It means both "to treat someone like an authority" and "to treat someone like a human".
Everyone deserves to be treated with the latter sort.
The former sort must be earned.
[0] The context in which I read it was about marginalized people getting the short end of the stick on both counts—privileged people, especially those who are relatively ignorant or for whom that privilege is all they have going for them, have a tendency to express sentiments along the lines of "I won't respect them if they don't respect me!" But what they mean is "I won't treat them like a human if they don't treat me like an authority."
Thanks for underlining my point.
They were addressing someone else. Any chance you shot your load over the wrong target there?
1. I don't care what you think is right or wrong; you need to do what I say
2. I don't care if you do what I say or not, but if you do not you will be doing the wrong thing
call them political and scientific authority for short. the other interesting thing is that religious authority tries to combine both forms into one.
A common example is a speed limit. It aught to be an engineered number, but can be determined politically. Regardless, the authority enforcement is the same regardless of the basis of the law.
It's more like there's two different basis for laws and only one body enforcing both laws, which makes it awkward.
now looking at the religious case, a priest would say "this is what you need to do because the gods said so; I can enforce that because I'm an authority in the church, but also I am right because I'm an authority on what the gods want". so that combines both uses of the word into one person in the way that more secular authorities mostly do not.
I also was explained a definition of respect that forever changed my relationship to the word and it’s lived embodiment.
The Latin meaning of the word: Re-Spect - to see again. That’s it.
The second definition you gave- to treat someone like a human is way too low a bar. Because one might think that humans are generally POS. Also a person who has a problem with self-respect, does not lack seeing themselves as human per se.
If we elevate it a bit - from treating someone as human, to something like, treating someone with basic dignity, i think that’s an improvement. However it’s still basically passive and allows room for a lot of laziness and prejudice.
This is why i found the Latin meaning so helpful. Give that person a 2nd look. With each interaction try to see them again and again.
It’s much more active, it improves others in our eyes over time (usually, but not always). And I find it improves me over time, as i continue to remember to use my sight.
This definition helped me capture the more elevated aspect of respect, the one i felt the word already connotes, but had such a vague definition. A high virtue indeed.