I do think politeness shows respect, but it generally shows a very basic level of respect. It's saying something along the lines of: because you are a human being I grant you enough courtesy to try to not act as if you do not matter or that it is okay to simply be mean to you.
Some people do not grant this basic level of respect to other humans or they don't grant it to members of certain groups of humans.
However, respect is not a binary. Higher levels of respect are shown in different ways. You just don't seem to have a level of respect lower than the showing of basic courtesy (or more likely, it doesn't come up in day to day life).
I work fairly similarly, but then, I was raised by NTs. I am somewhat reminded of a conversation with my sister (an INTJ lawyer who used to be a teacher). She has done a lot of work with mock courts for high school kids, teaching them a bit of law and how to argue a case and such. They apparently go to competitions where they get to do so in front of real judges who then say which teams did best. One of her students was really good and the judges started really grilling her with hard questions. My sister was surprised afterward that the girl was really upset and thought she'd done poorly. It was just natural to her to realize that they were being hard on her because she was that good, because they thought she could handle it. She explained that usually they remember these are just high school kids and go easy on them, but if you're good enough, they may start treating you more like a real lawyer and it was really quite a compliment to her abilities. After that, she started warning the kids in advance. It was just so natural to her, of course those who respect you will give you sharper criticism. Those who respect you will assume you are strong and won't be as careful about your feelings.
Writing this up, it makes me realize all sorts of interesting assumptions built into that viewpoint, and it isn't necessarily a real match to what you are saying, just something that seems very related. But I think having grown up in an NT world, your way of doing things seems very natural to me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 7/22/09 08:04 pm (UTC)From:Some people do not grant this basic level of respect to other humans or they don't grant it to members of certain groups of humans.
However, respect is not a binary. Higher levels of respect are shown in different ways. You just don't seem to have a level of respect lower than the showing of basic courtesy (or more likely, it doesn't come up in day to day life).
I work fairly similarly, but then, I was raised by NTs. I am somewhat reminded of a conversation with my sister (an INTJ lawyer who used to be a teacher). She has done a lot of work with mock courts for high school kids, teaching them a bit of law and how to argue a case and such. They apparently go to competitions where they get to do so in front of real judges who then say which teams did best. One of her students was really good and the judges started really grilling her with hard questions. My sister was surprised afterward that the girl was really upset and thought she'd done poorly. It was just natural to her to realize that they were being hard on her because she was that good, because they thought she could handle it. She explained that usually they remember these are just high school kids and go easy on them, but if you're good enough, they may start treating you more like a real lawyer and it was really quite a compliment to her abilities. After that, she started warning the kids in advance. It was just so natural to her, of course those who respect you will give you sharper criticism. Those who respect you will assume you are strong and won't be as careful about your feelings.
Writing this up, it makes me realize all sorts of interesting assumptions built into that viewpoint, and it isn't necessarily a real match to what you are saying, just something that seems very related. But I think having grown up in an NT world, your way of doing things seems very natural to me.