becoming more human by becoming more godlike 373Th e most important practical expression of respect is an ability to
see and to treat another person as more than what he appears to be:
that is to say, as more than the occupant of a par tic u lar station in soci-
ety and even as more than the character that he displays in his actions.
Respect is a variety of reverence, a worship of that in us which enti-
tles us to renounce our self- hatred for not being God while encour-
aging us in our hope of becoming more godlike. Such an attitude
dismisses the high- handed and self- defensive benevolence conceal-
ing the unacknowledged and resentful impulse behind the philoso-
phy of altruism.
Respect for others is incompatible with the cult of any set of institu-
tional arrangements or with the unequivocal ac cep tance of any social
role. No institutionalized form of social life provides a human being
with a setting adequate to his nature, although some institutional re-
gimes are less inadequate houses for embodied spirit than others. No
social role has a dimension proportionate to a person.
Part of the work of self- transformation is to become more ambiva-
lent to the roles that we must occupy and to the regimes under which
we must live, the better to become less ambivalent to the individuals
whom we encounter. If we identify fully with a conventional social role
and with the expectations that it arouses or if we conduct ourselves as
the obedient servants of the established regime of society and culture,
we cannot recognize either ourselves or other people as who we and
they are. We then fail in both respect and self- respect. No mea sure of
sacrifi cial benevolence can make up for our failure. We may then in-
crease our resemblance to generous, self- denying social insects, not to
embodied spirits. Lack of imagination will diminish and corrupt our
solidarity.
Th e task must come before the role. We will have to begin by using
the roles that exist, until other ones can result, over time, from the ar-
rangements and beliefs to which transformative action gives rise. In
performing them, however, we shall begin to reinvent them. As the
conventional understanding of what each role is for generates expecta-
tions of conduct, these small acts of reinvention will pose troubling
questions. Are such acts driven by self- interest or by solidarity? Are
they simply an excuse for betrayal and a device of self- aggrandizement?
Or do they open a route to the refi nement of solidarity by the fi re of