Philosophical Questions: Honor

[ysabetwordsmith]

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

What does honor mean to you? How important is it to you? Does your culture value honor? What exemplifies honor in your culture?


"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.... The friction tends to arise when the two are not the same....There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

"Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And
outlive the bastards."
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

Comments

[gs_silva]

Great topic! I've experienced honor in multiple Asian cultures as well as Western, and the result is that I'll respect each sense of honor as well as I can understand it, but when I'm expected to hold to those individual standards, that's when the trouble begins. I also have deep-seated issues with authority, and you can't change that with either threats or kindness. In Vietnam, I learned the fine art of backing off without apologizing, and if I'm really pushed too far, I disappear quietly. But I feel like honor involves lots of second chances, in contrast to some other people who believe that honor allows none at all.

[dame_grise]

I'm going to be a cheeky Bujold nerd and hope I don't end up with egg on my face. The first quote is specifically Aral, and the second is Cordelia.

As to my personal take on honor. My culture is bog-standard American, but I take what I think honor is very seriously. I consider vows to be very important. I try my hardest to keep my word. It's very simplistic, but too complicated would be too hard to track.

[arlie]

The upper tiers of my culture appear to place zero value on honor, regardless of definition. Unless of course their idea of "honor" is synonymous with "successful greed" or similar. There are some mavericks left, and plenty of others who pretend to some kind of honor for instrumental purposes.

I suspect the Religious Reich and their foot soldiers probably have some idea of honor. They often show a lot of virtue in their interactions with fellow Christians (TM) and perhaps prospective converts. Their ideas probably overlap with mine, but only partially.

I have ideas of honor, but cannot consider myself honorable. I've compromised far too much with the society I live in, not to mention my own ambition/search for security. I have mostly kept my hands clean of the worst excesses, but that's generally because I could do so without sticking my own neck out.

But I am, alas, perfectly willing to publicly worship Mammon - or Christ - if that's required for my safety and comfort. I don't like it, and if I have to give active lip service, rather than merely show up for Sunday boredom, I tend to develop stress related illnesses. (Note: metaphor as well as example; my most recent bout of stress related illness involved the deity known as Apple, or perhaps Tim Cook, my employer at the time.)

FWIW, my personal ideas of honor are centered on honesty, which includes keeping one's word. I'm aware of other components, and I'd agree that they matter - but then promptly forget about them. Defending the weak and similar counts as honorable in my book, but I tend to forget about it. Victimizing anyone, but particularly the weak, counts as dishonorable, but that's not where I'm falling down, except to the extent that I knowingly benefit from systematic injustice.