Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Society was never based on honor; it was always about worshiping those who succeeded, regardless of how bad they had been, as long as they did some good at some point. see, e.g. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon & Gates in recent times, and basically all fondly remembered kings and barons in earlier times.
Society adapts, in part, by giving socially acceptable deeds a normative description and concept. The socially acceptable statements lag the deeds, not lead them.
> People see Wall Street crash-creators testifying at Congress answering "I do not recall" to 100% of the questions. Instead of dishonoring those liars
"These liars" applies equally well to congress as to those wall street execs (with whom the former are figuratively, "in bed", and have been for the last century or so)
Really, the only thing that has changed is ease of access to information. Human greed, actions and norms as reflected by social response, by and large, haven't.
Rockefeller and Carnegie were liars, sure, but they had to keep it quiet, they had to buy up newspapers and physically intimate people so their lies would not be exposed, or they would lose face.
Our entire legal system is based on the concept of honor. It's a real thing that existed and people took it seriously. Of course people still lied and some people worshipped the powerful, but at least back then people hid their skeletons in the closet. Now people just blatantly lie, openly engage in what would be called bribery at any other point in history, blatantly and proudly sell out the public good for personal profit, engage in the grossest type of war-profiteering, etc.
Remember how war profiteering used to be a bad thing? Now it's a fucking virtue. Halliburton is a war-profiteering company! War-profiteers used to be hanged for treason!
There was a time in America where if you committed fraud, no matter how "technically legal", you would be lynched. Until dead. And juries would acquit your murderer.
Your second sentence sounds like it's suggesting that Rockefeller and Carnegie knew what honor meant & that this is somehow a good thing. They probably had a concept of their image & perhaps even moral crisis later in life which made them turn philanthropic. Just because one has a concept of honor doesn't really do society any good because it doesn't mean they're actually honorable people. Keeping up the image of honor isn't the same thing as being honorable. It seems almost as though you're excusing them because they had to work hard to keep the image of being honorable going.
One would also think that if everyone acted "honorably" we wouldn't need a legal system in the first place, because no one would ever be dishonest or do dishonorable things. There are legal systems in the world which are far from honorable & are basically an invisible hand of the politicians or theocracy which rules the land.
Not all war-profiteers have been hung for treason. Heck the US even cooperated with Nazis after World War II[1] or how about the persecution of Alan Turing? Good ol' days indeed.
I am not sure if I would say that lynching someone over fraud is the honorable thing to do.
I get your anger, but the annals of history are filled with "dishonorable actions", this isn't apologizing for those who have done misdeeds, it's just stating facts. Painting a rosy picture of the "good ol' days" does no one any favors.
- Woodrow T. Wilson
Aristocrats had to preserve their honor or face reprisals: They could be ostracized, humiliated, publicly shamed, lynched, challenged to a duel, convicted of crimes they did not commit, have their property taken by force and then have the police look the other way, etc.
Whether you like codes of honor is a separate question from whether it existed.
Codes of honor are all about vigilante justice and public humiliation.
Well, given that we're allowing the statement, "society was never based on honor," to stand, we can assume that we're restricting ourselves to Western or simply American values, since the Japanese provide an obvious counter-example. There aren't many Americans who have ever been into honor killings of family members.
Citation needed.
Or more to the point - when exactly do you think think period was?
For example, in 1804 the sitting vice president (Burr) was accused (probably correctly) of corrupt dealings. He challenged his accuser to an (illegal) pistol duel and killed him[1]. Burr was charged with murder, but the charges were dropped and Burr continued his political career "out west". This was hardly an isolated incident - US history is full of similar examples - not exactly the honourable behaviour you seem to believe was the norm.
Now, I realize you were responding to the statement about lynching, but it's worth noting that challenging someone to a duel is what you do when your honor has been questioned. In fact, the Wikipedia page on "Honour" includes an illustration of the Burr-Hamilton duel, with the caption, "Alexander Hamilton defends his honour by accepting Aaron Burr's challenge." It also describes honour as deriving from "perceived virtuous conduct and personal integrity."
It would seem that honour really was a more important thing two hundred years ago than it is today.
[1] http://www.google.ca/search?q=Cheney+corrupt+dealings&hl...
Maybe honor did used to be more important, but it's not the same concept, only the same word.
The point is not that people were more virtuous in the past. It's that virtue, or at least the perception of virtue, was considered important in the past, much more so than today.
