Except that Dumbledore is the superior of the two by a long way, and thus respect only goes one way in the Tonks-Dumbledore relationship.

It'd be like a general respecting a private. Not gonna happen folks: by virtue of superior rank, the general is the receiver of respect, the private the giver of it.

Now, a general might respect someone of lower, but similar, rank, such as a colonel, but not a private. So Dumbledore may respect McGonagall, but the idea of him giving respect to Tonks, both his magical and positional inferior, is silly.

 

Taure, sorry but I call bullshit. The Order isn't an army. If anything, he needs to show more respect, not less - those following him aren't doing so in any official capacity, he has no legal authority over them.

Second, there is some basic respect owed to every human being. Your wrong when you say the general has no respect for the private - good luck with your war without the latter... Sure, on-the-job, the two aren't going to be sharing a beer and a crude joke or two, but you certainly wouldn't go out of your way to insult them. Furthermore, if you are actually adressing someone by name, not title (ie. private) then you should always call people as they which to be called, and not what you decide is best.

Finally, if we must look at official positions, Dumbledore is the headmaster of a school, and Tonks is the equivilant to a police officer. She's not exactly the low girl on the totem pole.

 

Chief Warlocke, Supreme Mugwump, long list of honorable titles. Dumbledore is a politician. Good politicians command respect naturally. They instill a sense of a higher order than the general populace. Their whole platform when running is to prove that they are the best to lead others. That they are better than others. That you should respect their judgement more than others.

General populace will show a cop respect, most of the time. Now someone like the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are held in the highest of esteems. When you meet someone like that you're on your best behavior, polite, and formal. Unless you're a complete twat.

It's a hierarchy. Those who lead are always respected more, because they hold the lives of the people in their hands. That's a very real, and very dangerous thing to hold. And you respect danger. You don't cower, but you will respect it.

I agree, you definitely have to respect the lower ranks. But you will always respect a qualified higher up more.

 

Vlad, if you look at official positions, Tonks is more like a newly qualified Officer in Special Branch. Dumbledore is the Headmaster of the only school in the country (gotta mean something more than being a headmaster of a normal school), he is the Head of the Judicial (and potentially Legislative) branch of the Government, is an important member of the International Confederation of Wizards, and he's a war hero - he has Order of Merlin First Class, to me thats always seemed equivalent to the Victoria Cross, simply having it gets you the respect of anyone, particularly someone who is in a position to have some idea of what you went through to get it (ie Tonks, who's a trained magical warrior).

 

Disagree there. I think our problem comes from our differing ideas of the word "respect". For me, if respect was given to everyone by default, then it would be a worthless concept, because to me respect is a recognition of special value, it is an honouring of greatness.

The idea of a General respecting a private is ridiculous. To give someone your respect is to recognize them as an equal or superior. The general may be polite to the private, but respect? Unless the private has done some great deed of heroism, unlikely.

 

The wise man Does Not make an enemy of a stranger.
The wise man doesn't go out of his way to insult someone else.
The wise man respects other people's wishes, when those wishes do not impede the rights of the people around them.
The wise man avoids alienating someone who is volunteering their time and skills in his service.
These are simply the *practical* aspects involved in not butchering someone's name.

Etiquette (simple manners) says, "Why make a point of making someone uncomfortable, when a minor concession will help keep interaction running smoothly?"

Names are intimate. Deliberately mangling someone's name is likely to irritate the victim FAR out of proportion. Don't do it.

 

Except he didn't do that. Nymphadora is indeed her name. Tonks is another of her names, the one that she asks other people to use, but that doesn't make Nymphadora any less her name.

In addition, notice how neither her parents or Lupin call her Tonks. She obviously doesn't mind that much. You're blowing the whole "not calling her Tonks is rude" thing waaay out of proportion. As far as I remember, the only person she told off for calling her Nymphadora was in fact Moody, and he had a close relationship with her (being her mentor) and thus most likely it was just a regular part of their camaraderie.

I see no reason to think that she actually dislikes her name. It seems to me that she merely pretends to dislike it as a joke.

 

* nods at the dissenters *
Agree to disagree? We're turning the "Laws" thread into a discussion thread.
I considered everyone's stated position, and I stand by my view.

 

Banner, what is there to dissent about? Taure just provided ample evidence that your stance is wrong.

