#Esteem

Respect is the social ritual of pretending to acknowledge another's worth while secretly confirming one's superiority. It sounds noble, but in practice the scales are tipped by whoever holds the lever. Often, one feigns listening to another's opinion even as the rebuttal is drafted in the mind. The more it is extolled in theory, the further it drifts from practice, living on as a decorative crown of empty words. In many cases, it resembles a subtle violence masked as courtesy.