NationStates

Does honor still exist in the modern world? If it does, in what form does it exist? Is honor a good thing or a bad thing? What is honor? Discuss etc etc.

Honor I've heard used in several different ways. I suppose I've a taste for honor when the word represents loyalty to personal ideas, but without any of the baggage of traditional honor's (Vaguely defined, because the concept of honor is of course ever-changing) adherence to internal rules.

I don't think traditional senses of honor will last - ideas of truthfulness, loyalty, righteous vengeance, etc.

What say you? Is honor living on borrowed time? Or is it a fixture of humanity, here to stay? And so on.

I'm afraid not.

Nowadays, its all about money and votes.

A few RARE individuals have honor (integrity, sticking to a moral code, knowing what is right and wrong, putting the interests of society first and keeping your word)... most don't.

Certainly those in power have dispensed with the notion that honor means anything anymore; they just pay it lip service rhetoric.

I think few of us will ever criticize ourselves for breach of honour, largely because honour, where distinct from morality, is to be regarded as a personal, subjective concept.

For example, to many people an insult was insufferable and a duel would be the way to defend one's honour; for others, taking this insult and containing one's indignity would be honourable.

To me, honour is entirely personal; it's quite different from face in the Chinese sense. There is a proverb, "suffering what common people find insufferable makes one an uncommon (meaning: superior) being", from where I come from; I find this to be my philosophy.

To substantiate my argument, the definition of honour, from the Latin word honos, has already evolved even within the western world so much that it will be unrecognizable to the Romans, who stood by their honos. Geographically, honour varies even more; Confucius' idea of honour is certainly not shared by King Arthur, and nor is his shared by Rockefeller; these discrepancies do not diminish the honour of any of the three aforementioned.

Infected Mushroom wrote:I'm afraid not.

Nowadays, its all about money and votes.

A few RARE individuals have honor (integrity, sticking to a moral code, knowing what is right and wrong, putting the interests of society first and keeping your word)... most don't.

Certainly those in power have dispensed with the notion that honor means anything anymore; they just pay it lip service rhetoric.

Does honor require all of those attributes, or just some?

Infected Mushroom wrote:I'm afraid not.

Nowadays, its all about money and votes.

A few RARE individuals have honor (integrity, sticking to a moral code, knowing what is right and wrong, putting the interests of society first and keeping your word)... most don't.

Certainly those in power have dispensed with the notion that honor means anything anymore; they just pay it lip service rhetoric.

^
My answer

Conserative Morality wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:I'm afraid not.

Nowadays, its all about money and votes.

A few RARE individuals have honor (integrity, sticking to a moral code, knowing what is right and wrong, putting the interests of society first and keeping your word)... most don't.

Certainly those in power have dispensed with the notion that honor means anything anymore; they just pay it lip service rhetoric.

Does honor require all of those attributes, or just some?

i suppose it could fall on a spectrum depending on how many of these you meet but I'd say you need most of them...

I'd say that overall, people are becoming less honest and less trusting.

Anglo-California wrote:I'd say that overall, people are becoming less honest and less trusting.

Most excellent. Of all of honor's commonly assigned attributes, honesty bugs me the most.

Every generation seems to have a habit of believing that it's predecessors were paragons of virtue. In the modern world one might feel that honor has been displaced, but I find that this is largely a result of mass media coverage of all of the negative aspects of our time.

Valkalan wrote:Every generation seems to have a habit of believing that it's predecessors were paragons of virtue. In the modern world one might feel that honor has been displaced, but I find that this is largely a result of mass media coverage of all of the negative aspects of our time.

I rather think that the past was rather terrible and honor often a tool of oppression. Wouldn't this view suggest that a decrease in honor would be positive?

Conserative Morality wrote:

Anglo-California wrote:I'd say that overall, people are becoming less honest and less trusting.

Most excellent. Of all of honor's commonly assigned attributes, honesty bugs me the most.

You don't like honesty?


wtf

Honor is different now than it was then. Nothing can be orderly forever and thus must change with the time; refusing to acknowledge that is the reason why many fell to obscurity.

Anglo-California wrote:You don't like honesty?


wtf

Most people aren't all that honest to begin with (For example, take the great many polite, empty answers given to questions asked also dishonestly), but I find that learning to lie is a valuable skill. Falsehood, like truth, is only a tool.

