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I'm not saying Burr was honourable. I'm saying he cared about being perceived as honourable. As did Hamilton, or he wouldn't have accepted the challenge. Cheney
by cwp 15y ago
I'm not saying Burr was honourable. I'm saying he cared about being perceived as honourable. As did Hamilton, or he wouldn't have accepted the challenge. Cheney, in contrast, doesn't give a damn what people think, as long as Halliburton keeps getting government contracts.
The point is not that people were more virtuous in the past. It's that virtue, or at least the perception of virtue, was considered important in the past, much more so than today.
- mikeash 15y agoAnd I'm saying that the perception of "honorable" was obviously very different than what we would consider "honorable" to be today if murdering his accuser and getting away with it improved that perception.
- cwp 15y agoSigh. Yes, attitudes toward violence have changed. We don't have duels any more, and if we did, the winner would go to jail. Fine. What's interesting about the duel isn't that Burr killed Hamilton, it's that he took the risk of getting killed himself. The duel could easily have turned out the other way. Who would risk his life to protect his reputation today? Certainly not Dick Cheney.
- mikeash 15y agoI agree, that's interesting. I simply dispute that this is evidence that honor truly was important in the past. The word may have been, but the meaning was not what we mean by it today.
- nl 15y agoIt is worth noting that Burr was known as a violent man and a good pistol shot (unlike Hamilton). If he had been an honorable man he would have deliberately missed (which was common in duels).