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For the full book length explanation of why your attitude is bad for everyone, read Enlightenment Now. The short version is that in a society where justice rel

by btilly 6y ago

For the full book length explanation of why your attitude is bad for everyone, read Enlightenment Now. The short version is that in a society where justice relies on the strength of the individual, there is more conflict, more injury, and more murder. In areas of the USA with more of an honor culture, the murder rate is 10x what it is in areas without one. The problem is that in an honor culture, people have a need to demonstrate how capable they are so that they will not be considered potential targets. This demonstration takes the form of proving that you will be willing to seek to right any perceived injustice, and are capable of doing so. But these demonstrations tend to involve violence, and lead to conflict. Up to and including murder. In a law and order society, by contrast, people's safety is based on the continuation of law and order. Which means that justice is available to all, regardless of strength. Consider. The strength difference between the average man and average woman is the difference between the average NFL linebacker and the average man. Do you think it right that the average woman's ability to obtain justice is dependent on whether some man stands up for her? And yet that is how things tend to work out in an honor culture. I want to live in a law and order society. A place where potential rapists are deciding whether to worry about the police, and not whether to worry about me.

TurkishPoptart 6y ago
Prison is often described as an honor society. So it seems like those that won't tolerate a law and order society and commit violent crimes are placed involuntarily into prison (an honor society).
- 74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago
  Your comment is of course facetious. Nonetheless I'd like to express that most interpretations of honor are of the perverted kind. This is especially true for professional criminals.
  - TurkishPoptart 6y ago
    what's facetious about it?
generalizations 6y ago
> Consider. The strength difference between the average man and average woman is the difference between the average NFL linebacker and the average man. Do you think it right that the average woman's ability to obtain justice is dependent on whether some man stands up for her? And yet that is how things tend to work out in an honor culture. I've heard of guns described as 'the great equalizer'. An NFL linebacker, average man, and an average woman would each have an approximately equal ability to obtain 'justice'. > I want to live in a law and order society. A place where potential rapists are deciding whether to worry about the police, and not whether to worry about me. As someone else pointed out, the prison term for rape is about 10 years. So in your society, potential rapists worry about facing 10 years in prison, and in the other, an extrajudicial death penalty. Seems to me the latter might be a better deterrent.
- btilly 6y ago
  As someone else pointed out, the prison term for rape is about 10 years. So in your society, potential rapists worry about facing 10 years in prison, and in the other, an extrajudicial death penalty. Seems to me the latter might be a better deterrent. There is no need to theorize. You can just look at statistics. According to Wikipedia, the rape rate in Germany is estimated at 9 per 100,000. (Men and women.) The rape rate in the USA is estimated at 2.1 per thousand women per year. Rapes happen per capita at 10x the rate in the USA as in Germany. Theories about deterrence notwithstanding, Germany is actually working out better than the USA. This is typical of other statistics that I've seen. Being in a society that has internalized law and order is safer. By about a factor of 10. (Side note. The internalized US belief in deterrence is why we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. And yet we also have higher rates of violent crime than any other developed nation. Deterrence may sound good, but it doesn't seem to work out very well in practice.)
  - generalizations 6y ago
    I don't think that either the US or Germany is actually representative of those two alternatives I mentioned. A "law and order society" that uses the police for law enforcement is a descriptor of both the US and Germany. It's a cool statistic, but it only says that whatever the US is doing must be worse than whatever Germany is doing. You would also have to say that the two countries are sufficiently representative of law and order vs. extrajudicial, which I don't think is true.
74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago
You are responding to an imaginary comment - not to mine. I don't argue with "honor" for example. I'm also not arguing that we should establish a society based on strength ...
- striking 6y ago
  > [some dumb thing about women for some reason, and also] our society even systematically rewards and encourages cowardry by reframing it as smartness or sober-mindedness is definitely arguing for some kind of honor or strength system.

by btilly 6y ago

TurkishPoptart 6y ago

Prison is often described as an honor society. So it seems like those that won't tolerate a law and order society and commit violent crimes are placed involuntarily into prison (an honor society).

74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago
Your comment is of course facetious. Nonetheless I'd like to express that most interpretations of honor are of the perverted kind. This is especially true for professional criminals.
- TurkishPoptart 6y ago
  what's facetious about it?

generalizations 6y ago

> Consider. The strength difference between the average man and average woman is the difference between the average NFL linebacker and the average man. Do you think it right that the average woman's ability to obtain justice is dependent on whether some man stands up for her? And yet that is how things tend to work out in an honor culture. I've heard of guns described as 'the great equalizer'. An NFL linebacker, average man, and an average woman would each have an approximately equal ability to obtain 'justice'. > I want to live in a law and order society. A place where potential rapists are deciding whether to worry about the police, and not whether to worry about me. As someone else pointed out, the prison term for rape is about 10 years. So in your society, potential rapists worry about facing 10 years in prison, and in the other, an extrajudicial death penalty. Seems to me the latter might be a better deterrent.

btilly 6y ago
As someone else pointed out, the prison term for rape is about 10 years. So in your society, potential rapists worry about facing 10 years in prison, and in the other, an extrajudicial death penalty. Seems to me the latter might be a better deterrent. There is no need to theorize. You can just look at statistics. According to Wikipedia, the rape rate in Germany is estimated at 9 per 100,000. (Men and women.) The rape rate in the USA is estimated at 2.1 per thousand women per year. Rapes happen per capita at 10x the rate in the USA as in Germany. Theories about deterrence notwithstanding, Germany is actually working out better than the USA. This is typical of other statistics that I've seen. Being in a society that has internalized law and order is safer. By about a factor of 10. (Side note. The internalized US belief in deterrence is why we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. And yet we also have higher rates of violent crime than any other developed nation. Deterrence may sound good, but it doesn't seem to work out very well in practice.)
- generalizations 6y ago
  I don't think that either the US or Germany is actually representative of those two alternatives I mentioned. A "law and order society" that uses the police for law enforcement is a descriptor of both the US and Germany. It's a cool statistic, but it only says that whatever the US is doing must be worse than whatever Germany is doing. You would also have to say that the two countries are sufficiently representative of law and order vs. extrajudicial, which I don't think is true.

74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago

You are responding to an imaginary comment - not to mine. I don't argue with "honor" for example. I'm also not arguing that we should establish a society based on strength ...

striking 6y ago
> [some dumb thing about women for some reason, and also] our society even systematically rewards and encourages cowardry by reframing it as smartness or sober-mindedness is definitely arguing for some kind of honor or strength system.