What's interesting about the duel isn't that Burr killed Hamilton, it's that he took the risk of getting killed himself. The duel could easily have turned out the other way. Who would risk his life to protect his reputation today? Certainly not Dick Cheney.
The point is that even under primitive social codes like the honour system, public officials faced more accountability than they do now.
There is no accountability left whatsoever in ANY social leaders: not business leaders, not industry leaders, not political leaders, not military leaders, not scientific leaders, not legal leaders.
ZERO personal accountability. They can be as corrupt as they want, they can fuck it up as bad as they like, but there are absolutely no consequences to them.
This is what has changed. At least in the 1800s you could be challenged to a duel when you engaged in corruption. At least in the 1800s robber barons had to protect themselves from vigilante justice.
Person B murders his accuser and goes on with life.
How exactly is B more accountability? As far as I know, Dick Cheney hasn't murdered any of his accusers.
How many people in America right now would be willing to have a duel with Cheney? Hundreds if not thousands. That says something meaningful about his role.
If you stopped putting words in my mouth, we might actually have a two sided discussion. I did not say "everyone is a liar" or anything that could remotely be interpreted to mean the same.
> Our entire legal system is based on the concept of honor.
What country is that? Is that the US system that a hundred years ago decided that corporations are people? Can you demonstrate what you mean by "based on the concept of honor".
> but at least back then people hid their skeletons in the closet.
People still try, by and large. They stay there for shorter, due to easier dissemination of information, but that doesn't change dynamics much.
> Now people just blatantly lie, openly engage in what would be called bribery at any other point in history, blatantly and proudly sell out the public good for personal profit, engage in the grossest type of war-profiteering, etc.
They always did, but these things were not as easy to track, as they are now. Can you point to a resource like opensecrets.org-like resource in 1900?
> Remember how war profiteering used to be a bad thing?
No. Do you? I mean, I think it's a bad thing, but I am not aware of any point in the US history where it was socially unacceptable. On the contrary - thanks to the "right to bear arms", weapons manufacturers were always "men of honor", and no one is more of a war profiteer than these guys.
> War-profiteers used to be hanged for treason!
Are we living on the same planet? Earth, 3rd rock from the sun? They would only be hanged by other war profiteers when falling out of favor with the politicians, who were often war profiteers themselves. And they still are, for a modern definition of "hanged". E.g. Rupert Morduch has recently been thrown under the bus after going a bit too far. And it wouldn't have been different at any other time in history.
> There was a time in America where if you committed fraud, no matter how "technically legal", you would be lynched. Until dead. And juries would acquit your murderer.
Do you have examples? Charles Ponzi, for example, was still admired when he went to jail, and wasn't lynched.
On the other hand, in the south they would acquit you for real undisputed murder, as long as the killer was white and the victim was black -- to the point that nowadays mentioning "jury nullification" in court would get you thrown in jail for contempt of court, because of how it was misused 100 years ago.
I'm not sure that how mobs treated people 100 years ago is how what you want to look up to.
forensic, you are incredibly naive, I think. You have an ideal of history, and you somehow assume it is an indisputable, to the point of being enraged that people disagree. Calm down, look around. The world is not dogmatic, and never was.
2. No social system is perfect and the honor system of course was not either. However, if an American aristocrat in, say, 1830, was openly and publicly caught in a lie that was obviously selling out the nation, he would likely be convicted of something, or he would be publicly shamed, or he would receive vigilante reprisals.
It wasn't a perfect system - honor systems by definition are not - but the reprisals demonstrate that there was a code of honor that went beyond the law. Honor by definition is a code of conduct with social reprisals that goes beyond the law.
American social conduct was heavily policed by codes of honor. Maybe you think codes are stupid but nevertheless they had a tremendous influence on social behavior, as they do in any society where a code is implemented.
Not everyone follows the code of honor, but those who blatently break the code are usually dishonored, shamed, ostracized, and face physical and finanical vigilante justice. The existence of this "street justice" worked as a deterrent so that the Dick Cheneys and Lloyd Blankfeins of the time had to work really hard to keep their skeletons in their closet.
Trial by jury is only one step removed from mob justice. Individuals should be tried by the court of public opinion and punished by that court. If public opinion widely sees Blankfein as a treasonous fraudster, it is right that he be lynched. And if the courts are too corrupt to charge him then the duty falls to the general public.
