Blood and Wine

Power and respect.

I don't like to go for lectures. There really is no point at all for me to sit in a lecture when I think the teacher is boring or just plain hopeless. I'll turn off and dream of Salim's back home, of good company and equally good teh tarik and roti kaya after a hard night of clubbing. I might as well go sleep in the library.

So it wasn't all that much of a surprise when I decided that one of my lectures yesterday wasn't as important as washing my clothes instead of going to school because the damn laundry service had ripped one of my buttons off leaving me with no more fresh, unmutilated shirts. Calculating the risks, I gambled that I could safely go to school at eleven without serious consequences.

So I sauntered into class, fresh and feeling good after spending the entire morning in bed, at 11.50 for a tutorial which I knew I couldn't miss without courting too much trouble. And there I heard what happened during the lecture I'd happily missed for a date with the washing machine.

The lecturer, apparently not feeling as good as I was, had entered the lecture theatre with guns blazing. Right from the start of the lecture, she antagonized all the poor souls who'd decided to not to miss the exciting lesson of learning how to copy notes off the screen, berating and scolding everyone for not learning to actually apply the notes to answer questions.

This not so normal lecture went straight into the outliers when in a move timed with unearthly brilliance, fate rang someone's cellphone just at the climax of her conniption. The lecturer exploded.

Caught in the blast radius were of course the innocents. She held a whole section of the lecture theatre back for about half the break to conduct a witch hunt and pressure someone into confessing. That someone in the end was some girl, most likely innocent, who stepped up to the stake and sacrificed herself just to end the ordeal.

It was a move of courage and maturity that ended what had been a show of exactly the opposite. While it is true that a lecturer may have the right to hold her students back as deterrent and punishment for unruly behavior, this entire episode just demonstrated pure immaturity.

Her actions gave the impression that she was nothing more than a bully, venting her anger off on the very people she was entrusted to teach. They came, even when they could have been sleeping in the library or having an early lunch (like I would), to learn something. Instead they became the victims of her tantrum and unrestrained anger.

Such rudeness is foolish. Back in Malaysia, and Indonesia as well from what some people have told me, teachers would be less loose with their self control. Students there can and will retaliate if provoked, attacking cars and even the teachers themselves.

Anarchy? Lawlessness? Call it whatever you want. I call it justice. Because no one, not even teachers, should ever be allowed to do such a thing without facing the consequences. Singapore's effective law enforcement, while crucial for maintaining a safety that I most certainly find welcome, has virtually eliminated vigilantism against the uncouth and the arrogant. People find it harmless to be rude and discover to their chagrin this is not exactly the case outside their sheltered lives. That old hag I saw yelling at a young man last year for miscalculating the amount he paid for his fried squid wouldn't be so rude if she were in Malaysia.

People who yell and insult and breathe the fires of their fury over others are stupid. They throw their tempers everywhere, thinking that bullying others into submission with fear and initimidation will win them respect.

They will win nothing but hate and contempt. And that's exactly what the lecturer succeeded in doing yesterday. The students hate her for what she did to them. Those who don't hate her have at the very least lost a lot of respect for her. If she was a student, she would soon find school to be a living hell when everyone shows her precisely what they thought of her rudeness. She's not, of course. But even though she's a teacher, that lack of respect will soon become apparent.

People will drag their feet when she orders them around. Her lectures will find smaller and smaller audiences. If she ever pulls another stunt like this again, someone with little patience left may just stand up and walk out. I have a very real feeling that person may just be me. I'm cold and dastardly enough to do that if I don't respect someone.

Respect, once lost, is hard to get back. You can't be given respect. It is earned from actions and thus one moment of folly can destroy everything we've worked for. It's society's way of punishing us for our social crimes, real or imagined.

We definitely feel the pain when we lose respect. The human soul craves acceptance and recognition and needs to feel wanted. Loved. Needed. The psychologist Abraham Maslow, in his famous Hierarchy of Human Needs, placed these needs for love and esteem just above the basic physiological and safety needs, so powerful and fundamental they were in the human psyche.

Problems arise when people cannot satisfy these fundamental cravings. In their hunger for respect, they start looking for shortcuts to getting their fix and in their confusion, they make one of the worst mistakes possible: confusing respect with power.

Power comes from respect. It is because we respect someone that we allow him to lead and direct us, thus willingly entrusting power into his hands. But some confused souls can't see that connection. They think respect comes from power, that people will respect those who wield authority and pull the strings.

They are wrong. Power doesn't automatically bring respect. Respect comes from how that power is wielded.

Some people don't get that. They get appointed into positions of authority and they have the confounded arrogance to think the whole world should bow down to them. That's exactly what happened with some members of my Junior College's 37th Student Council last year; they thought the students would instantly cooperate with their brilliant ideas. After all, they were the ruling Student Council.

That didn't prove to be very comforting at all when some students got up and challenged the Council's arrogance. And the way they instantly tried to defend themselves by shifting the blame onto others instead of addressing the issue (38th Student Council, please take note) was simply disgusting. Everyone knew the bluff had been called and only the more fairy-headed Councillors could delude themselves into thinking they were still in the right. Again, respect was lost that day.

You cannot force people to respect you. People choose to respect someone because they believe that person deserves their respect. We choose to confer power to those we think have the maturity, ability and experience to best use this power. When those who have artificially been given authority abuse their power, it affirms in everyone's minds that these fools don't deserve the people's power. They are children, and should be treated as such.

Because only children whine and complain of not being respected, unable to understand that respect comes from maturity thereby pinpointing the problem at its essence. Only children take shortcuts to get respect because they don't have the necessary maturity needed to earn that respect. So they bully and push, confusing the cause and effect relationship between respect and power.

Truly respected people don't need to push. Just check out the superb blog Waiter Rant and the post on how celebrities behave in restaurants. The following excerpt tells it all:

"So how do real movie stars act when they go out to eat?

"One busy Monday night we are crazy busy. The door chimes, I look up and Alec Baldwin is standing in the doorway. Holy Shit.

"He is with his brother Steven Baldwin, significant others in tow. First off let me tell you Alec really is a handsome devil. It’s a cliché, I know, but he is a lot taller in person than on screen. Alas, we have only one table; between the ladies room and the kitchen next to the register. It’s the worst table in the house. Alec, ever polite, takes it happily. He orders off the menu, says please and thank you, tips well, and thanks the kitchen staff on the way out. He is a perfect gentleman. This guy has his head on straight."

Real celebrities are self-assured enough that people know or will soon know who they are. It's the wannabes who go around repeating that eyeroll-inducing mantra of "Do you know who I am?" to make sure.

Are you a wannabe, dear Lecturer?
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