The End of Deference

Traditional societies rely a lot on deference. People are given respect based on their role or experience. A patient offers deference to a doctor. The young defer to the old. Everyone defers to a policeman, and even more to a priest or a monarch. Less educated people defer to those with qualifications.

The Economist this week referred to the end of the age of deference , at least in the UK. Whatever may have remained twenty years ago has been lost due to a series of scandals. The royals were damaged by Charles and Diana. MP’s had little automatic respect anyway, but what they did have was lost over expenses. Now the Murdoch scandal has reduced confidence in the police. Journalists, of course, never commanded much respect. The horrible revelations about the Catholic Church have changed the way we view priests. Bank managers, when you can actually find one, are tainted. Nowadays, it is even acceptable, sometimes, to challenge a boss.

Germans have less class history to hold them back, but historically have placed great store on qualifications and experience. There, wages follow age much more than they follow current merit, and people will always show off their doctor-ships or other titles. But even this was challenged last year when a senior government minister was discovered to have plagiarised part of his doctoral thesis.

The Netherlands may be the least deferential society on earth. There, everyone has to earn their respect. I believe this lies at the root of the terrible customer service prevalent there. Shop assistants are essentially reminding customers that they command equal respect, and find any hint of obsequiousness inconsistent with that. Elsewhere in society, politicians, generals, even royals may be respected, but they all have to earn it as humans first. One good by-product may be that the police are generally more courteous there.

The first reaction of my generation and younger people to the end of deference is to cheer. Why should anyone command automatic respect? We are all humans, and we all need to earn the right to be heard and followed. Lazy deference held together many an out-dated institution for far too long, whether caps were doffed to landed gentry, or even colonial rulers. I find sad and frustrating the unthinking deference offered by my Mum to her GP, anyone in a bank, and sometimes even any white male above 30 wearing a suit.

Like so many trends, the one reducing deference is mainly a result of globalisation and technology. When everyone you ever met came from your village, it was much more natural to respect an established hierarchy – even if you did not have personal experience to cause you to defer, you certainly had friends and family to offer you secondary evidence. Nowadays, qualifications can come from anywhere, our Facebook friends span the globe, and Wikipedia allows us to check credentials, and even to quickly match knowledge.

But is the end of deference wholly a good thing? What about schooling? Even twenty years ago, a parent approaching a teacher would most likely be looking up to the teacher for information and feedback about their child. Now it is most often to complain or to judge the teacher. I can feel the same things happening now with medical professionals. The natural outcome is caution – both sets of professionals become more likely to cover themselves against future complaint rather than seek the best outcome for the student/patient, at least compared with before. In schools, discipline gets worse and less teaching takes place, while health services and police forces spend precious resources on documentation and litigation.

The deference-free Netherlands is also rather a noisy place. Everyone feels empowered to give their opinion on everything, decisions are slow, and often there is more talking than listening. When I reach the departure lounge in Faro airport en route for Amsterdam I always notice an unwelcome increase in volume.

Deference is one of the first things we are taught, by our parents, when we know no better. Do as you are told, speak when you are spoken to. It is natural and healthy to rebel against this model as we enter adolescence. If we are blessed with smart parents and other good role models, they start to use subtler techniques to coach us and to earn our continued respect. But many of us swing from unthinking deference all the way to unthinking disrespectfulness. Perhaps societies need to go through the same process.

Asians, Africans and others criticise our more challenging societies. True, life can be simpler with clear values and a hierarchy of deference. Families may well stay closer as a result. But the downside is apparent too, when you observe attitudes to women and political abuse of power for example. I believe we can lose the deference but keep most of its advantages.

So, on balance, good riddance to deference. All these UK scandals might finally rid us of our out-dated class-ridden model. Parenting might improve too. I defer to no one, yet I try to be open to anyone, with a bias towards respect. I make positive assumptions, but am always ready to challenge them before they become fixed views. I also expect deference from no one over the age of five. Increasingly, most of us follow this sort of philosophy, even the royal family, and society is better for it. If the volume goes up too much, we can always tune out every so often, at Faro airport or anywhere else.