4 ms·

But what about collective honor? Isn't a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger prepared for a master and deserves one?

vkou 9y ago
Collective honor is alive and well in the West. If you have doubts, look at the United States' overreaction to 9/11.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  What extent do you think the reaction to 9/11 was honor, versus 'we can't let this happen again'?
  - vkou 9y ago
    There was a good dose of that, too, but there's also a good dose of that in 'honor' killings. Our reaction was disproportionate, it did not go through proper legal channels (For reasons including them not really existing in the international sphere), the rhetoric used to enlist young men to fight these wars smelled heavily of it...
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    As opposed to attempts to make money, start wars (see “make money”), promulgate an ideology, win political points, gain power over a populace (Patriot Act), and just plain fear?
- fencepost 9y ago
  I think "the United States' overreaction to 9/11" would need to be broken out into much finer detail. * Referring to Iraq, there's a good argument to be made that it wasn't so much an overreaction as a seizing of opportunity. * For violence against Muslims in the USA there was some of that, but I don't think it was either widespread enough or widely accepted enough to be considered a reaction by "the United States" * For immigration policies, maybe, though again I think it's pretty clear that that's more to do with political parties than a US-wide reaction.
- CalChris 9y ago
  We responded well enough to 9/11 up to Tora Bora. Attacking Iraq wasn't an overreaction. It was rank stupidity.
  - pc86 9y ago
    There was nothing stupid about it. It was opportunism.
cousin_it 9y ago
You're thinking of a different quality. Willingness to defend oneself is normal and admirable. "Honor" as defined in Dutch's essay is something else entirely. It's about willingness to kill for an insult. That's despicable in both individuals and nations.
- vkou 9y ago
  Killing for an insult is self-defense in a society where tolerating an insult broadcasts that you can be taken advantage of, with no repercussions. (Typically because the justice system is absent, toothless or corrupt.) "Honor" is not a cultural failing, it is a failing of legal structures. Where such systems don't exist, our rhetoric is not far off from this line of thinking.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Disagree. Insults are a problem if and only if they cause third parties to have unfairly* diminished regard for you. To give a topical example, there does not appear to be any insult which affects Trump: if you hate him then the insults prove you right, but if you love him then the insults are just fake news. * In some places and some eras, insulting Our Leader was punishable regardless of whether the insult was true. I think this is a bad law, and only falsehood-based defamation should be an offence — but even then there is a problem because humans treat lists of more than seven-ish items as endless and the internet’s perfect memory means you can probably show any given person has said or done more than seven socially unacceptable things.
    - vkou 9y ago
      > Disagree. Insults are a problem if and only if they cause third parties to have unfairly* diminished regard for you. To give a topical example, there does not appear to be any insult which affects Trump: if you hate him then the insults prove you right, but if you love him then the insults are just fake news. In societies where 'honor' killings take place, insults do cause third parties to have an unfairly diminished regard for you. Here's an example closer to home - when a drug dealer gets ripped off for $500, he doesn't care about the money. $500 is nothing to him. What he cares about is appearing like an easy mark, which opens the door to everyone and their brother stealing from him. It's why the correct response to that kind of insult, in that kind of industry, is to go to the offender's house, and break their skull open by dropping an ATM machine on it. He isn't killing someone for $500. He's killing someone to make it clear that he will not be taken advantage of. Trump doesn't need to do that, because me insulting him on Twitter will not result in other people ripping him off. He is protected from that by a working legal system. My insults are not damaging, and even if it were, he would be able to sue me. Drug dealers, and people living in the mountains of Albania have no such recourse (Or do not trust it.)

vkou 9y ago

Collective honor is alive and well in the West. If you have doubts, look at the United States' overreaction to 9/11.

oh_sigh 9y ago
What extent do you think the reaction to 9/11 was honor, versus 'we can't let this happen again'?
- vkou 9y ago
  There was a good dose of that, too, but there's also a good dose of that in 'honor' killings. Our reaction was disproportionate, it did not go through proper legal channels (For reasons including them not really existing in the international sphere), the rhetoric used to enlist young men to fight these wars smelled heavily of it...
- QAPereo 9y ago
  As opposed to attempts to make money, start wars (see “make money”), promulgate an ideology, win political points, gain power over a populace (Patriot Act), and just plain fear?
fencepost 9y ago
I think "the United States' overreaction to 9/11" would need to be broken out into much finer detail. * Referring to Iraq, there's a good argument to be made that it wasn't so much an overreaction as a seizing of opportunity. * For violence against Muslims in the USA there was some of that, but I don't think it was either widespread enough or widely accepted enough to be considered a reaction by "the United States" * For immigration policies, maybe, though again I think it's pretty clear that that's more to do with political parties than a US-wide reaction.
CalChris 9y ago
We responded well enough to 9/11 up to Tora Bora. Attacking Iraq wasn't an overreaction. It was rank stupidity.
- pc86 9y ago
  There was nothing stupid about it. It was opportunism.

cousin_it 9y ago

You're thinking of a different quality. Willingness to defend oneself is normal and admirable. "Honor" as defined in Dutch's essay is something else entirely. It's about willingness to kill for an insult. That's despicable in both individuals and nations.

vkou 9y ago
Killing for an insult is self-defense in a society where tolerating an insult broadcasts that you can be taken advantage of, with no repercussions. (Typically because the justice system is absent, toothless or corrupt.) "Honor" is not a cultural failing, it is a failing of legal structures. Where such systems don't exist, our rhetoric is not far off from this line of thinking.
- ben_w 9y ago
  Disagree. Insults are a problem if and only if they cause third parties to have unfairly* diminished regard for you. To give a topical example, there does not appear to be any insult which affects Trump: if you hate him then the insults prove you right, but if you love him then the insults are just fake news. * In some places and some eras, insulting Our Leader was punishable regardless of whether the insult was true. I think this is a bad law, and only falsehood-based defamation should be an offence — but even then there is a problem because humans treat lists of more than seven-ish items as endless and the internet’s perfect memory means you can probably show any given person has said or done more than seven socially unacceptable things.
  - vkou 9y ago
    > Disagree. Insults are a problem if and only if they cause third parties to have unfairly* diminished regard for you. To give a topical example, there does not appear to be any insult which affects Trump: if you hate him then the insults prove you right, but if you love him then the insults are just fake news. In societies where 'honor' killings take place, insults do cause third parties to have an unfairly diminished regard for you. Here's an example closer to home - when a drug dealer gets ripped off for $500, he doesn't care about the money. $500 is nothing to him. What he cares about is appearing like an easy mark, which opens the door to everyone and their brother stealing from him. It's why the correct response to that kind of insult, in that kind of industry, is to go to the offender's house, and break their skull open by dropping an ATM machine on it. He isn't killing someone for $500. He's killing someone to make it clear that he will not be taken advantage of. Trump doesn't need to do that, because me insulting him on Twitter will not result in other people ripping him off. He is protected from that by a working legal system. My insults are not damaging, and even if it were, he would be able to sue me. Drug dealers, and people living in the mountains of Albania have no such recourse (Or do not trust it.)