Topic
Respect in this collection is most interestingly claimed by those who seem to receive it on unusual terms. Churchill on pigs treating us as equals is the funniest entry and, on reflection, the most pointed: what most people call respect is actually deference, and the pig's indifference to hierarchy is possibly the more honest arrangement. Homer on two people who see eye to eye keeping house makes respect a prerequisite for partnership rather than a product of it. Rousseau on never-exceeding-your-rights connects respect to restraint: the person who is respected is often the one who declines to exercise the full range of their power. Xenophon on agriculture as the best of occupations for a high-minded man is the ancient world's account of what earns respect — productive engagement with the actual earth. Rogers on a big-enough-business-being-respectable is the modern version, stripped of idealism. What the collection argues is that respect is conferred rather than demanded, and the surest way to claim it is to demonstrate that you don't need it.