By
Joshua
Michail
19
April, 2012
What do you think when you read, or
hear, the word “honor”? I'd wager that your idea of what “honor” means
is flawed in some way. That's just a guess though. Perhaps you have a
negative view on the concept? If not altogether demanding that the word
be banned from ever being used again, you're likely, at least, thinking
it's outdated. It's a common opinion. Around the globe, and over
centuries, the concept of honor has varied greatly. It has varied in
many ways. Even the importance of honor has varied. In recent decades
the idea of honor seems to have become disliked, possibly even
despised. But I'm not convinced that doing away with the concept of
honor is the right way to go. It seems to me that honor still does, and
will continue to, have a valuable role to play in society. I'd guess
there are many bad ideas out there about honor. But, I think those
should be exposed and dealt with reasonably. What we need is a logical
and clear concept of honor. I think I can offer an intelligible, useful
and even a moral concept of honor here. So, let's not throw the
proverbial baby out with the bath-water.
Misconceptions about honor certainly abound. Among them are several
problems, which are as much the fault of those who've been in past so
wound-up in honor as it is of those who have been so offended as to
reject the idea of honor altogether. It seems to me that for most of
the last century the fashionable trend, on a large scale, has been to
target honor for abolition. It seems the very idea that honor matters
has been claimed to be obsolete. The line dividing opinions on whether
the concept of honor is good or bad seems to have become parallel to
the fence between political camps, conservative and liberal. I don't
think that is really the way it should be. While there have been
changes – particularly in the U.S. – to the societal concept on honor
over the last century, since the sixties the abolition trend has
accelerated. I believe that the times have changed, and thus the
concept of honor has had to undergo updating, but I think that that
does not necessitate the wholesale doing-away-with of honor. Nor, do I
think this modernization, and what it entails, necessarily validates
being rid of honor. I suppose in some quite serious ways our cultural
ideals of individualism and personal liberty have had something to do
with this trend as well. Perhaps we've developed an unhealthy obsession
with individualism and personal liberty to the extent that they pass
the level at which they're good things and have in our culture become
contrary to the very nature of society.
That
unhealthy obsession is something that I can't help but see in many
Libertarians and Ayn Rand's so-called “Objectivists”. These are two
similar groups – birds of a feather, if you will – who argue that
“greed is good”, that “government is bad” and that “rational
selfishness” somehow motivates people to be good. That view is, at
best, a bit of a farcical stretch. A balance is often best. Indeed, our
American cultural ideals of individualism and personal liberty must be
balanced so as to hold our society together. Without responsibility and
duty what good are we? Well, we've seen a terrifying glimpse of a lack
of control, and excessive self-interest, in the example set by Wall
Street and many corporate CEOs. Excess is inherently antithetical to
honor. For that matter, so are individualism and “self-interest”, or
greed which is self-interest in its extreme. Though, individualism and
self-interest are not altogether bad, it's really a matter of degrees.
This is why it's a matter of balance. It's a matter of not allowing our
individualism and self-interest conflict with what is best for our
communities and humanity. Honor is, by its nature, a concept that
arises because of the nature of society. To put it in a picture,
hermits have no use for honor.
Extreme liberals, let's call them
“hippies”, also often tend to be opposed to honor. While many
Libertarians and Rand-variety “Objectivists” can't find the strength to
be honorable, the far-out kind of liberals seem to not want to be
honorable. I mean, in the sense that most Libertarians and
“Objectivists” fundamentally embrace ideals that are contrary to the
nature of society, and thus contrary to honor. While the extreme among
the liberals seem to not like what honor means. It is common to hear
“don't be judgmental”, and yet it is an inescapable part of human
nature. We all are judgmental, the only relevant question is to what
degree and what particulars do we consider in making our judgments.
Honor requires some amount of judgment by people. In fact, you can't be
either honorable or dishonorable without other people judging you to be
so. But, I also agree with most liberals, even the extreme among them,
that we ought not to be judged by such superficial and pointless things
as the color of our skin, or whether the gender of those we lie down
with is the same as our own.
More
specifically, I agree with Martin Luther King Jr. when he said in his
“Dream” speech about judging people by the content of their character,
not the color of their skin. It is absolutely right to judge people by
the content of their character. One's character is no trivial thing.
Character is whether you're a liar, or a cheater, or a thief, or a
murderer. Part of your character is whether you are corrupt, or a just
person. Of course, your work ethic, your sense of social justice, your
integrity and intellectual honesty are all parts of your character, and
thus your honor. The extremely liberal tend to include a prohibition on
judging people by whether or not they are liars or thieves, and it is
there that an honorable person must depart from their company. As a
matter of fact, being able to judge people's characters is important,
if a society is to be cohesive. How can a society survive an epidemic
of “don't be judgmental”? We would, if we took it – following the
directions of those who are so extremely liberal – to the extreme,
allow known pedophiles to run daycare centers, and allow known
terrorists to manage our nation's security and so forth. It must be
obvious that there is a limit to that “don't be judgmental” mantra.
Clearly society could not operate without people being judgmental in
some ways. We need only be concerned about what is reasonable, in the
context of the greater good, to judge others on, and to judge by.
