When I was an E4, I worked with a piece of shit E6 who decided he hated me for no reason one day. I had never been disrespectful to him but he went out of his way to try and get me in trouble and was just generally a dick to me every chance he could be. His attempts to get me in trouble all failed because literally I did nothing wrong. He once told me I needed to respect him because he was an E6 and had earned it. I told him I give his rank the respect it deserves, I stand at parade rest when talking to him, I answered his questions respectfully with a "Yes, Sergeant" or "No, Sergeant" but due to the way he treats me and started treating me like crap for no reason, I did not and would not respect him as a person. He did not like that, but there literally wasn't anything he could do about it. He told me I needed to drop out of college and focus 100% of my efforts on being a soldier and I should just do everything he says because he outranks me. I told him the Army is not my career, I'm doing my 4 years and getting out, and so ETS'ing with a degree is more important to me than spending that time to go above and beyond the standards the Army required. And of this was said respectfully, and was overheard by his section lead, so while he was upset I didn't just bend over and suck his E6 dick, he couldn't do shit about it because ultimately I was 100% in the right. My uniform was clean, pressed, had all the creases it was supposed to and my boots were shined. They weren't a mirror every day because I didn't spend 3 hours shining my boots every day, I did once a week and then kept them above the minimum standard required through the week, then my next day off I'd tear them down and rebuild the shine. So my uniform was still in better shape than most peoples so him singling me out was very much bullshit. The guy ended up getting himself in trouble more than anything else. I never got in trouble for how I treated him since ultimately I never did shit to him and always gave him the respect required for his rank. But not 1 step beyond that, and he didn't like that, but there wasn't jack shit he could do about it. His own supervisor (an E7) made him apologize to me on 2 occasions when he witnessed his bullshit.

Like when he told me to do something which that morning the E8 in charge passed down to us that we were not to do this specific thing. So when I said I couldn't do that for him over the phone, he forced me to get relieved so I could come up there and explain in person why I wouldn't do what a higher ranking NCO told me to do. So I explained according to E7 Guard Commander X, E8 Master Sergeant Y passed down these instructions. And the response was "So, Guard Commander X told you this?" "Yes, Sergeant" "That's all you had to say, get the fuck out of my office." I relayed that conversation to the Guard Commander (who was in my chain of command, this guy was not) And within 5 minutes, I was called back to his office, that his boss shared with him, and got to stand there while this E6 being glared at by his E7 boss apologized for his behavior.

Then when I was close to ETSing the dude "randomly" chose me to be piss tested every single time it was his job to conduct it. Literally on my day off while I was an hour north of post at college he couldn't find me in the barracks to "randomly" piss test me, so he told everyone if they saw me, I needed to go to him. So 4 hours later when I returned from school, I got the message, and then he chewed me out for not arriving earlier. Like bitch, its my day off, I was at college, I came as soon as I got back, what more do you want? Turns out he didn't even need me, he let slip he only needed someone with the last name starting with "R" so he was able to easily just piss test someone else. But he intentionally was singling me out to be his "R" person every single time. That guy was a piece of shit and I think exemplified this perfectly.

Human respect should be given, respect of an authority, I think, should be earned.

I wish I could think and articulate this clearly all the time.

Way back in my 20s I had a manager who was power tripping against me stating I did not respect her. I told her that I would do as she says because she is my manager, but respect is earned. She and her boss both argued that respect is given. I gave up and a few weeks later I quit because that job (and some personal stuff) destroyed my mental health. Ultimately it was the best decision I could have made for myself at that time.

This is why operationalizing your variables is so important

Sometimes people also use respect to mean they think you should give them respect

Respect is to be earned, not given.

Can confirm, everyone who has said "If you respect me, I'll respect you", has been a Grade-A Asshole

I've tried replacing "respect" with "dignity" in situations like this. I definitely don't think everyone deserves to be respected, but dignity can be afforded.

I needed this today, thank you!!

I'm assuming by "authority" this means police, judges, etc, rather than health etc

I think part of dealing with professionals should be treating the position they're in with respect, especially in regards to the situation you may be dealing with. That said, they should also be acting within the bounds of their authority and with the dignity and professionalism of whatever position.

To me, this means that I follow professional advice with some gravitas - including that of doctors or medical "authorities" in their field - because their knowledge will typically exceed my own.

For police or judges, that means I respect them when they're acting in a professional manner within the bounds of their authority, and also respecting that a situation where I interact with them under such probably requires some seriousness. Not bowing or scraping, but also not cussing them out, provoking, etc.

If I get lit up by a patrol car, I'll safely pull over and see what's up. If it's a ticket and I don't accept the reason for it, then I'll file a dispute. If I attend court, I'll be professional. If my doctor recommends an important medical procedure, I'll listen and give their words weight.

This obviously doesn't mean I need to accept if these people should abuse their authority, i.e. by giving out frivolous tickets/charges or prescribing unnecessary medication, there are appropriate ways to respond to those.

You ultimately decide on the procedure/medication. You can challenge a ticket. You can refuse to answer the questions of a police officer. You can request/hire legal council. You can challenge a decision at a higher court. Etc

But frankly I see a lot of people who end themselves up in shit by behaving in a ... less than appropriate manner. They're still people, but acting like a reckless, combative, and/or arrogant idiot isn't going to improve the situation in any way, and there seems to be a growing trend where cameras are not only catching more bad behaviour by "the authorities" but also by people who seem to think that having one makes them some sort of Tiktok movie star immune to the consequences of their actions. This includes SovCit types who want all the perks of a civilized society but reject the "authority" behind laws and legal obligations.

Do some research on narcissism. That should clear things up

Your mistake was thinking I give a shit about your respect.

"stimmyabby"

get off the internet for the love of god

Points of authority

This is the Prairies in a nutshell (For Canada anyways, although it seems like the States is similar), respect is about authority there

They aren't even used to being treated like authorities, they're just egotistical losers

Neither of those are the actual definition of the word. I've always interpreted it to acknowledge a person's abilities/capabilities. The big conflict of respect at my workplace seems to be older people who have worked there for 17 years not being respectful of people writing there for 8 years. They think they are the authority figure and deserve that kind of respect (as mentioned here) and treat people who have been there several years like they don't deserve the respect to make any decisions. Which is nonsense, and they are just making more work for everyone by disrupting workflow in order to prove some level of superiority.