And Vlad, what respect is owed to every human being? I don't have any respect for the majority of the world, either because they haven't done something worthy of my respect, or because they have done something that would have lost my respect had they actually had it to begin with. Are you perhaps that you should treat everyone with a basic level of decency and courtesy?

 

Mordecai, there is a basic level of respect. If someone does something for you - you ought say please and thank you, no matter if you actually like them, no matter how trivial the task they have done for you is. Manners, etiquette. Simple things, really.

This however, is all beside the point. We obviously have different views on the matter, and it's not really something worth arguing. At the end of the day though, it doesn't matter what their positions are, or how much "higher' on the ladder Dumbledore is to Tonks. She has explicitly stated her desire to be referred to as Tonks, and he continually goes against her wishes. Whether or not he can get away with it is irrelevant - he's still being rude when he does it, which was Banner's original point.

 

Actually, you oughtn't say thank you in every case. It's a matter of convention (etiquette, as you put it). Etiquette also doesn't require an old man to call a young woman by any name she chooses, specially not a headmaster to an old student. I hope you wouldn't expect your grandfather to call you vlad, just because that's how you want your friends to call you.

Also, manners and respect are very different things. Respect, by definition isn't something you can give to everyone because having respect for someone is giving special consideration to someone. Or it's esteem. Either way, since it's relative, whether you think it sounds nice to say 'everyone deserves a basic level of respect', it doesn't change the fact that putting that basic level at zero is easier.

I can't believe there's an actual argument on this whole issue.

 

You also have to remember that Dumbledore is 150 odd years old. In the time period he grew up in to address someone by their last name only was the height of disrespect. In a way Tonks was being disrespectful to him by asking that he ignore the conventions that he grew up with, that are deeply ingrained in his mind.

 

Where are you getting this from? It was my impression that 150 years ago it was far more common to call someone by their last name than it is now: these days, its rather public school to do so.

 

It's actually the exact opposite- 150 years ago, it would have been the height of disrespect to address anyone but a family member by their first name only. Even husbands and wives only addressed each other by their first names in private.

Also, argument is a total non-issue. The don't-call-me-Nymphadora thing is a mostly fanon concept. It was only brought up, IIRC, once in canon, so it couldn't have really been that important.

 

Yeah, niggers are also always dissin' me for treating them like farm equipment. Youth these days ...

Women and children, too.

 

Regardless of how old he is or what positions he holds, Dumbledore is being rude when he refers to Tonks by a name she does not wish to be called. The first time it's excusable, but after she has informed him of her preference, to continue going against her wishes is just him being a jerk because he can get away with it.

It's not like she's asking to be called 'The Lizard Queen' or some shit. Dumbledore makes a pretty big deal out of the fact he refers to Voldemort by name... A Made Up Name.

Dumbledore is not Tonks's grandfather. He's a man who is lucky to have her assistance in a war no one wants to fight; assistance that could cause her to lose her job, get arrested and imprisoned, or even be killed. The least he owes her is to call her by the name she wishes to be addressed by. As for his governmental positions... well, we see where those got him in canon, to say nothing of the ones that were revoked.

The fact that he is much older and supposedly wiser does not exempt him from showing common courtesy, in fact it makes him an even bigger asshole for not showing it.

That this is even up for discussion just shows how foreign the concept of courteousness is to the average netizen and, dare I say it, DLP user (who seem to be big on 'might makes right' in this case).

 

I'm against rep, but this is the type of post that makes me reconsider my position on it, or at least the positive rep. 8)

 

It's not a matter of courtesy, it's a matter of social convention. It is highly unusual to ask someone who is by far your senior who you hardly know and who is above you in a chain of command to refer to you by your nickname.

If you were talking with a police officer, or as a school child you were talking to your teacher, and you asked them to call you by your nickname, it would be rather unusual for them to actually do so. A level of formality would be maintained until either a) you got to know them better or b) you were no longer in a professional context.

If anything, I'd say that it's rude of Tonks to ask to be called that, since she is breaking social convention.

Actually, he refers to him as Tom most of the time, when in private. If he started talking about Tom Riddle in public no pone would know what he was talking about, so he uses the name that others know him by.

 

Of course

Who cares what he refers to him as. Always adresses him as Tom, as far as I'm concerned. Is Dumbledore being an arsehole for adressing an old student by his given name?

 

Er... students ask there teachers to refer to them by nicknames all the time. In fact, it's such a common practice here in the US that teachers will actually ask students to inform them of any nicknames so they can make the proper changes to the attendance list, so they don't forget.