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Honor v. Dignity, privilege and The Great War
Honor v. Dignity
Honor v. Dignity
By
Jansen Estrup
T.E. Lawrence (1920) - Iraq … "a trap which will be hard to escape with dignity and honor." Acknowledging a hundred years of The Great War, shouldn't that read dignity or honor?
Much is bandied about these days with regard to honor. Our very existence seems to revolve around it. Honor even seems to have originated in this 'cradle' of clay.
We honor our mothers and fathers, public figures, entertainment legends, and civil servants, especially those wearing military uniforms.
We honor workers, pets, even hamburgers with a special day or week or month. We give keys to cities, medals, degrees and esteem, even worship.
Is that what honor is?
We've done it over history with deities. Daily. Sunday is for the various Sungods, Monday for Moon, Tuesday for a host of thunderbolt hurlers, specifically Tiwz (Zeus). Wednesday is for Odin, Thursday for Thor (yet another Thunderer) and Friday, finally, acknowledges a feminine figure, the Norse goddess Frigga. Just in time for Saturday, one supposes, for Saturn and his festive weekenders, and we honor them, too, as though they are our due, reward … our privilege.
My dictionary and Thesaurus have a lot to say about honor. Including 'regard' and 'integrity' there are 25 entries, even 'dignity' (listed last in my Thesaurus). Dignity alone claims a dozen synonyms.
The first dictionary definition of honor is 'reputation' then 'recognition' followed by 'privilege' meaning, by example, a title or high office.
It may be concluded, then, by meaning and frequency of use, that 'honor' is a valued attribute worthy of achieving, maintaining and defending.
Some of our nation's founders thought dueling a proper way of defending privilege, and Alexander Hamilton had to die, failing to defend his own honor in a shootout. It is also why our country's honor was at stake when a native Mexican did not yield the sidewalk in his own capital city to a member of our embassy and we had to send in the Marines, lest foreigners claim honor in their own land (much of which conveniently became ours once the 'incident' was resolved). Likely, it is why Oklahomans, defending the honor of a lying white woman (lying in order to defend her own privilege) accused a Black Tulsa community of dishonor, so Whites felt morally honor-bound and entitled to bomb and burn an entire Black neighborhood to the ground and kill many of the inhabitants while they were at it. It did not matter that innocents were unjustly punished, only that a 'lesson' be taught and White privilege be maintained.
The lesson? No matter what, right or wrong, Don't Tread on Me! Don't infringe upon my privileges.
Honor might rightly be mistaken for authority, power, 'mightiness'. Often it is couched as religious or national so that a rallying cry can go forth and enlist distant support for local matters. It has become indistinguishable from 'rightness' and intentionally confused with rights such as The Bill of Rights.
No hint of fragility, fear or vulnerability can ever be admitted, no chink in the armor of solid, unshakable footing.
Thus honor is easily, therefore frequently, offended … and defended.
From the boardrooms of industry to the barrios of entrenched poverty, honor is defended with every weapon from compound interest to 12ga street sweeper, Saturday Night Special to bunker buster, corporate lawsuit to fracking wasteland, honor is ever at stake and gloriously weaponized.
Always, somehow, it is linked to privilege. To be 'dissed' is to feel honor-bound to murder a daughter (or at least cut off her nose), beat a wife, gun down a rival, burn out a competitor or invade a neighboring nation.
Honor, in short, must be defended (even extended), as soon as possible and with as much excess as necessary to command future 'respect' … which is defined as (a) special regard (b) esteem (c) to refrain from interfering with … in other words, defended to the point of abject surrender by the opposition.
The U.S. Marine Corps, for example, fights 'for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean' … plainly, to keep others from interfering with them and their (overlord's) privilege.
Don't even think about treading on me.
The best defense is a good offense. Instant, knee-jerk retaliation … and pre-emptive is even better. Might is right, even when fueled by greed or paranoia. Especially dire is the prospect that privilege is at risk. War leaders are particularly guilty of conflating freedom with honor, as if rights and privilege mean the same thing.
We elevate those and that which we honor above us and defend that entity's right to dominate us, often ruthlessly. Honor, has everything to do with special privileges, those above and beyond everyone else.
Those who provide the blood and treasure for such privileges have been trivialized for centuries, lumped into 'honor', for example. And true , thanks to Rome, a dignitary was originally honored (privileged) and worthy of honor (privilege), even godhood (ultimate privilege).
And what do the privileged really think of those who worked and sacrificed to permit such lofty positions, workers and military veterans in those unguarded moments among peers? Heinrich Heine was kind when he said, "Mark this well, you proud men of action. You are, after all, nothing but the unconscious instrument of men of thought." Curtis LeMay imagined he could 'teach chimpanzies to do that job (running the Strategic Air Command).' Henry Kissinger was more direct, saying, "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."
When our military is applauded for protecting our freedoms, speakers most often mean privileges, special privileges, status, hereditary privileges grown over the years into aristocratic entitlement.
Our expectation, our 'way of life', our 'entitlements' (e.g., just 5% of the world's population, we demand and get 40% of its wealth - actually our 1% get the vast majority of it while the rest of the world subsidizes them). Taxpayers and slaves foot the cost of protecting their privilege.
Dignity, we hear less about.
Listed last in my dictionary is the definition, formal reserve of manner or language. Conversely, self-respect is listed first in my Thesaurus under dignity.
