You ask me what is wanting in this world? Well, dear one, I can't answer that but I can suggest something which is necessary for our culture: Both the word and value of, Honor.
First I will state my definition of Honor and then expand upon why I think it's necessary for progress, equanimity and hope:
- To not commit a crime even when you can do so with impunity
- To not take advantage even when you can do so without ill conscience
- To not violate your morality even when man and law are blind and deaf.
Now I will tell of why such a value should be reappraised in our culture. I do so with an example.
There is a story of the two young Syrian soldiers. They are standing in the middle of a road and they are joking and laughing to each other. A boy is playing in the street some hundred yards off. Their thoughts begin to collect and they laugh and shake hands on a bet. Is the bet about a sports game? A girl? An adolescent dear? No. One of the soldiers raises his rifle and takes aim. The bullet when it strikes goes clean through the boy's head. The other soldier pulls out his wallet, slowly, and gives some notes to the shooter. He sighs and then they both burst into a sad, liberating frenzy of laughter.
My sweet, it is a true story. It happened in the name of Assad.
There are two points:
1. These two young men would not have done what they had if they were not soldiers, given license to kill, in the middle of war, knowing they would fear no justice.
2. More critical to our point, if they had valued honour, if their culture had sold it as the thing all real people should have, if their society had put a premium on it and bred the idea, as a little shine among stars, they would have never even contemplated such a thought let alone let it run on to action.
Many may say that such a word and value is too old hat, too old fashioned, too much the stuff of twee, too old for our hefty march of progress. Yet our culture puts a premium on the superficial, the banal, the frivolous, the inane. Our culture is dense with stupidity. Our politics leaden with cynicism. Our populace not even close to realising potential. Our world stultified with junk food, junk bodies, junk minds full of junk ideas. Failed ideas. There is always better, though we don't know what that looks like we know it is better and head for it. Honor, and its corollary honesty, at least will deal in even hands; at least tally truth and reality together. Be forthright and true then, and sell it to everyone you meet. A true friend is the only friend who pulls you up when you are wrong. Honor is a handshake amongst true friends.
My dear, even if we fell into a thousand years of darkness and even if the forces of fear, power and poverty overwhelm, if a man or woman acts with Honor, such a world as we know shall not be lost.
I go back to the Syrians. It is tragedy for the boy. It is tragedy for the soldier. Because he will in time, remember the moment he killed a child for caprice. A thing, you must know see, Honor would have stopped.
First I will state my definition of Honor and then expand upon why I think it's necessary for progress, equanimity and hope:
- To not commit a crime even when you can do so with impunity
- To not take advantage even when you can do so without ill conscience
- To not violate your morality even when man and law are blind and deaf.
Now I will tell of why such a value should be reappraised in our culture. I do so with an example.
There is a story of the two young Syrian soldiers. They are standing in the middle of a road and they are joking and laughing to each other. A boy is playing in the street some hundred yards off. Their thoughts begin to collect and they laugh and shake hands on a bet. Is the bet about a sports game? A girl? An adolescent dear? No. One of the soldiers raises his rifle and takes aim. The bullet when it strikes goes clean through the boy's head. The other soldier pulls out his wallet, slowly, and gives some notes to the shooter. He sighs and then they both burst into a sad, liberating frenzy of laughter.
My sweet, it is a true story. It happened in the name of Assad.
There are two points:
1. These two young men would not have done what they had if they were not soldiers, given license to kill, in the middle of war, knowing they would fear no justice.
2. More critical to our point, if they had valued honour, if their culture had sold it as the thing all real people should have, if their society had put a premium on it and bred the idea, as a little shine among stars, they would have never even contemplated such a thought let alone let it run on to action.
Many may say that such a word and value is too old hat, too old fashioned, too much the stuff of twee, too old for our hefty march of progress. Yet our culture puts a premium on the superficial, the banal, the frivolous, the inane. Our culture is dense with stupidity. Our politics leaden with cynicism. Our populace not even close to realising potential. Our world stultified with junk food, junk bodies, junk minds full of junk ideas. Failed ideas. There is always better, though we don't know what that looks like we know it is better and head for it. Honor, and its corollary honesty, at least will deal in even hands; at least tally truth and reality together. Be forthright and true then, and sell it to everyone you meet. A true friend is the only friend who pulls you up when you are wrong. Honor is a handshake amongst true friends.
My dear, even if we fell into a thousand years of darkness and even if the forces of fear, power and poverty overwhelm, if a man or woman acts with Honor, such a world as we know shall not be lost.
I go back to the Syrians. It is tragedy for the boy. It is tragedy for the soldier. Because he will in time, remember the moment he killed a child for caprice. A thing, you must know see, Honor would have stopped.
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