There is the “pride” through which the Ego expresses itself…, and it is generally accepted as being “normal”; I believe it is merely usual, because it is simpler, more comfortable, and we have fewer and fewer examples of — and understanding for — the concept of self-respect…
I will enumerate a few aspects, just enough to make known to you “my reference”, in such a way that you do not feel offended. I am not interested in argumentative discussions of the kind “whose reference is better, or bigger” — which is also why I call myself Irrelevant…
Aspect one: if you are a trained and strong fellow…, and you pick a quarrel with people who are neither trained nor strong, only so as to dominate them and to practise your illusion of potency, that is not self-respect, it is boorishness — and more than boorishness, it is a great sign of weakness.
Aspect two: if you are a person who sees that another person needs, or wants, or would find useful, a thing that lies within the first person’s power, or that they have and it costs no great effort to offer, and they do not offer it but instead put a price on it, a price that brings the 2nd person, the one with the need, to their knees…, that is not self-respect; it is not necessarily boorishness, but it is certainly a great sign of weakness — the need for control, which springs from insecurity. You cannot expect a person who “steps with fear” (through life) to understand self-respect; hard, as long as they step that way…
Aspect three: if you feel you can do something for others, something that counts, your contribution to their life or to the community’s, and you do it, that is self-respect — when you treat the others the way you expect to be treated as a being; and among other things it excludes duality — or triality, or quadruplicity, depending on how far the thing has gone — that is, that aspect in which you have at least 2 systems of values, one for yourself and another (or others) for everyone else.
I have underlined 3 points of reference so that you may become familiar with “my measure”, with the subjective measure of the Irrelevant in me.
In order to communicate to you what self-respect is, I will enumerate, and explain why, the things that exclude self-respect. The first point that comes to mind is “ignorance”: any person who chooses ignorance falls out of the scheme of the possessor of self-respect, because ignorance is a common term that describes comfortable people… One of the greatest efforts is to think…, the ignorant one is a person who spares themselves intellectually…, not to be confused with limited access to information, where the person’s tendency is still to seek to understand.
The second aspect I would underline is “arrogance”. At a certain moment in my existence I realized how ugly arrogance is, but I did so when I was on the other side of it…, and then, meeting a person I could talk to, when he asked me “why are you upset, Irrelevant?”, I told him “I have realized how ugly arrogance is and I do not know how to get rid of the one I have grown inside me”, and he said to me “my dear Irrelevant…, arrogance is the prerogative of any intelligent person”. I told him I do not agree, but I understand his reasoning…: being intelligent, at some point you no longer have many people around you to talk with, and a “shortcut” appears (which then becomes a reflex) — to treat people from above, being used to having no partner in conversation…; however it may be, arrogance is the treating of other people from above, and implicitly the underlining of their smallness, which for the most part might lean on ignorance…, and I would say that arrogance does not help…, everyone gains more if people understand certain things, or processes, and if they cannot, it still stands that everyone gains more when, through your behaviour, you lift up the one beside you rather than point out how far down he is.
Now that we have arrived “organically” at where self-respect appears: it is in moral conduct and in the treatment of those you interact with. This respect reveals itself also in each person’s work — they never make a mockery of what they do, they do it conscientiously, and above the financial motivation stands the moral motivation, “principles”, as some like to formulate it, except that when you mention them you feel the need to name them precisely because they are not evident…
If people had self-respect and behaved towards others the way they hope or wish to be treated themselves…, everything would go far more simply and naturally. Think what it would be like, in traffic: being attentive to all the participants, you see a fellow driver who is in a hurry, or who simply does not know which lane to take…, and you make room for him, without horns, without “my right is bigger than your right…”, without anything of the sort…, you might have the impression that you are in a civilized country where people have some self-respect…
Beyond traffic you can approach any other conjuncture. At work: everyone goes to work for money, you have already made the agreement of the kind “your time, your potency and your capacity for ‘this’ money”, and you have a bad day, or there is a particularity you have not understood…, or…, various details, from time to time…, would it not be simpler and easier, and perhaps even decent, for it to be explained to you, for you to be helped, a little…? — not as a habit of not knowing; that would mean you are not in the right position or the right post…
And now, the concept of self-respect being clear, in my optics — a respect that is not practised the way the world says it has principles, because if it were…, this world would be a better place…, I tell you that it is up to each one separately to have self-respect, and it has nothing to do with what the others do…: if I am honked at in traffic because I did not signal during a quick jerk of the wheel, having not been in the right lane — travelling a great deal, I do not know all the “details” of every city, and it does happen that I take the wrong lane — and I have got in someone’s way…, I thank him for “letting me in”, I put on the hazard lights, and if our eyes meet I thank him sincerely and admit, with a raised hand, that I made “a jerk of a move”; if I were to relate to the offence the fellow driver felt and answer him with a horn of my own, it would be a pointless circus, because I have already done a jerky thing, and in any case nobody was hit, but the contest of “my right is bigger” brings nothing good…, in my optics…
The same thing appears in any kind of relationship, especially the couple…, if you are under the impression that this is self-respect, to have the bigger right, and for the other person to agree that yours is bigger…, in my optics…, it is childish behaviour in the couple relationship…, and you are practising arrogance…