Not at all the same as respect (in which one grants others an automatic station above oneself), self-respect requires introspection, self-knowledge, honesty, critical thinking, value of the individual (oneself) and especially restraint. Otherwise it can be simple vanity, inborn privilege or arrogance.
A recent example of respect came from a retired Army officer. A Black man, he attained the rank of colonel before being disciplined for disrespect. But afterward he toured the nation making speeches about what he described as the wonderful training his parents had given him as a child. Foremost among those lessons was that he should 'respect' authority, that he should always grant others respect whether they had earned it or not. Their titles and station (and by tradition, skin-color) were enough evidence to command his obedience. One might well imagine slaves cowering in the darkness telling their children exactly the same thing. Today he goes about scolding audiences for not doing what he was unable to do himself. This citizen became a willing participant in self-denigration, not self-respect.
Neither respectful nor respected, he was and is just angry, yet still deeply invested in his flawed upbringing.
More important, he had not even been introduced to dignity.
Certainly this officer learned restraint in marching formations, maneuvers and interactions with military seniors and hopefully while commanding troops. But these are situational matters. His overriding mandate must surely have been a call to arms, to action, to arms even when action may not have been the most prudent course. Honor, the protection of privilege, requires a terrible swift sword. Respect for his 'betters' demanded that he use it on their behalf.
The self-respect of dignity requires an individual to treat others as equals, as men and women (and even children) of equal standing. Moreover, rather than seeking privilege for him or herself, equality requires a pro-active defense of the rights of others, an activity which opposes privilege as the road to tyranny. To do so is every citizen's right and, most difficult, responsibility.
Certainly, by virtue of achievement, ability and circumstance of responsibility (such as election or appointment to a particular position) or possessing a particular expertise, knowledge or skill someone might be first among equals but this, in an ideal world, is a temporary situation. Whenever that task or job has ended, everyone returns to equal rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Most successful at accumulating wealth of his era, Andrew Carnegie adopted the personal and business motto, "Death to privilege," and, rather than burden his children and society with unearned wealth, set about returning his fortune to all of us, The Commons. In this he followed the principles of Founders like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, who set the standard by declining to become king.
Too often is heard former servicemen and women and private citizens, too, proclaim that they swore to uphold the Constitution and obey those 'appointed above them', presumably the chain of command, which includes the Commander-in-Chief. But two things are seldom acknowledged in this claim. First, the president is only commander of the Armed Forces, not the nation or its citizens, and then only in wartime. Second, once one leaves military service, he or she returns to civilian life in which all of us are equals, thus no one is appointed above us. As full citizens we are responsible for our own understanding, our own knowledge, our own judgment and behavior. That, of course, its the hard part.
One can hardly uphold the Constitution and, simultaneously, obey those appointed above them. Freedom and unquestioned obedience are incompatible.
Dignity requires that the individual respect him or herself. Respect for others flows from that. One restraints oneself out of that principle, evaluates and assesses. Weighing a matter fairly before one acts, discussing, sharing knowledge, advancing alternatives is all part of putting self in the place of others, trying to imagine their situation and options, treating them with fairness, recognizing the humanity in them. Dignity demands a considered, measured reaction to challenges, a fair evaluation of situations and a reasoned response.
The notion of privilege is ego-centric and unlike rights, reserved for the few rather than the many. Reject those who demand we take responsibility for their fancies. They seek to further their excesses by confusing the difference between rights and privilege. In the end we have neither, only responsibility for their excesses.
And there is the rub. A fight for 'rights' and 'freedom' is decidedly opposite from fighting for special privileges. When Neo-cons claim that our enemies hate us for our freedoms, they mean we are hated for our arrogance and undeserved privileges, mostly 'earned' at the point of a gun, fraud or other coercion.
Preserving the rights of others is in everyone's interest because it assures the continuation of our own. Dignity does not require that we love or even like (and certainly not 'respect') our fellow citizen, only that we acknowledge and support his and her rights. The social covenant requires them to do the same. Only a clear definition of rights and responsibilities need guide such a society.
Yet how does one force another to choose rights over privilege? Whether by sloth or ignorance or indifference, my neighbor may choose to abrogate his responsibility as a citizen and permit others to live in gated citadels and lord their great grandfathers' dubious achievements over us. He or she may join forces with such a despot out of need or greed or simple fear.
Approximately a third of Americans followed Thomas Paine into rebellion. Another third remained loyal to King George and the British East India Company. A further third just wanted to be left alone. It sort of shapes up that way today. Has it ever been substantially different?
Our nation has always been a struggling contradiction, yearning to be healed, to be whole and recognizable. The energy we've spent expanding the privileges of a few could be redirected to restoring, installing the human rights of the many, the all.
We could let privilege become a lost fairy tale, as it surely has those unnatural and ant-ethical values.
So as we begin the one hundred first year of the Great War, this is the question. Do we stand proudly for our honor, or for our dignity? Or do we simply let them bloody each other down another century?
Copyright 2014 - H.F. Jansen Estrup
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Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth
a voice goes up with Our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress,
not of Caesar, But of God
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests
of peace.
You also leave me with much to think about. We have our priority wrong when we honor wealth for wealth's sake. No one has ever found that wealth or privilege made anyone happy. More secure, perhaps, but happiness is relative to the individual. Some people are very happy and very insecure situations. Getting back your article, it makes a great case for breaking down barriers that separate us and creating a level playing field for all.
Ron
thought provoking read