It's not naive to recognize that brutal and swift vigilante street justice keeps outrageous criminal activity in check. You want to paint me as some kind of utopian but I'm actually saying society needs more bloodshed, more violence, more vigilantism, more lynching, more mob rule. Mob rule and the judgment of the mob is the basis of democracy. Legal technicalities are not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour
"Even personal shame and humiliation was preferable to a tarnished honor or the hint of corruption. When Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton was accused of corruption for making secret payments to a man named James Reynolds, Hamilton revealed he had been set up and was paying blackmail to Reynolds following an affair with Mrs. Reynolds. Duels over honor were common in the era--Hamilton was killed in one, as was Hamilton's son."
- http://conservapedia.com/Founding_Fathers
“Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong”
- Thomas Jefferson
"Some men who are not real men love other things about themselves, but the real man believes that his honor is dearer than his life; and a nation is merely all of us put together, and the nation's honor is dearer than the nation's comfort and the nation's peace and the nation's life itself."
- Woodrow Wilson
“No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.”
- Calvin Coolidge
"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope."
- Winston Churchill
"There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. "
- Plato
"Who sows virtue reaps honor."
- Leonardo da Vinci
"I love the name of honor, more than I fear death. "
- Julius Caesar
"Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time."
- George W. Bush
"The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught. "
- H. L. Mencken
"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor."
- Aristotle
"Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life."
- William Shakespeare
But I find it hard to take you seriously. Quotes from political speeches, from the likes of George Bush and the conservapedia? Are those supposed to be reliable?
If these are the sources you base your view on then we really do live in different planets.
If you trust quotes - Bush said "No new taxes" (and there were), Obama said he'll close guantanamo as soon as he goes into office -- he even signed such an order in his first month -- but guantanamo is still operating.
Quotes are PR. Actions speak louder than words. And the actions had always been to worship the successful, as in the examples I gave, the Cheney example you gave, and the Burr/Hamilton I wasn't even aware of.
You seem to have your pet way of interpreting history. I'm not arguing that honor and other values were some kind of omnipotent force for good I'm just saying they existed.
When you assume that I'm a complete idiot you're failing to "assume good faith" which is one of the conduct requirements to maintain your honor. In a court of law, a lawyer who fails to assume good faith is dishonored and his arguments are automatically invalid. Honor is still used in our justice system.
When was the last time you observed real court proceedings and saw a laywer dishonored? Many of them act in bad faith every day.
You ignore historical examples dismissing them with excuses, your references are (essentially) PR speeches and the conservapedia (this thread http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?121000-Conser...! might enlighten other readers, but it is irrelevant to reality in your own planet).
If courts worked as you believe, the SCO/Novell fiasco would not have dragged for the years it has (it's still not dead!).
Yes, honor exists. But you have failed to demonstrate that the course of american society was significantly influenced by the concept of honor.
"the optimists don't make it out of vietnam" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale
It's pacisfists who are the optimists. Pacifists who say we should just let Cheney and Blankfein off the hook. I say we should tar and feather them, precisely because I understand that if we don't, things will get worse. This is not an optimistic viewpoint.
- Woodrow T. Wilson
Unfortunately the internet is an intellectual ghetto and so there are no good links that describe honour. But cmon you ignorant computer scientists, read a fucking history book. Honor was the most important code of conduct for American aristocrats and lasted until the mid-20th century. If they were publicly dishonoured they could lose everything they cared about.
This is why people fought duels to defend their honour. People were willing to die to maintain their honour.
http://artofmanliness.com/2010/03/05/man-knowledge-an-affair...
I don't think we lost honor, I don't think we had it, but I do think we have lost nearly all sense of caring.
This is extremely true! Probably the best example of this is Cecil John Roads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes) who was a ruthless businessman who owned countries, started wars and engaged in unsavory business practices.
Yet he is fondly remembered for the Rhodes Scholarship and his donations to the University of Oxford.
I remember reading one of his lectures where he was telling the class that now their duty, as wealthy and cultured modernists, was to serve the uncivilized and poor of the world and to bring the luxury and comfort that aristocrats knew to everyone. Rhodes taught altruism and service to the unfortunate and his legacy is many powerful people who worked to better the world, inspired by Rhodes.
