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= Honor =
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Introduction
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Honour (Commonwealth English) or honor (American English; see spelling
differences) is a quality of a person that is of both social teaching
and personal ethos, that manifests itself as a code of conduct, and
has various elements such as valour, chivalry, honesty, and
compassion. It is an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of
worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing
and the self-evaluation of an individual or of institutions such as a
family, school, regiment, or nation. Accordingly, individuals (or
institutions) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of
their actions with a specific code of honour, and with the moral code
of the society at large.
Samuel Johnson, in his 'A Dictionary of the English Language' (1755),
defined honour as having several senses, the first of which was
"nobility of soul, magnanimity, and a scorn of meanness".
This sort of honour derives from the perceived virtuous conduct and
personal integrity of the person endowed with it. Johnson also defined
honour in relationship to "reputation" and "fame"; to "privileges of
rank or birth", and as "respect" of the kind which "places an
individual socially and determines his right to precedence". This sort
of honour is often not so much a function of moral or ethical
excellence, as it is a consequence of power. Finally, with respect to
sexuality, 'honour' has traditionally been associated with (or
identical to) "chastity" or "virginity", or in case of married men and
women, "fidelity".
Social context
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Honour as a code of behaviour defines the duties of an individual
within a social group. Margaret Visser observes that in an
honour-based society "a person is what he or she is in the eyes of
other people".
A code of honour differs from a legal code, also socially defined and
concerned with justice, in that honour remains implicit rather than
explicit and objectified.
One can distinguish honour from dignity, which Wordsworth assessed as
measured against an individual's conscience rather than against the
judgement of a community. The sociological concept of face is related
to honour.
In the early medieval period, a lord's or lady's honour was the group
of manors or lands he or she held. "The word was first used indicating
an estate which gave its holder dignity and status." For a person to
say "on my honour" was not just an affirmation of their integrity and
rank, but the veracity behind that phrase meant he or she was willing
to offer up estates as pledge and guarantee.
The concept of honour appears to have declined in importance in the
modern West; conscience has replaced it in the individual context, and
the rule of law (with the rights and duties defined therein) has taken
over in a social context. Popular stereotypes would have it surviving
more definitively in more tradition-bound cultures (e.g. Pashtun,
Southern Italian, Polish, Persian, Turkish, Arab, Iberian, "Old South"
or Dixie) in a perception akin to Orientalism. Pre-modern societies
may tend to "honour" more than do contemporary industrial societies.
Saint Anselm of Canterbury () in 'Cur Deus Homo' extended the concept
of honour from his own feudal society to postulate God's honour.
An emphasis on the importance of honour exists in such traditional
institutions as the military (serving officers may conduct a court of
honour) and in organisations with a military ethos, such as Scouting
organisations (which also feature "Courts of Honour").
Honour in the case of sexuality frequently relates, historically, to
fidelity: preservation of "honour" equates primarily to maintenance of
the virginity of singles and to the exclusive monogamy of the
remainder of the population. Further conceptions of this type of
honour vary widely between cultures; some cultures regard honour
killings of (mostly female) members of one's own family as justified
if the individuals have "defiled the family's honour" by marrying
against the family's wishes, usually for reasons such as refusing to
enter an arranged marriage, having sex outside marriage, dressing in
ways which are deemed inappropriate, or engaging in homosexual
relations or even by becoming the victims of rape. Human rights
observers generally see these honour killings as a way of men using
the culture of honour to control female sexuality. In India in the
2010s, there were honour killings of men from lower castes.
Skinners, executioners, grave-diggers, shepherds, barber-surgeons,
millers, linen-weavers, sow-gelders, latrine-cleaners, bailiffs and
their families were among the "dishonourable people" ('unehrliche
Leute') in early modern German society.
Cultural difference from law
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Various sociologists and anthropologists have contrasted cultures of
honour with cultures of law. A culture of law has a body of laws which
all members of society must obey, with punishments for transgressors.
