CHAPTER 4: The DEMOCRATIC (R)EVOLUTION We are better than we realize we are. For the first time, we can now create institutions of governance that elicit our best. Copyright 2026 by Paul L. LaClair
Value for Monday of Week 15 in the season of Sowing
Developing, Encouraging and Promoting Self-Respect
To respect is to look upon, so self-respect is a measure of how a person sees herself. It includes an emotional component, which is predominant in any gestalt view of a person. Self-respect is essential to personal health, growth and maturity.
- Everyone in society should be a role model, not only for their own self-respect, but for respect from others. [attributed to Barry Bonds]
- I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man’s self-respect is a sin. [attributed to Antoine de Saint-Exupery]
- No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect. [George Bernard Shaw]
***
In her superlative essay on self-respect, Joan Didion argues that an end to self-delusion may be among its predicates. “I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honour, and the love of a good man . . .” Another necessary predicate, she argues, is accepting responsibility for one’s actions, such as “the glass you broke in anger”. In sum, self-respect is a matter of character: “the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.”
***
Real
True Narratives
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr., In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past (Crown, 2009).
- Langston Hughes, The Big Sea: An Autobiography (Hill and Wang, 1993).
- Robert Gordon, Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (Bloomsbury, 2013): about a form of music that promoted self-respect.
- Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations (Knopf, 2019): “ . . . even as she moves into the October of life, Morrison, quietly and without ceremony, lays another gem at our feet.”
- Grace Talusan, The Body Papers: A Memoir (Restless Books, 2019): “The sexual abuse started when she was 7 and ended when she was 13, after she waited for Tatang one evening and shoved him into the bedroom wall. Seeing the look of humiliation on his face, she knew that one form of torment was over: ‘My rage turned to joy.’”
- Melissa Febos, Girlhood: Essays (Bloomsburn Publishing, 2021): “The book is a feminist testament to survival: years of dehumanizing sex with boys and men, harassment by women, being stalked, drug addiction and what she describes as ‘a growing certainty about the ways in which I have collaborated in the mistreatment of my own body.'”
Technical and Analytical Readings
- Robin S. Dillon, ed., Dignity, Character and Self-Respect (Routledge, 1995).
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Langston Hughes’ writing exudes a quiet but certain self-respect, influenced by his poor relationship with his father, of whom he said: "I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn't understand it, because I was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much."
- Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage, 1995).
- Langston Hughes, The Ways of White Folks: Stories (Vintage, 1990).
- Langston Hughes, Short Stories: Collected Works, vol. 15 (University of Missouri Press, 2002).
- Langston Hughes, Not Without Laughter: A Novel (1930), Hughes’ only novel, about a black boy’s awakening to the realities of life in a small Kansas town.
Other novels:
- Bushra Rehman, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion: A Novel (Flatiron Books, 2022): “At the novel’s opening, it’s 1985 and Razia is a precocious fifth grader just starting to bridle at the restrictions placed on her as a girl — by her parents and by other members of her first-generation conservative, religious community.”
From the dark side:
- Abir Mukherjee, The Shadows of Men: A Novel (Pegasus Crime, 2021): “. . . there is a bitter aftertaste that lingers even more strongly, because the root of Banerjee’s discontent is the scourge of colonialist attitudes, and that cannot be washed away in a tidy resolution.”
- Clémence Michallon, The Quiet Tenant: A Novel (Knopf, 2023), “offers multiple perspectives on a monster who keeps his victim and his young daughter under the same roof.”
Poetry
Books of poetry:
- Desiree C. Bailey, What Noise Against the Cane (Yale University Press, 2021) is “a lyrical and polyvocal exploration of what it means to fight for yourself”.
