Click this player to hear an audio reading of this page:
Respect can be contrasted with two forms of disrespect: presumptive negligence (unintentional disrespect) as well as disturbed contempt (intentional disrespect). When we presume that something currently is what we previously perceived it to be (or what we have been told that it should be), that is negligent and presumptive.
In some cases, we have been programmed to relate to a certain thing as if it should be a specific way and, if our own observations contrast with the programmed expectations, then panic may seem relevant. In distress, we may find some reality or idea so disturbing that we condemn it. In panic, we may hysterically ridicule those who present a particular idea.
What is so disturbing about some ideas (to some people)? Some people experience an intense terror of social punishment (shame) and so they condemn or ridicule certain things in order to display their loyalty to some idea of how they (as people) should be.
When their observations do not fit their programmed expectations, they express "disbelief." Disbelief is a type of confusion in which someone previously held expectations and presumptions that did not fit with their later experiences.
Such confusion or disbelief is a normal development, though relatively infrequent usually. Typically, when someone is surprised by something, that can lead to increased alertness or curiosity. However, when they specifically expected one thing and then are surprised, that is not the same as when expecting nothing.
It is the violation of their expectations that causes some people shame and panic. They may resist their observations and say things like "that [he, she, it] is not how it should be." They had a pre-existing idea of how it should be, then they see that it is not like that, so they may experience various intensities of shame and panic.
They may presume that, until they directly observed some expectation to be false, that it was true. So, they may want to blame someone for "corrupting" the thing that they presume to have always been how they presumed it to be (until they realized it was not currently like that). They may passionately wish to reform the thing to make it how they presumed that it was (before their observations which contrasted with their ideals).
What is the background issue? They were wrong about it. They were already confused about it (long before they knew that they were confused).
When that became obvious to them, then they felt frightened (embarrassed) by their own observations... which revealed that their prior expectations or presumptions were inaccurate. To hide their shame and anxiety, they may panic and throw a tantrum of condemnation and blame and shaming and ridiculing.
One response to confusion is to seek clarity. Another response to confusion is to withdraw focus from whatever had been confusing for them and then seek to blame someone else for their shameful experience of confusion. Someone else must have been naive or insincere! Someone should have properly informed them. Further, they may further distract themselves from the observations which triggered shame and panic by targeting specific other people who are to blame for their confusion.
Again, it is not just that "someone" (some unspecified person) should have rescued them from shame or prevented the experience of shame. Typically, specific villains and traitors are proposed. If it was not for the negligence or even misconduct of those specific others, then, according to the common distressed accusations, there would have been little or no confusion (and thus no shame about the confusion).
All of that may be true. Maybe increased caution is relevant in regard to other people in general or other people in particular. Maybe eruptions of behavior to repulse others are relevant and valuable.
However, all of that is focusing on other people (and prior expectations about them), not the observation that contrasted with presumptions. Beyond the issue of placing blame for the gap between observations and presumptions, there is respecting a particular reality, correcting any confusions, and updating any presumptions or expectations to conform to observations. That does not require condemning certain observations or experiences in order to preserve an image of loyalty to some set of pre-existing presumptions. We can respect the observations and experiences without resisting them or discounting them based on inaccurate presumptions that we previously held.
Should people "never" be confused? That is an idea that may be popular. However, it is obviously in stark contrast with reality.
People sometimes confuse one thing for something else. That can happen a little or a lot.
If someone is ashamed of the idea that they might be confused, then we could expect them to resist that idea intensely. They may be very slow to admit to an instance of confusion. They may be very fast to distract from their confusion by making accusations and casting blame.
For some people, the idea that they are confused about anything at all may be intensely shameful, for even one confusion implies the possibility that there could be others. What if several presumptions and expectations are in total conflict with actual observable reality? What if someone's entire program for avoiding reality is vulnerable to exposure?