Honour

[lucy]

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Is it an outdated concept?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.