Originally by: eleuthereus

---

Edited by: eleuthereus on 25/11/2006 21:42:56
Many years ago, I remember seeing an Olympic swimming event that included a swimmer from an extremely poor country in Africa. He barely had qualified to be in the Olympics, and in fact, had never even partcipated in a swimming event that was as long as the one he was going to swim in competition, on TV, before the entire world. The starting gun sounded, and the swimmers took off. He IMMEDIATELY started falling behind - more, and more and more.

Finally, the winner touched the wall, second place, and third, then the rest of the field, all of whom got out of the pool -- all except the lone swimmer from Africa who was two full pool lengths behind. He kept swimming, and swimming, so exhausted that it looked like he was almost flailing in the water, hardly moving at all. No one else was even in the pool, the other swimmers, in fcat, were already drying off with their towels. He was still swimming. No one could believe he was so far behind. But he kept going, suddenly pulling the notice of the commentators and the crowd who started cheering and chering and cheeering -- until atlast he finished, utterly spent, barely able to even climb out of the pool.

Was he a good swimmer? No. Could he have ever beat anyone? No. Did he deserve respect? Yes - without a doubt, yes. He showed integrity, fortitude, courage, perseverance, and true spirit of competition. In fact, I respected him EVEN MORE than the winners because of the odds against him that he had to face.

So, this is all my way of saying, there are all kinds of respect -- both earned (as in when a person performs well, or as in when a person shows fortitude), as well as unearned (as in the respect every person/player should receive by the sheer fact that they are fellow human beings and fellow players).

When dealing with such issues, we muct avoid mixing categories and nuanced definitions of certain concepts like respect. My two cents

eleuthereus

---