to neighbors that “we do not trust you”. In some places at some times, such barbed wire may well be appropriate, but it has become a default, unthinking design element in all too many places.

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Related Topics
Disrespect through Indifference
Trust as an expression of respect
Organizations and Disrespect
Using Respect