Respect, Trust, Health, & Safety:
Family Values 101
Respect and trust are priceless. My grandfathers are my heroes, and one of them is no longer with us; but, the other is here to support and inspire us in countless ways. When I was a young boy my grandfather took me out logging with him, and he let me run a loader. I used that heavy-duty machine to pick up a tree that was obviously far larger and heavier than myself. This was a priceless gift, of empowerment, because I felt significant enough to do something bigger than myself that day. During our drive, he told me something that became one of my most core-values growing up. He told me that respect is the most important thing in the world. However, I have also found trust to be equally valuable; because people betray even the most respectful, and most respectable, of human beings. In this paper, the values of trust and respect will be explored and discussed as universal values. In addition to these universal values, we will also explore the values of health and safety, and discuss why all four of the aforementioned values are crucial for modern families to adopt as general ethical guidelines.
My favorite game series growing up was the Final Fantasy game series. This was a turn-based Japanese Role Playing Game for the majority of the series, but recent games have moved away from the original turn-based battle style. The story-lines and underlying lore in Final Fantasy games are unmatched by other JRPG games, in my opinion. Every game in the series has unique heroes, exploring a unique world, with a unique game style that sets it aside from other games in the series. There were, however, some common elements that spanned across the series; creating a set of trademarks, which would come to define the series as a whole. For example, crystals emanating “special powers” are usually an integral part of any Final Fantasy game. Also, a special character named Cid appears in almost every game; but he appears as a completely different version (or manifestation) of this “Cid” character in each game. Besides bearing the same name, Cid’s manifestations are typically associated with mechanics and/or airships in some way. The series also has unique trademark animal (or fairy-like) creatures that appear in most games, the most well-known being Chocobos and Moggles. These threads all tie the series together, but perhaps the most notable thread in the game series is the reliable presence of specific godlike monsters; often referred to as Summons, Edolines, or Espers. Unlike Cid, each of these “Espers” takes (approximately) the same form in every game.
Espers are like the Greek gods of old. The Greeks had gods for everything. In nearly every Final Fantasy world, the same “gods” can not only be encountered but recruited as back-up. For example, Shiva is the Esper of ice and this blue “goddess” is probably inspired by the Hindu god Shiva; she appears in a similar form in every game, in which she makes an appearance, as if the same god can travel instantly between the many Final Fantasy worlds. Ramuh is always the Esper of thunder, resembling a wizardly version Thor from Greek mythology; and Ifrit is always the Esper of fire, resembling a beast-like demon wielding the flames of hell. The list goes on but these examples get the point across. In many of these games, any given Eper will only help the heroes to save the world once the heroes defeat the Esper in battle; proving their strength and resolve, in order to earn the respect of that god. Once the hero has earned the respect of an Esper, the team can summon that Esper to unleash impressive attacks that aid the hero in winning challenging battles. If the hero were to suddenly turn evil and murder innocent people the gods would likely lose respect for that hero-turned-villain, but as long as the hero fights for justice and peace the gods give him their strength and their blessings.
Respect is earned. Earning respect requires demonstrations of respectable accomplishments, and maintaining respect requires restraining from acting in an unrespectable manner. Students earn a teacher’s respect by participating in an appropriate way, working hard, and meeting deadlines. An artist earns respect by demonstrating creativity and originality. A friend earns respect by supporting you in times of need, and by trying to live up to the potential you always knew they had. Everyone earns respect in different ways. Conservative people respect restraint and complacency, while more liberal people respect the courage needed to challenge social systems and societal norms. One man might be respected in his church, but also be a laughingstock in a biker bar. One woman might be a respectable journalist, but not a respectable MMA fighter. People might think I am disrespectful to some of my elders, but I am respectful to those who have earned and maintained my respect. Some of my elders have lost my respect, but that is their fault… not mine. No one person can earn the respect of everyone else, and it’s hopeless to try. Instead of trying to please everyone, we can learn to: respect ourselves and others, encourage others to respect themselves and others, and enforce boundaries that prevent others from treating us disrespectfully. Once you love yourself, it becomes easy to demand that others to treat you with the respect that you deserve; if you didn’t love yourself it would feel selfish, but you know that you love yourself when you can stand up for yourself with the same self-confidence that you would feel while standing up for a dear friend of yours.
Trust is also earned. We like to think that we are highly independent, but the very structure of our society forces inter-dependency. Does everyone grow their own food? Hunt their own meat? Build their homes? Manufacture their vehicles? Fill cavities in their own teeth? Perform open-heart surgery on themselves? I have never met a single person who is actually “independent” for any significant amount of time. We need to work together, that’s what societies are. If you work closely with someone, then they have the opportunity to hurt or take advantage of you for their own interest. Not everyone is so devious, but many people are. This makes it necessary to make judgments about how trustworthy people are. We know that a good business partner could help us become successful in life, but a bad one could leave us bankrupt or worse. Beyond just operating in society: we should remember that people get hurt, and even murdered, regularly in our societies; so, physical safety is also a concern when deciding who to trust. If someone betrays or hurts you then they lose your trust, and an apology is an appropriate start to earning that trust back.
