By Scott Englund
The article titled, “Is Honor Obsolete?” posted on 9 October prompts more discussion. The author suggests that in our contemporary society, the concept of Honor is waning precisely when it is needed the most. For the author, honor has a private as well as public significance regulating personal behavior and social interactions. The self-discipline symptomatic of a life lived honorably is inversely related to the persistence and effectiveness of an external policing mechanism. The author concludes that as state-provided justice fails its citizenry, Honor must take up the slack.
What this discussion of Honor motivated was an inquiry into the causes of Honor’s retreat as a valuable and instructive virtue in our society. I have three proposed causes: first, virtues are increasing self-referential—values are expected to have limited, personal meaning; second, as Honor inherently requires reference outside one’s self, our increased isolation makes Honor increasingly irrelevant; finally, and related to the first, the existence of truth itself is widely questioned.
Even as the author defined Honor as a Virtue (with which I firmly agree) he did so by qualifying the definition with the words, “to me.” These words, “to me,” have become ubiquitous in our society when it comes down to defining things. Definitions about what is good or right, or how one ought to behave have become—almost without exception—self-referential. In our contemporary culture, it is bad form to make unqualified, universal statements about how things ought to be. The words “ought” and “should” themselves are becoming endangered species—reserved for medical advice and tips on fashion or cooking. We are increasingly told what we will and will not do, by law, but we are forced to drift on social and moral currents rudderless. The concept of Honor is meaningless when its definition is personal. Honor can only be defined with reference to how one ought to behave relative to other individuals. It is necessarily discriminating: some things are honorable, others are not, and that distinction must be communally recognizable. This requires the presence of a true community.
Our culture is often referred to as being “networked” and described as being “wired” giving the impression of a cohesive, socially interconnected community. That impression is, of course, not accurate. In spite of electronic devices that claim to connect widely dispersed people, individuals are more isolated from their physical community than they ever have been. While people regularly “chat” electronically with “friends” on other continents, they likely do not know their neighbors. Social isolation extends to commerce—anonymity in transactions is valued and sought after. As isolation means fewer recurring, close interactions, the value of one’s reputation diminishes. Honor becomes unnecessary and irrelevant in a society where, left to ourselves, we need not behave consistently, let alone be consistently well behaved.
Finally, and most troubling, Truth itself is discredited. As proposed above, definitions have become self-referential and meaning is increasingly personal. At best, socially constructed norms extend meaning to a community. However, even a socially constructed meaning of something can be challenged as false and requires a level of community lacking today. Honor must be built on solid bedrock, and that is why it is fading from memory. Post-modernism is distrustful of anything that claims to be universal or permanent. Nothing, the post-modernist cries, can be so perfectly stated and formed so as to apply always, everywhere. And yet the human mind continually seeks this kind of reassurance. Our nature cries out for simple truth. Without it we can have nothing in common. It justifies altruism, self-sacrifice, duty to a cause beyond ourselves; trust, discipline, honor and virtue. Just as surely as it gives us these things, it also gives us deceit, vengeance, greed, and tyranny. But it also gives us the right to condemn these things—and the duty to oppose them wherever we find them.
Lying, cheating, and stealing can get for us what we want, but the means of immediate gain diminishes the pleasures so attained—passion without love, advancement without knowledge, wealth without respect. When one considers the additional pleasures of “living an honorable life” and measures out what that means, we see that much of life is not necessary. Being respected, competing, working at perfecting a skill or an art; the pleasure of working through a problem, striving, failing and succeeding despite our inadequacies—none of these are necessary. A life lived with honor and obligation is beyond mere necessity and must be strongly desired. Unfortunately this present age has shown very different priorities.