This requires a society with the structures required to enact and
enforce laws. A culture of law incorporates a social contract: members
of society give up some aspects of their freedom to defend themselves
and to retaliate for injuries, on the understanding that society will
apprehend and punish transgressors.
An alternative to government enforcement of laws is community or
individual enforcement of social norms.
One way that honour functions is through reputation. In a system where
there is no court that will authorise the use of force to guarantee
the execution of contracts, an honourable reputation is very valuable
to promote trust among transaction partners. To dishonour an agreement
could be economically ruinous, because future potential transaction
partners might stop trusting the party not to lie, steal their money
or goods, not repay debts, mistreat the children they marry off, have
children with other people, abandon their children, or fail to provide
aid when needed. A dishonourable person might be shunned by the
community as a way to punish bad behaviour and create an incentive for
others to maintain their honour.
If one's honour is questioned, it can thus be important to disprove
any false accusations or slander. In some cultures, the practice of
dueling arose as a means to settle such disputes firmly, though by
physical dominance in force or skill rather than by objective
consideration of evidence and facts.
Honour can also imply duty to perform certain actions, such as
providing for and disciplining one's children, serving in the military
during war, contributing to local collective projects like building
infrastructure, or exacting revenge in retaliation for acts one is
directly harmed by.
Family honour
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The concept of personal honour can be extended to family honour, which
strengthens the incentives to follow social norms in two ways. First,
the consequences of dishonourable actions (such as suicide or
attempted robbery that results in death) outlive the perpetrator, and
negatively affect family members they presumably care about. Second,
when one member of the family misbehaves, other members of the family
are in the position to and are incentivised to strongly enforce the
community norms.
In strong honour cultures, those who do not conform may be forced or
pressured into conformance and transgressors punished physically or
psychologically. The use of violence may be collective in its
character, where many relatives act together. An extreme form of
punishment is honour killing. Dueling and vengeance at a family level
can result in a sustained feud.
Honour-based cultures are also known as honour-shame cultures and are
contrasted with guilt cultures on the guilt-shame-fear spectrum of
cultures.
Cultures of honour are often conservative, encoding pre-modern
traditional family values and duties. In some cases these values clash
with those of post-sexual revolution and egalitarian societies.
Cultures of law sometimes consider practices in honour cultures to be
unethical or a violation of the legal concept of human rights; for
example, they may outlaw vigilante or individual justice-taking.
Examples
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Thinkers ranging from Plato to Montesquieu have remarked upon the
mindset needed for a culture of honour.
Historians have examined the culture of honour in the American South.
Social scientists have looked at specialised subcultures such as South
Asian Muslims in Britain. Others have compared multiple modern
nations.
From the viewpoint of anthropologists, cultures of honour typically
appear among nomadic peoples and among herdsmen who carry their most
valuable property with them and risk having it stolen, without having
recourse to law enforcement or to government. Due to the lack of
strong institutions, cultivating a reputation for swift and
disproportionate revenge increases the safety of one's person and
property against aggressive actors.
According to Richard Nisbett, cultures of honour will often arise when
three conditions exist:
# a scarcity of resources
# situations in which the benefit of theft and crime outweighs the
risks
# a lack of sufficient law-enforcement (such as in geographically
remote regions)
Historically, cultures of honour exist where the herding of animals
dominates an economy. In this situation, the geography is usually
extensive, since the soil cannot support intensive sustained farming
and thus large populations; the benefit of stealing animals from other
herds is high, since animals are the main form of wealth; and there is
no central law-enforcement or rule of law. However, cultures of honour
can also appear in places like modern inner-city slums. The three
conditions exist here as well: lack of resources (poverty); crime and
theft have high rewards, compared to the very limited alternatives;
and law enforcement is generally lax or corrupt.