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Kenyan cultural music is unassuming yet assertive, conveying a sense of good feeling and internal assurance. “Because of (its) diversity, a special intersection of talents feeds into the Kenyan music scene to keep Kenyans and the world at large inspired, educated, and entertained. Music lovers in Kenya can bob their heads to Benga, Hip-hop, Reggae, Afrobeat, Gengetone, Kapuka, Genge, and folk music in over 40 national languages.” Top artists include:
- Musaimo wa Njeri;
- Joseph Kamaru;
- Queen Jane;
- Sammy Irungu;
- Fundi Konde;
- Daniel Owino Misiani;
- Ayub Ogada;
- Mighty King Kong;
- John Ndichu;
- Jose Gatatura;
- Philip Kimani;
- Victoria C. Kings, “B.J. King McDola” album (2021) (69’)
- Banana Hills Band, “Ni Wahenirio” album (2020) (23’)
- “Crossroads Kenya: East African Benga and Rumba, 1980-1985” (album, various artists) (2022) (47’)
Silvius Leopold Weiss “was responsible for leaving the largest, both qualitatively and quantitatively, number of compositions for the solo lute of any composer in history.” These are quiet and unassuming works for a gentle instrument, with overtones of introspection and reflection.
- Lute Sonatas (list of recorded performances)
- Lute concerti (list of recorded performances)
- The Complete London Manuscripts
Along the same lines are Johann Sebastian Bach, Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006 (1720) (approx. 127-144’) (list of recorded performances), “are among the most important masterpieces in the literature of violin music. They are included in standard repertoire for serious violin students; they are frequently performed in solo recitals; they are recorded by numerous virtuosi; and they are required in major violin competitions.” “These compositions place huge organizational demands on a player, who is required to execute a multitude of voices, lines, melodies, counterpoint, and within all that convey the music’s character and impressions. At first, Bach’s individual line is simple, but then, when presented in multiple voices, complexities emerge, and it becomes the greatest of challenges to simultaneously render differing lines while retaining their underlying simplicity.” Excellent performances are er differing lines while retaining their underlying simplicity.” Excellent performances are by Olevsky in 1953, Milstein in 1954-1956, Grumiaux in 1960, Szeryng in 1967, Menuhin in 1973-1975, Milstein in 1975, Zehetmair in 1982, Perlman in 1986, Kagan in 1989, Fulkerson in 1995, Ehnes in 2000, Tetzlaff in 2005, Holloway in 2006, Ibragimova in 2009, Tetzlaff in 2017, van der Ent in 2021, Biondi in 2021, and Curtolo in 2024.
Other compositions:
- Charles-Marie Widor, Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 13/4 (1872, rev. 1887) (approx. 28-30’) (list of recorded performances)
- Salvatore Lanzetti, Cello Sonatas (1750s) (approx. 290’) (list of recorded performances) exhibit not a cello that digs deep into the soul but one that holds its head high.
Consistent with his view of music in space and time, and the importance of giving space for silence, Roscoe Mitchell’s playlists, solo albums and live performances evoke the value of self-respect.
- “The Solo Concert” album (1973) (42’)
- “Solo [3]” album (2004) (171’)
- Live, February 5, 2013 (45’)
Albums by other artists:
- Christie Dashiell, “Journey in Black” (2023) (56') “. . . focuses on spirituality, love, grief and ancestral traditions in her expression.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Aretha Franklin, “Respect” (lyrics)
- Madonna, “Express Yourself” (lyrics)
- Alesia Cara, “Scars to Your Beautiful” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
Jean-Michel Basquiat's surrealistic self-portraits suggest that he struggled with self-image and self-respect.
- untitled (Skull) (1984)
- Self-Portrait (1982)
- Boxer (1982)
- Self-Portrait as a Heel, Part Two (1982)
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict (1982)
Film and Stage
- Ghost World, a coming-of-age storycentering on two sarcastic teenage girls, one of whom draws attention from men while the other does not
- Umberto D, “the story of an old man’s struggle to keep from falling from poverty into shame”
- The Life of Oharu: reflections of a Japanese woman, whose self-image is defined by her livelihood of prostitution
- The Aparement, about a young man who learns to stand up for himself
- Pinocchio: on becominga “real boy”
- Boyz N The Hood, a flawed film with important thingsto say about self-respect
- Nebraska, about an elderly man whose life was clouded by alcohol and failure, and who obtains a little solace through his adult son’s grace and generosity