We are living creatures, and if we value respect we should respect the blessing of life. To respect the value of life is to value health and safety, and without valuing health and safety we disrespect the importance of life. So, as living creatures health and safety are logical values to adopt into the cores of our belief systems, increasing our chances of living longer and enjoying life more (and for far longer) than we would if we ignored the value of health and safety. This does not indicate that we should not take risks, but rather that we should value our health and safety above other values when weighing the pros and cons of taking a given risk. If a risk is worth taking will depend on your core beliefs and values. For example, some of us are brave enough to risk valuing success over social-political safety; but valuing success over a serious risk of death would not be brave, it would be naive. Bravery is a weird thing. Many of us think that being brave is a lack of fear but, instead, it is a strength of character needed to overcome fear. Brave people have fear, but the brave dominate their fear rather than submitting to it.
Health and safety apply to mental health and safety, as well as physical health. Physical health is widely valued in modern society, but mental health is regrettably undervalued. Modern trends are starting to bring the needed focus toward mental health, but the stigma of mental health labels still creates a formidable barrier preventing us from incorporating mental health concepts into our lives in positive ways. Realizing and explaining our weaknesses, and disabilities, helps people form realistic and therefor fair expectations for us; but it can also be seen as making excuses, or it can infer that our mental health is the only issue. If a person identifies and admits a mental health issue that they are struggling with, and ask for “special treatment” in some way; we should respect that, because we may need some “special treatment” ourselves at some point. To act as if everything is the “mentally ill” person’s fault and “pass the buck” by telling them to “seek help” is just blaming the victim. Say a person has insomnia, and they need their roommate to be patient with their late-night activities; yes the person with insomnia should seek help, but, in the meantime: the roommate should still show some compassion because that compassion might come back around when that roommate has a mental breakdown, a bout of severe depression, or a sudden onset of agoraphobia in the future.
Family units are the building blocks of the foundation upon which societies are built. Before an individual can contribute to society, or even function effectively in a classroom, each child needs to learn their most fundamental values and competencies in a safe home. This home environment is protected and supervised by parents or guardians, and the children rely on those adults to teach them everything that they need to know to move forward in life. If given the opportunity, they learn motor skills, they learn speech, they learn basic social skills, they (hopefully) learn impulse control by learning to follow rules; they learn by example, in addition to learning lessons meant to be taught, and they learn so many other things that we take for granted. They learn concepts like good and bad, right and wrong, pleasure and pain, etc. They learn values like fairness, respect, trust, health, safety, and so on. They learn to be obedient children, to listen to adults, and to rely on those adults in almost every way. Many children have been abused, or sexually abused, by the same adults that they trust to keep them safe. When a child reaches adulthood that child then needs to learn independence. They need to learn when to be obedient, and when to be consciously defiant. We learn: first, all adults do not necessarily “know better” than we do as individuals; and second, no person (outside of the self) knows what is better for us as individuals than we do.
Respect, trust, health, and safety are important core-values for a family to adopt as their own. Not only do the children need to respect their parents and their siblings, but the parents need to respect the kids as well. If a child protests against being tickled more than they can tolerate, then stop tickling the child. Respect their boundaries. Just because you’re big, and they’re small and helpless, does not mean that they are not a human being with rights. Parents set and enforce limits and boundaries all the time, and call them rules. Children should also learn to establish clear limits and boundaries for themselves, and adults and children alike should respect those limitations. To ignore a person’s limits and boundaries is to create a toxic family environment because it mentally, and emotionally, abuses the child. This abuse teaches children that they are powerless, and that being the powerful person in a relationship is a core aspect of interpersonal relationships; and this power dynamic can lead to the development of various personality disorders, including Borderline Personality Disorder and overt or covert forms of narcissism. Chronic danger can lead an infant to develop a lasting psychosis, and trust issues in infancy cause attachment patters that affect everything we do later in life. Respect, trust, health, and safety are the most logical values for any family to adopt as the families own primary core values.
In conclusion, the most logical values for families, and societies as a whole, to adopt are the values of respect, trust, health, and safety. We have explored what respect and trust are, and why these values are universally important. We have also explored the value of health and safety as universal values and explained why all of the aforementioned values are especially crucial for families to adopt as guidelines for ethical behavior. As the foundational building stones for societies, families have a moral responsibility to study and practice these values above all others. However, because respect and trust are earned, families also have a responsibility to earn and maintain the trust and respect of all of their family members; rather than ignorantly demanding unearned trust, and/or unearned respect. If someone behaves in unethical ways or does not treat themselves with respect, then it is hard for others to respect them. If someone hurts others, then it becomes hard for the victims of that abuse to trust their abuser in the future. We should be able to trust our families to keep us safe, but if a family member becomes the danger than we should value our own health and safety enough to put an end to that abuse.