Day 11: Perspective

Everyone deserves respect.

Everyone has a point of view. Be sincerely curious about how someone has developed their point of view.

1. Go deeper: Read Michael Nagler’s paragraph on 'the law of respect' below.

2. Practice: Have a conversation with someone whom you think you know well. Ask them to tell you a story about themselves that you might find surprising. Practice empathic curiosity by encouraging them to say more (e.g. "Tell me more about...").

Gandhi said that “man does not live by bread alone. Many prefer self-respect to food”. Which is why some will go so far as to fast from food, if necessary “unto death,” to restore their dignity—or that of their religion or their people. We forget, in some of the shouting matches that pass for “non-violent” protest today, that: you can never persuade another to accept humiliation for very long (if at all); it is entirely unnecessary to do so, because what we really need from a person can be gotten without disrespecting them; and finally, that their self-respect and dignity is intimately a part of our own. “It is a terrible, and inexorable law,” James Baldwin said, “that one cannot take away another’s respect without diminishing one’s own.”