What is the difference between fear and respect?

Respecting someone because you fear for yourself, your life, or another’s, is not real respect. Real respect goes both ways. If a leader of a country respects the needs and lives of his/her citizens, and the citizens respect the leader, that is real respect. If a leader of a country doesn’t respect his/her citizens and incites fear in them, forcing them to respect their leader, that isn’t real.

Respecting someone, in my opinion, requires a certain level of trust. If I can’t trust someone, I am not going to respect them. I respect my family members because I trust them, and I know they are deserving of respect.

Lots of definitions for each, and I won’t get into them. It would take to long.

I’ll illustrate the dichotomy this way.

I may fear the guy coming at me with a knife to rob me. But I sure won’t respect him.

Respect is earned.

Respect, is a two way street. It is a reciprocation.

Fear, means one party is incapable, or at a disadvantage to the other.

Respect is earned.

Fear is imposed.

A healthy bit of fear is part of respect for things or situations like driving or firearms. Respect for people does not involve fear.

I can’t think of anyone who I’ve respected who I’ve also feared. I would think that respect depends, at least in part, on trusting the individual… And fear tends to erode trust. Oh I see someone else mentioned trust, too!

I think the other version of “fear” that often gets used as a way to circumvent respect is drumming up a fear of an “other.” (You need me, because otherwise you’re left with that or them.) I can’t think of anyone who’s earned or increased my respect in them because of this tactic.

I really wish preying on fear didn’t seem to so often garner people the political outcomes they were hoping for.

If the opposite of respect is contempt, there are certainly contemptible people who frighten me. Consider the prospect of an oafish quick tempered ignoramus stumbling around with the launch codes in his pocket.

They’re quite different things. It seems to me that fear might be thought of as one type of respect in a rather negative and hostile context, but outside of such a negative context, I don’t see why one would wonder if fear and respect could be the same thing.

I agree with @Soubresaut that in fact I think fearing someone often precludes respect except in the sense that one might “respect” the danger they represent, but only in the sense of taking that danger seriously, or if the context is some sort of warrior situation whose honor code you buy into.

Interesting website on Respect and Earning it.

This is about children, but it applies to anyone. I have a friend whose husband is a cop. He’s right on the edge of sanity. He puts his kids in police holds and finds multiple ways to traumatize them. He lies all the time and the kids even call him on it. All he does is gaslight them.

They do not respect him. They’re afraid of him.

A child who respects his parents will trust them because they are trustworthy.

And to add to that, he thinks fear and respect are the same thing! It’s awful.

If I fear someone, I usually don’t like them.

There is an element of admiration that comes with respect. Admiration is conspicuously absent in fear.