Surely
many people dislike the unpleasantness of many different ideas on
honor. Particularly the archaic ideas. Bad ideas like; honor-killings
done when a woman somehow “dishonors” her family by being the victim of
rape, or the ritual suicide to save one's honor after some failure, or
the misappropriation of honor as if it were gold to wealthy and famous
people. Clearly those ideas are all seriously misguided. In no way does
a person deserve more honor simply because of being born into a certain
family, or because of being famous or wealthy. Indeed, to the contrary
of what they think, any family that murders a member of that family in
order to save their honor severely dishonors themselves. They mostly
tend to miss the mark, or get a warped concept about the subject. The
perversions have run the idea nearly into the ground. Though, I suspect
it's easy to reject the idea of honor, altogether, given the other
twisted views on honor. Just as there are absolutist views of morality
– religiously oriented views – there are some who believe honor to be
an absolute. Absolutism is the idea that there is some outside source
of, in this case honor, and some idea that it's set in stone. The idea
that morality, or honor, can't be relative to the changes in society is
highly absurd.
The flip side of that is Relativism, the
idea that it's all just relative and so there's no real value to
morality, or in this case honor. On this subject, there is a popular
notion that honor is irrelevant. Though there are some things about
honor which may be quite firm, there is not any convincing way to say
that honor is either absolute or irrelevant. The interesting thing is
that there are those who believe that honor – or morality – is out
dated, or irrelevant, because of claims by those who subscribe to
absolutism. In their case it is a misunderstanding. They seem to think
that the proposition put forth by the absolutists is the only available
version, and therefore deserving of rejection. Conversely, there are
also those who view any alternative to their absolutist position to be
inferior or unqualified. To their thinking, in the case of morality, it
is dictated from upon high and carved into stone. Yet what they think
is unchangeable tends to change over generations, but they'd never
admit it. In regards to honor, the absolutist tends to treat honor as
if it were a tangible concrete thing. They often regard it as if it
were inherited from family, as if there are – almost magical – rituals
to mend it, as if one's honor could so easily be injured by the
words or deeds of others. But, there is a middle option, a
third choice. The position that honor is not absolute, nor irrelevant,
but rather that it's relevant and relative to what is actually a valid
concern for society.
Can your
honor be damaged by someone calling you a derogatory name? What if
someone insinuates something particularly nasty about your partner?
What kind of a slight would it take to call your honor into question?
There are so many common misconceptions involving the “insult”. And
frankly, I don't get those who puff-up their chests and throw their
heads backward in a sort of Chihuahua-meets-Gorilla dance of challenge.
Honor is not something that can be “insulted”. I've seen too many
instances of some insult, to which a sense of offense drives an attempt
to restore honor. It's an absurdity, it seems to me. It's a completely
misguided notion that some have that one's honor might be injured by
another person's words or actions. How could that be the case? The
truth is that one's honor can only be affected by one's own actions,
and no other person's. Words are nothing to honor. The great, almost
comedic, tragedy lies in when a person, in a misguided and
poorly-though-out effort, tries to restore honor only imagined to be
damaged and in the process actually damages his/her honor. It bears
repeating, honor can only be influenced by one's own behavior. There is
no such thing as an insult to your honor done by someone else. Your
honor is not affected by someone saying an insult about you, but it is
certainly affected by how you choose to react. Reacting violently, or
in a vindictive manner, is a failure of self-control. Since we are each
responsible for our own behavior, reacting in that way to provocation
is what brings dishonor. It turns out, that if someone says your friend
is a “bitch”, you only damage your honor if you react with violence. It
is dishonorable to escalate a verbal confrontation to a physical one
because in that case you are demonstrating that you're much closer to
an ordinary animal than a thinking animal. It is shameful to allow
others to manipulate you, especially in such an obvious and
unsophisticated way. This sort of behavior essentially makes one a
danger to society.
Many
people have attempted to argue that the idea of honor is out-dated.
However, I believe good arguments can be made in support of certain
concepts. Namely, that honor is an idea that we can't be rid of so
easily. Also, that honor cannot be affected by others. And first, that
honor is actually still important today. If you behave dishonorably
people will not respect you, and deservedly so. Honor is,
fundamentally, the currency of social exchange. It is very closely
related to reputation. So, while those detractors may have some valid
points, they are wrong on the overall case that honor should be
abandoned. For one thing, committing suicide supposedly in order to
preserve one's honor is misguided. Even when ritualized, suicide is not
an honorable act. Though there should be a distinction between suicide
and self-sacrifice made to benefit the greater good. Fundamentally,
there is no honor in quitting since that is usually the easy and
unproductive way out of a difficulty. Though quitting is not always
dishonorable, it is how extreme suicide is and the fact that it is
giving-up that makes it dishonorable. And even if suicide were not
dishonorable, using that approach to try to protect one's honor fails
because it's not logical for killing one's self to have a positive
affect on one's honor.
Honor is relevant today, vis-a-vis, our
reputations and our interpersonal interactions. I'll concede that
nagging question, “What
about the fact that we live in large metropolises now?”.
Of-course, the concept of honor is hindered and not as potent a force
in our modern times given the nature of our societies now. But, the
nature of humanity, the interdependence of each of us upon one another
makes honor still relevant. The anonymity of our reputations that big
cities offer can diminish the effectiveness of honor, when compared to
ancient times. However, it can't actually do away with it altogether.
It is something that you can have a little of, or much of, though one
can't have too much. It's something that can be in deficit or surplus.
Albeit some people may have undeserved or misappropriated honor. Likely
the fault of the people who give such undue honor, as in the case of
many famous people. Many fans regard a celebrity with more honor than
is appropriate simply because of being a celebrity. That is not
necessarily the celebrity's fault. And certainly many average people
don't seem to get as much respect of their honor as they may deserve,
but that is a circumstance of big cities and popular attitudes. Still
the fact is that the concept of honor must change to adapt to the
changes of the times. But, honor will likely never go away altogether
as a phenomenon of community and humanity. So, your honor is something
worth thinking about.
Copyright © 2012 by Joshua
Michail
All
Rights Reserved.
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