I don't think we humans need better excuses. Believing honor is everything and that your honor requires someone else's dishonor is all it takes. Here's Shakespe

I don't think we humans need better excuses. Believing honor is everything and that your honor requires someone else's dishonor is all it takes. Here's Shakespeare's holding forth on the topic in Othello: > Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. This is why the Hatfields fought the McCoys. This is largely why Putin's troops are raping, murdering, and pillaging in Ukraine. It's how you demonstrate who has lost honor and who has gained it. It's why "owning" your rhetorical opponent is so vicious, why revenge porn exists. People in thrall to this version of honor feel they must utterly destroy their enemy to restore their honor. To those of use who haven't recently been slighted this looks like the opposite of honor, but it seems less insane after an insult.