Once a culture of honour exists in a society, its members find it
difficult to make the transition to a culture of law, which requires
that people become willing to back down and refuse to immediately
retaliate. From the viewpoint of the culture of honour, the perceived
humiliation of such an action makes personal restraint extremely
difficult, as it reflects weakness and appeasement.
One paper suggests that present-day Canadian hockey players born in
communities that historically lay outside the reach of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police (Mounties) seem to inherit a violent code of
honour that drives their sporting behaviour.
War of 1812
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Historian Norman Risjord emphasised the importance of honour as a
cause of the War of 1812, which the United States launched against
Britain despite Britain's much more powerful naval and military
strength. Americans of every political stripe saw the need to uphold
national honour, and to reject the treatment of the United States by
Britain as a third class nonentity. Americans talked incessantly about
the need for force in response. This quest for honour was a major
cause of the war in the sense that most Americans who were not
involved in mercantile interests or threatened by Native American
attack strongly endorsed the preservation of national honour. The
humiliating attack by HMS 'Leopard' against USS 'Chesapeake' in June
1807 was a decisive event. Historians documented the importance of
honour in shaping public opinion in a number of states, including
Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, as well as the
territory of Michigan. Americans widely celebrated the conclusion of
the war as successful, especially after the spectacular defeat of the
main British invasion army at New Orleans restored the American sense
of honour.
:National honor, the reputation of republican government, and the
continuing supremacy of the Republican party had seemed to be at
stake... National honor had [now] been satisfied, says historian Lance
Banning, "Americans celebrated the end of the struggle with a
brilliant burst of national pride."
The British showed respect for American honour. "Some of the strongest
praise for America and swiftest recognition of what the young republic
had achieved for American honor, prestige, and power came from within
British naval circles." Britain refrained from interfering with
American maritime interests and ceased with the impressment of
American citizens following the war.
Predisposition in the United States of America
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A 2016 study suggests that honour culture increases the risk of war.
The study found that international conflicts under U.S. presidents who
were raised in the South of the country "are shown to be twice as
likely to involve uses of force, last on average twice as long, and
are three times more likely to end in victory for the United States
than disputes under non-Southern presidents. Other characteristics of
Southern presidencies do not seem able to account for this pattern of
results."
See also
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* Kanun - Albanian traditional customary law, with honour as one of
its pillars
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References
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Notes
Bibliography
*Bowman, James. 'Honor: A History'. Encounter Books, 2006. . Cf.
excerpts from writings of [
http://www.jamesbowman.net/honor.asp James
Bowman on Honor] .
* Cossen, William S. "Blood, honor, reform, and God: anti-dueling
associations and moral reform in the Old South." 'American Nineteenth
Century History' 19.1 (2018): 23-45.
*d'Iribarne, Philippe. 'The Logic of Honor: National Traditions and
Corporate Management'. Welcome Rain Publishers, 2003. .
*Hauser, Marc. 'Moral Minds: How nature designed our universal sense
of right and wrong'. New York: Ecco Press, 2006. .
*Hein, David. "America's Honor: Lost and Regained." 'Modern Age' 63,
no. 4 (Fall 2021): 17-25.
*Hein, David. "Rethinking Honor". 'Journal of Thought' 17.1 (Spring
1982): 3-6.
*Hein, David.
"[
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/03/learning-responsibility-and-honor/
Learning Responsibility and Honor]". 'Washington Times', 3 July 2008.
* Hein, David.
"[
https://www.scribd.com/doc/158913482/Christianity-and-Honor
Christianity and Honor]." 'The Living Church', 18 August 2013, pp.
8-10.
*Montesquieu. 'The Spirit of the Laws'. 2
vols.[
https://books.google.com/books?id=bXkFAAAAQAAJ Online]
*Nisbett, Richard E., and Dov Cohen. 'Culture of Honor: The Psychology
of Violence in the South'. Westview, 1996. .
*Pinker, Steven. 'The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature'.
New York: Penguin Putnam, 2002. .
* Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. 'Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the
Old South' (1982), Antebellum United States
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