Francis Urquhart and the Truth About Respect

In the epigram at the start of Michael Dobbs' novel House of Cards the deeply cynical Francis Urquhart contemplates the epitaph "Respected By All Who Knew Him," and sneers at the "monumental whimper" he considers it to be. "Respect," he quips, is nothing next to fear--and indeed the most likely way to get it, for "When a man is afraid you will crush him, utterly destroy him, his respect will always follow."

In that unpleasant thought is an acknowledgment of the too little spoken truth about respect--that what we mean by it is not civility, but deference; and a regard for another's superior conscience, wisdom, judgment (on those rare occasions when people are prepared to acknowledge another as genuinely their superior here on an occasion when this really counts) far less likely to bring about deference than fear of utter destruction.

When we talk of respect, we are, even if we do not fully realize it (as most don't) thinking from inside of a world of force and fear, of domination and submission, of authority and hierarchy, and all the brutality and cowardice and degradation--and inevitably, stupidity--that are associated with them.

Remember that when you next speak of respect--and don't confuse the genuine esteem for a person of worth with this far more common, ugly, destructive stuff.