Two hundred years later, the sitting vice president (Cheney) was accused[1] (probably correctly) of corrupt dealings. He just ignored his accusers and nothing came of it.

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...

I don't think that murdering your rightful accuser and getting away with it is really what most people mean when they say "honor" these days.

Maybe honor did used to be more important, but it's not the same concept, only the same word.

I'm not saying Burr was honourable. I'm saying he cared about being perceived as honourable. As did Hamilton, or he wouldn't have accepted the challenge. Cheney, in contrast, doesn't give a damn what people think, as long as Halliburton keeps getting government contracts.

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.

And I'm saying that the perception of "honorable" was obviously very different than what we would consider "honorable" to be today if murdering his accuser and getting away with it improved that perception.

Sigh. Yes, attitudes toward violence have changed. We don't have duels any more, and if we did, the winner would go to jail. Fine.

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.

It is worth noting that Burr was known as a violent man and a good pistol shot (unlike Hamilton). If he had been an honorable man he would have deliberately missed (which was common in duels).

I agree, that's interesting. I simply dispute that this is evidence that honor truly was important in the past. The word may have been, but the meaning was not what we mean by it today.

It's more accountability than what Dick Cheney faced.

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 A ignores his accuser.

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.

It's not murder it's a duel. Big difference. Both duellists put their lives on the line.

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.

I don't really see why a duel isn't a murder. Plenty of murderers put their lives at risk to kill. Just because the other guy agreed to it doesn't make it not a murder. I guarantee you that if I challenged somebody to a duel today and ended up killing him that I would go to jail for murder, and rightly so.