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After thirty years of working with the most violent men our society produces, I am convinced that we do not need to give up on anyone. Even the most intractably violent people can learn to live with others in ways that are constructive rather than destructive. So there are many reasons why even those who feel nothing but detestation for every violent criminal in the world might still conclude, on the basis of self-interest, that these men deserve all the attention we can give them.
That leads to another meaning of the concept of respect. The German word for attention — Achtung — also means respect. And that makes sense: the way you truly respect someone is to pay attention to them, and if you are not giving them your full attention, you are disrespecting them. That is one reason, I think, that psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are such deep forms of respect for human beings and human dignity. They involve, indeed they consist of, paying full attention to another human being.
It is not only Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman to whom attention must be paid; we all need attention. When we get it, we know that we are being respected. That also helps to explains the etiology of violence: assaulting people is a foolproof way to get their attention. Since everyone needs respect/attention, if they cannot get it non-violently, they will get it violently. And I have never met a group of people who had been so profoundly neglected and deprived, and who had received so little of either attention or respect, as the prison inmates.
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