Rhodes was not an Empire Builder. He was a company builder. His company was the British South African Company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_South_Africa_Company).
> but his prime motivation was to modernize the world. Rhodesian policy led to the end of the empire, in fact.
His motivation was to make money. You know that he tried to start a war? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jameson_Raid
Which led to two other wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Matabele_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War
The "British South African Company" that fought in these wars was a paramilitary unit that belonged to his company.
> Rhodes taught altruism and service to the unfortunate and his legacy is many powerful people who worked to better the world, inspired by Rhodes.
Maybe he tried some veneer after he became rich - but he was still a bastard.
(Even his Rhodes scholarship is designed to Anglicise. It is impossible for a person to obtain the Rhodes scholarship unless he studied in English).
Who is teaching you this bullshit history?
Demonizing historical figures instead of studying them in the context of their time is really pathetic.
Maybe you misunderstood me. You say that he was a selfless Empire Builder - i.e. he had some zeal to build the English Empire for the good of the queen and England. Yet his true aim was making money (through the British South African Company).
> Who is teaching you this bullshit history?
> Demonizing historical figures instead of studying them in the context of their time is really pathetic.
Trying to whitewash history and historical figures is quite sad. Admittedly I learnt history from a different perspective than you (i.e. from the side of the oppressed and not the opressee).
Yet even in western countries, colonialism is now seen as a bad thing by the majority of people (a few nationalists and apologists notwithstanding).
No wonder. Regardless of the inspiration, reality with its liberal bias favors the successful rather than the honorable. These concepts are not inherently incompatible, but way more often than not are, and always were.
Yes, the king himself committed adultery and murder. After this, David was rebuked by the prophet Nathan with the word of Jehovah (2 Samuel 12:1-14). You see, God immediately condemned what David did. Then He spoke a judgment on David and on his house (Israel): "Now therefore the sword will not depart from your house forever because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife." (v. 10) The sword, that is, war, has not left the nation of Israel. They are constantly fighting for their survival. David was even personally disciplined by his son dying and his wives being treated as he had treated Uriah's wife (vv. 11-14).
After being rebuked, David mourned. At this time, he wrote Psalm 51. In it he repents and confesses his sins to God, saying, "blot out my transgressions", "wash me thoroughly from my iniquity", "from my sin cleanse me", and "purge my sin". Eventually, David's repentance and confession joined God's forgiveness and the result was Solomon, through whom the temple was built and Christ was produced.
Cherry picked or not, every concrete example brought up in this thread (Burr/Hamilton, Cheney, and those I gave) is supporting my point of view. The opposing point of view (which I infer you support from your post) has not brought up a single supporting example, even though it starts at the inferior position (if you claim things were different, the onus is on you to demonstrate the direction, character and rate of change!).
Yet you dismiss those examples as being "outliers" and cherry picks given without diligence. Oh well. I am wrong in trying to arguing with people who care not about the facts. But I have a little time to kill, so it's ok.
I feel sorry for approximately half of the human race, and I sometimes have trouble determining which half that is.
Our society used to be based on concepts like honor.
Honor was something you had to earn and something you could lose. To maintain your honor you had to demonstrate certain qualities: truthfulness, earnestness, fairness, politeness, genuine service toward shared superordinate goals (e.g. the country, humanity, the community).
At some point, our society decided that lying is no longer dihonorable as long as you are doing it to maximize shareholder value or to sell your product. We no longer publically shame and dishonor those caught in bald-faced lies.
Inordinately selfish people always justify their behaviour using socially acceptable statements. What has changed is that our society now lets them get away with it.
ANY lies are now OK as long as they say "I was maximizing shareholder value." They will not be socially ostracized, will not be publicly shamed, and often will not even be criticized. People will, in fact, apologize for them.
People see Wall Street crash-creators testifying at Congress answering "I do not recall" to 100% of the questions. Instead of dishonoring those liars as the liars that they obviously are... our society just does nothing. It's okay that they lied. It's just business you know. We expect our business leaders to be dishonorable.
"It's not the CEOs fault that he knowingly polluted the entire river for 20 years. He was just maximizing shareholder value, discharging his fiduciary duty, we can't hold him personally responsible. It is wrong to shame him and his family, it is wrong to ostracize him from decent company, it is wrong to even criticize him publicly in the newspapers."
Either this mentality changes in a hurry, or the entire country is going to go the way of Detroit.