In the United States, this is almost exclusively an ethnic thing. For instance, it is found most often in the black and hispanic communities. I’m going on 63, and I’ve lived in quite a few places over my years, and I have never seen “disrespect” play such a key role among whites. Just saying.
It seems like blacks generally have incredibly fragile egos. At least the street thug variety.
It's gotten worse since we stopped executing murderers within 3 years of conviction, and a revolution in combat medicine (mainly from the Vietnam War) significantly improved the odds of shooting victim survival in emergency rooms. Aggravated assaults per capita have almost tripled, but homicides per capita have remained flattish since 1960.
Well, it used to be a big thing in the Southern white community. One reason we made a big thing about being polite was that people did take offense easily. Glen Campbell told a story about making a movie (True Grit?) about objecting to a line in his script which had his character speaking disrespectfully to another character, who then just argued back. Where I come from, Campbell said. this other character would have just punched me in the face. “Fighting Words”.
What about the white ex-cop who shot a white veteran in a movie theater last week over a disagreement because the guy was texting his babysitter?
Yep. It is a savage thing.