Obsolete Notions #1: Respect to Skepticism

All notions are produced by evolution. Everything we find important, interesting, necessary, desirable, preferable etc. etc. comes from our evolutionary past, recent or ancient. Admittedly, more recent notions are more complex, undergone more evolution - selected under a greater variety of scrutiny, withstood greater selective pressure, which generally indicates being better adapted.

Naturally, we can expect some notions to become poorly adapted and obsolete - useful sometime in the distant past, under different circumstances, in a different context, but detrimental in the here and now.

It is clearly important for every human endeavor to be able to follow the best notions and to avoid maladaptations. How to best figure out what is useful now and what to abandon? The best tool we have for figuring things out is science. Science recommends examining bottleneck notions to ascertain potential maladaptations. Potential characteristics of obsolete notions include:

• Age - entrenched, faulty notions that perpetuate themselves by drawing credibility from age. 
• Complexity - convoluted notions that do not follow the principle of Occam's Razor, but cover themselves in layers of mystery drawing credibility from being difficult to grasp. 
• Scale - notions that promote thinking in terms of a single, special, usually human, perspective drawing credibility from being commonsense and lending themselves to easy metaphor. 

After a notion is picked for examination, it is useful to consider the following: 

1. What is the evolutionary history of the notion? 
2. Is the notion active/pro-something or is it reactive/guarding from something (values or taboo generator)? 
3. Does the present environment differ from the notions evolutionary environment? How? 
4. What better alternative notions can we use? 

Let's examine our first case. The notion of respect.

Respect is probably an ancient notion, selected in our sexually-social ancestors. Who do we find respectable? Usually people of age and social position. What does having respect for someone infer about the person? Usually a set of characteristics that would get one in a position of power, such as intelligence, ambition, ferocity. It is not difficult to infer that the notion of respect, same as with beauty, is a shorthand adaptation to allow subconscious recognition of usefulness. In a group of sexually-social primates genes that allowed carriers to distinguish between respectable and dis-respectable individuals by feeling respect for ones and not for others spread better, because the carriers formed more favorable social ties and strove for more advantageous matings. 

Respect generates both taboos and value. Trivially, we are told that we have to have respect for our elders, and this works well in a hostile world where an old person has definitely had good enough sense to stay alive and is worth listening to. So it is taboo for young people to go against their elders, because older people know better and those individuals who do respect their elders are perceived as better. 

Respect also plays a significant role in the social structuring. We are told to respect people of higher rank, people who hold a higher position in a company, are more senior in a field etc. This is commonsense too - in our evolutionary past adherence to social structure is what allowed civilization to flourish. People who rock the boat are notoriously ill-favored, even those who do so legitimately, but especially those who just make trouble. 

It is clear that respect has come at odds with more recent adaptations to human interaction. 

No longer do we live in a life-threatening environment in which only a parent's guiding hand can avert catastrophe; quite the contrary, nowadays parent's controlling and bargaining behavior is more detrimental than most activities a child could engage in. With widespread access to internet and easy learning a parent's limited worldview can do nothing but stifle a new mind's capacity for growth. Food is cheap and relatively healthy (it will not kill instantaneously if consumed); violent crime lower than ever in the history of mankind. We may be scared by images of child molesters, kidnappings, sexual and drug abuse, but the facts remain that drug abuse amongst young children, same as alcohol abuse, has never been a problem and the vast majority of cases of abuse are perpetrated not by unknown evildoers, but by members of the family, usually foster or step-parents. Respect for ones elder's is obsolete.

Respect in social and work environment has turned into a similar novel conundrum. Jobs no longer are held by a person for decades, but change fluidly. Business models become more changing, new services and products emerge at an ever increasing rate and professionals evolve alongside them, on the fly. Seniority becomes obsolete as everyone is pushed back into a permanent state of student-ship. No wonder most great thinkers recognize themselves as fools and merely students in select fields, in a boat with everyone else, just getting by and figuring things out as they go. Respect cannot be given nor can it be demanded in a society that profoundly wishes to be rid of status and to allocate everyone with a nominal amount of dignity as human beings, not as participants in a great Ponzi scheme of life.

Once we recognize that respect has always been an evolutionary shorthand for detecting worth and expressing compliance in a volatile environment, we can abandon it and use notions better adapted to our present day situation. We would also do well if we notice the intricate connection between respect and authority; we tend to explicitly trust people we respect, even when rational consideration tells us otherwise. This is where two notions - respect and skepticism are at odds, and you don't need me telling you which should prevail.

Rather than looking at seniority or status as a measure of worth, we must examine evidence of skills and success - work produced, changes initiated, lives affected. Work performance can be reliably analyzed by checking figures such as income, turnover etc.

When it comes to interpersonal relationships being skeptical can be difficult, since we must avoid asking people's opinions about somebody since those are not evidence of anything other than respect, but this just means we should spend more time getting to know others first-hand and rely less on second-hand stories from sources which are by definition unreliable.

Discuss!