Sometimes it is hard to understand what it is in human nature that allows people to become so crass in their dealings with each other. We have all had the experience of being treated like a thing — a nonperson whose only value is to be used by someone else to accomplish their goals. No one likes that. We all want to be treated with the dignity that we believe belongs to humans.
I think that some of the problem may be that we have forgotten how to treat things with proper respect. The degradation of the environment is ample testimony to our failure in that respect. When we do not know how to treat things with respect, it becomes doubly confusing when we then try to treat people with respect.
The story of the interchange between King Ahab, the anointed king of Israel, and his neighbor, …