A friend observed: “You have a serious problem with being disrespected, don’t you?”

That is correct. I definitely have a strong aversion to disrespect. Most people do.

But my aversion might be more intense than usual, and it is for a very specific reason that accounts for the intensity.

It is not that I need other people to esteem me.

I have a pretty clear sense of my value and also where I’m not valuable. I appreciate being valued, of course, if the value is genuine. If another person can inform my own judgments of me that is valuable — for instance, if they can perceive clearly, where I am unclear or oblivious. If a person has a negative judgment of me, but it is poorly informed, or their judgment is faulty, it only makes their negative judgment less valid than my own. It is unpleasant to be judged negatively, of course, but it doesn’t influence my own judgment.

My specific problem with disrespect is that it obstructs dialogical collaboration. And without dialogical collaboration, design problems can never rise higher than constructing uninspiring little systems of known bits.

And system construction is not what I do.

I am after shared holistic understandings. My work is to understand divergent perspectives, each from a first-person perspective, and then, through philosophical effort, transcend perspectival limits in order to find higher and more comprehensive understandings. These new understandings illuminate practical problems in revealing new ways, affording solutions that are both novel and valued together by a wider array of people.

I call this work precision inspiration.

If work offers a possibility for precision inspiration, every task associated with the work is charged with purpose.

If it does not, it all becomes intolerable, soul-deadening tedium.

Here is where respect becomes an existential issue.

Precision inspiration work can only be done in conditions of mutual respect. It requires people to actively care about what other people think, how they think, and why it matters to them. That is what respect is: being concerned about another person’s What, How and Why.

Disrespect is an attitude toward others that is averse or incurious to another person’s What, How and Why. It makes dialogical collaboration impossible. It makes epiphanies impossible. It reduces design to system construction.

This is why, for me, working in conditions of disrespect is an existential threat.

I’m cool with people not caring what I think. I’m used to that. My thinking is not for dull people, lazy people or people so ideological, or brilliant or narcissistic that they do not need to hear what you think. And sadly, under these political conditions, that is a rapidly growing majority of people. I’m not for people like that, and I don’t need to be.

But I cannot work with — and certainly not for — people like that. Wherever I work, I need conditions of respect, if I do not have them, I cannot work. Some people can. Some tough, combative types even enjoy it like a game.

Fighting to win respect from people who wish to withhold respect is not a game I will play.

Know thyself.