Conserative Morality wrote:

Valkalan wrote:Every generation seems to have a habit of believing that it's predecessors were paragons of virtue. In the modern world one might feel that honor has been displaced, but I find that this is largely a result of mass media coverage of all of the negative aspects of our time.

I rather think that the past was rather terrible and honor often a tool of oppression. Wouldn't this view suggest that a decrease in honor would be positive?

That depends upon your definition of honor. If you mean some archaic standard by which individuals are bound to obey the whims of prevailing cultural norms, then we can certainly conclude that a decline in honor is a benefit.

Valkalan wrote:

Conserative Morality wrote:I rather think that the past was rather terrible and honor often a tool of oppression. Wouldn't this view suggest that a decrease in honor would be positive?

That depends upon your definition of honor. If you mean some archaic standard by which individuals are bound to obey the whims of prevailing cultural norms, then we can certainly conclude that a decline in honor is a benefit.

i'm thinking of honor in the sense of standing up for truth, justice, and righteousness regardless of the costs.

When I hear ''honor'' I think Eddard Stark...

Honor is definitely something I cherish. Its what defines me as a man in my opinion and without it you're nothing in this world. If you have no honor who could trust you or befriend you?

Infected Mushroom wrote:i'm thinking of honor in the sense of standing up for truth, justice, and righteousness regardless of the costs.

When I hear ''honor'' I think Eddard Stark...

An idiot who died and plunged a nation into a brutal and bloody civil war for the sake of himself?

Not encouraging.

Truth is without inherent moral value. Justice is not always practical. Righteousness is the shield of every fanatic.

-The West Coast- wrote:Honor is definitely something I cherish. Its what defines me as a man in my opinion and without it you're nothing in this world. If you have no honor who could trust you or befriend you?

Fellow dishonorable dogs come to mind.

Conserative Morality wrote:

-The West Coast- wrote:Honor is definitely something I cherish. Its what defines me as a man in my opinion and without it you're nothing in this world. If you have no honor who could trust you or befriend you?

Fellow dishonorable dogs come to mind.

I don't understand.

I think as we have gained a better understanding about how others think through psychology and sociology and mass media in general, Honourable people who might once have assumed that honourable is the default nature of people because they themselves are honorable no longer succumb to confirmation bias. We ask for more proof of things generally as a society than we did in times gone by the scientific method has sunk into our society to such a degree that many people abide by some of it's principles at an unconscious level, so no one assumes honour any more. They ask for proof of a persons good character because so many people of bad character are brought to their attention every day.

Now me personally, I don't think there's any reason to make the distinction between good person and honourable one. Which points to another reason why honour is out of fashion.

Conserative Morality wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:i'm thinking of honor in the sense of standing up for truth, justice, and righteousness regardless of the costs.

When I hear ''honor'' I think Eddard Stark...

An idiot who died and plunged a nation into a brutal and bloody civil war for the sake of himself?

Not encouraging.

Truth is without inherent moral value. Justice is not always practical. Righteousness is the shield of every fanatic.

he could have succeeded if one man did not betray him...

what mattered was that he did what was right, he had the back bone.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said of many modern individuals.

-The West Coast- wrote:I don't understand.

People without honor can easily befriend other people without honor.

Infected Mushroom wrote:he could have succeeded if one man did not betray him...

If one man didn't betray him, yes.

Or, you know, any of the dozens of people he told betrayed him. Hell, if any of the dozens of people he told had an honorable obligation to oppose him, he still would've ended up on the chopping block.

His honor was pointless.

what mattered was that he did what was right, he had the back bone.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said of many modern individuals.

What matters is that he showed himself to be rigid and inflexible in the face of necessity, and was willing to see any amount of blood spilled (Save his own family's) to preserve his right to be inflexible.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Valkalan wrote:That depends upon your definition of honor. If you mean some archaic standard by which individuals are bound to obey the whims of prevailing cultural norms, then we can certainly conclude that a decline in honor is a benefit.

i'm thinking of honor in the sense of standing up for truth, justice, and righteousness regardless of the costs.

When I hear ''honor'' I think Eddard Stark...

Truth is absolute, but justice and righteousness are relative. I wouldn't want to stand up for your idea of honor, especially without regard to costs, if I do not agree with it.

Honour is as dead as moral obligation.

Or will be soon.