definitions of honor

[jenk]

No, it's not David Weber. It's columnist John Tierney, writing in The New York Times. He starts with the apparent contradiction of Hezbollah's soldiers proudly firing at civilians with their stance of being "men of honor":

[U]nfortunately they are — by their own definition. We in the West can call them barbaric, which they also are, but they’re following an ancient social code, even if we can’t recognize it anymore.

[...As James Bowman, author of “Honor: A History,” puts it:] “The honor system in Arab culture is the default honor system, the one you see in street gangs in America — you dis me, I shoot you.” [...]

In the West we’ve redefined “honorable” as being virtuous, fair, truthful and sincere, but that’s not the traditional meaning. Honor meant simply the respect of the local “honor group” — the family, the extended clan, the tribe, the religious sect. It meant maintaining a reputation for courage and loyalty, not being charitable to enemy civilians. Telling the truth was secondary to saving face.

This “tyranny of the face” continually frustrates Westerners trying to understand the Middle East. When I interviewed villagers in Iraq, I discovered we usually had separate agendas: I wanted the facts, but the villager wanted to avoid embarrassing either of us. So he would tactfully search for the answer that would both please me and not dishonor his family.

When American tanks rolled into Baghdad, Western television viewers were astonished at the sight of the Iraqi information minister steadfastly denying that anything was going wrong. But it made sense from a traditional honor system. The only thing worse than being defeated is the shame of admitting defeat.

What made our honor system different? The Bowman credits the influence of Christianity, which emphasized inner virtue, not outward glory.

The result was a new honor system in the West, chivalry, that was an uneasy combination of Christian virtues and knightly violence. Eventually, with the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the bourgeois and democracy, the system evolved into what Bowman calls honor-by-merit, epitomized by the Victorian ideal of the gentleman who earns his reputation by working hard, playing fair, defending the weak and fighting for his country.

Tierney also compares this to Lancelot declaring himself "proved innocent" of adultery after defeating his accusers. Winning meant he saved face which meant he was honorable - by the old definition. Of course, the Lancelot/Guinevere story is set during the time the new code of honor, chivalry, was coming into vogue...so we remember his guilt and (at least in some versions of the story) him leaving Camelot in disgrace.