View Full Version : Honour
What is honour?
Is it an outdated concept?
If so, has something else taken its place?
If not, what (if anything) will happen to the world, with its power clusters and run-away technoligy?
Just ideas in my head I'd appreciate other's take on.
thir
IAN 2411
01-10-2011, 02:38 PM
Honour is exactly what it says; you honour your Wife/Mistress/Master/Queen and country by serving them. There is nothing that can take its place, and all other things are immaterial, as it is the highest accolade that you can give at any one time to whoever you choose.
Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}
When I was a student, I and my friends had a half-serious biker gang. Half serious, because on the one hand we knew that most real bikers were just thugs, but on the other hand we loved the mythology of two-wheel knights living by their own codes. So we made ourselves colours - cutoff jackets with the name embroidered in gothic letters on a banner with a colourful logo - but since we were students, they were full of what would now be called post-modernist irony, like "E=MC2" instead of the initials "MC" for Motorcycle Club.
And it was all fun and games until the day at the Windsor Free Festival when I was cruising through the campsite looking for the rest of the club, and looking everywhere except where I was going, until I realised that I was in the middle of a camp full of big mean motorbikes and big mean men. They assured me that they quite understood that I hadn't intended any disrespect by driving into their camp wearing another club's colours, and since they were feeling pretty mellow that day they didn't mind letting me leave alive, but as a matter of principle, the offending jacket had to stay.
In the words of Oscar Gordon, there comes a time in a man's life when he has to take a stand or he can't face himself in the mirror when he shaves: but I had already shaved. So I handed over my colours, and turned my bike around and put several hundred yards between me and the Hell's Angels, and stopped to shake.
And I felt about six inches tall and made of dung. Logically, it was just a jacket, I could make another, it certainly hadn't been worth getting my head and my bike kicked in for. Cynically, while the legend says that a biker defends his colours to the death, I bet plenty of those guys would do the same if they were outnumbered and cornered. But what I remembered was the Roman saying "Eagle lost, honour lost: honour lost, all lost."
Honour? Self-respect? Pride? Balls? Not sure what to call it: but I lost something that day that took a long time to rebuild.
Honour is exactly what it says; you honour your Wife/Mistress/Master/Queen and country by serving them. There is nothing that can take its place, and all other things are immaterial, as it is the highest accolade that you can give at any one time to whoever you choose.
Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}
The word in itself does not say anything, it is what we put onto it that matters and that is what is interesting me - what various people think of this concept.
Seems that you say that honour is serving that which you respect. It sounds something like keeping a code - but whose?
Is 'honour' a sort of 'public' code (as in determined by a group of people) and integrity a personal code? Which is the most important, if they are in conflict?
Honour? Self-respect? Pride? Balls? Not sure what to call it: but I lost something that day that took a long time to rebuild.
I spent a lot of time thinking over this one, and haven't finished by any way.
But thoughts so far are these:
Are you bound by the codes of other people?
Isn't is important to consider that value of other people's codes of honour before you make them yours?
Isn't it honourable to fight them, if they seem wrong?
Shouldn't codes of honour have a reason? Some idea of right or wrong? Or are they just identity markers and identity creators?
Where do 'ethics' come into it?
What is honour?
That's a question I myself have asked on several occasions and in several places, but have never gotten a satisfactory answer. Apparently the concept of honor is fuzzy at best. Everybody seems to fill the term with different meaning. The meaning also varies wildly over time and from culture to culture. For example, the German, English and Italian entries on Wikipedia differ rather much in their definitions of Ehre, Honour and Onore respectively.
What they all have in common, though, is that honour is bestowed upon a person by their peers for their actions. In that regard it is very much like respect as it can't be demanded, only earned.
However, to serve your family, your country, your queen or whatever you chose to serve is not the same as honor. To serve merely has often been regarded as one way for a man to get that honor. Of course, it is also a very good method to motivate underpaid fellas to fight and risk their life for something they don't understand or wouldn't care about otherwise.
Or, although less common these days and in the western world as was the case, it is bestowed upon a person because of the social group they are born in/have achieved to enter.
And lastly, one other thing honor has had in common in most of the world (and still has in way too many places): A woman's chastity was/is her only source of honor and that honor has to be defended or restored if it has been smudged.
Thinking of honor killings of young women that still occur to this day, even in countries like Germany (among Turkish immigrants) I think the best thing we can do with this kind of 'honor' is to fuck it. Literally.
Is it an outdated concept?
Yup. I think both the term and the concept is of no value anymore today, simply because nowadays there is no widely agreed upon concept behind it. If hundred people out of hundred think of something different when they hear 'honor' it just isn't a helpful guideline anymore.
If so, has something else taken its place?
No, and that is good, because the world wasn't a better place when honor still was held in high regard and led to useless shedding of blood. And the world wasn't a better place when women were shamed and blamed (and stoned to death) because they weren't still virgins when they entered marriage. So, good riddance to honor.
If not, what (if anything) will happen to the world, with its power clusters and run-away technoligy?
Whatever happens, the disappearance of honor has nothing to do with it. The lack of respect for each other might have.
All that being said I'm quite glad that my honor has literally and completely been fucked to smithereens at the age of sixteen. I'm even much more glad that I live in a society where that wasn't a disgrace.
That's a question I myself have asked on several occasions and in several places, but have never gotten a satisfactory answer. Apparently the concept of honor is fuzzy at best.
It is darn difficult! Much more than I thought.
Everybody seems to fill the term with different meaning. The meaning also varies wildly over time and from culture to culture. For example, the German, English and Italian entries on Wikipedia differ rather much in their definitions of Ehre, Honour and Onore respectively.
This is very true - and very weird?? It only shows that there really isn't a definition of evil or goodness that everybody can agree on.
What they all have in common, though, is that honour is bestowed upon a person by their peers for their actions. In that regard it is very much like respect as it can't be demanded, only earned.
Aha..earned and given by others? Not, for instance, by keeping a code?
However, to serve your family, your country, your queen or whatever you chose to serve is not the same as honor. To serve merely has often been regarded as one way for a man to get that honor. Of course, it is also a very good method to motivate underpaid fellas to fight and risk their life for something they don't understand or wouldn't care about otherwise.
It seems rather that they earn dishonour if they do not go by the rules of others!
I think that is something to be on the guard for, as it is rank manipulation.
And lastly, one other thing honor has had in common in most of the world (and still has in way too many places): A woman's chastity was/is her only source of honor and that honor has to be defended or restored if it has been smudged.
Thinking of honor killings of young women that still occur to this day, even in countries like Germany (among Turkish immigrants) I think the best thing we can do with this kind of 'honor' is to fuck it. Literally.
Gods, YES!
Yup. I think both the term and the concept is of no value anymore today, simply because nowadays there is no widely agreed upon concept behind it. If hundred people out of hundred think of something different when they hear 'honor' it just isn't a helpful guideline anymore.
How about ethics? Decency? Morals?
No, and that is good, because the world wasn't a better place when honor still was held in high regard and led to useless shedding of blood. And the world wasn't a better place when women were shamed and blamed (and stoned to death) because they weren't still virgins when they entered marriage. So, good riddance to honor.
In those forms, oh yes!
I am thinking, though, of stuff like having honour in business, towards other people, animals, the helpless, the planet? Some sort of responsibility?
Whatever happens, the disappearance of honor has nothing to do with it. The lack of respect for each other might have.
All that being said I'm quite glad that my honor has literally and completely been fucked to smithereens at the age of sixteen. I'm even much more glad that I live in a society where that wasn't a disgrace.[/QUOTE]