by Dentes Leo Men of Honor Men of Honor Honor is an ocean, and very few men know how to swim. I. Introduction. Honor is a widely held concept, but it is not easily de ned. It seems that every culture, every era, has been de ned as honorable certain types of behavior and as dishonorable certain other behaviors, sometimes in a way that may seem arbitrary to us. Piracy (the Odyssey testi es to this) is nothing to be ashamed of for a Greek of antiquity; but a gentleman of the Classical Age would not dream of indulging in it, no matter how much he is steeped in ancient culture. The cunning of war, according to the cultures, could be honorable (even prestigious) or shameful. However, honor seems to have been at the heart of the concerns of many of our ancestors, whether they were nobles or brigands, peasants or soldiers. A man is only a man if he is a man of honor. Man of Honor Men of Honor II. Defining honor. But what exactly is honor? If we wanted to give a quick de nition, we could say that it is the external and visible manifestation of virtue. This is a nice phrase, but it only pushes the problem back, since it requires you to de ne virtue, which is not easy either. One could also de ne it as a synonym for integrity. It is a convenient concept for a modern de nition, but one that looks only at the small end of the spectrum and limits honor to its closest avatars. Man of Honor Men of Honor The fact is that this notion, for which tens of thousands of men have died in duels, and which has motivated as many heroic acts as crimes, has almost disappeared from the mentality of Western men today. It can still be found here and there, in some constituted bodies (army, police...), within some ma as or other closed male groups. But there is nothing general or obvious about it anymore. There are 2 di erent but complementary modes of honor: The horizontal honor. The vertical honor. Man of Honor Men of Honor III. Horizontal Honor. Horizontal honor can be de ned as earning the right to be respected by your peers. It is therefore the opinion formed on your behalf by a de ned group, composed of people equal to yourself. Typically, it is the respect of a soldier for his fellow soldier, of a writer for another writer, and so on. The respect we are talking about here is true respect. Not this old-fashioned and lukewarm notion according to which every human being is entitled to respect, simply because they take the trouble to exist. Whoever wants to conceive what honor is must, rst and foremost, get rid of this idea. Respect must be earned. Man of Honor Men of Honor What we owe to everyone is politeness and civilized, honest and decent behavior. Not respect. Horizontal honor either exists or it does not, but there is no middle ground: either you are respected by your peers, who consider you as one of them, or you are not. We can, here, think of the famous Masonic formula (inherited from the rituals of the Companionship): to the question "Are you a Freemason?", it is customary, at least in the rst ranks, to answer: "My brothers recognize me as such". It is the recognition of the brothers that makes the Mason, and nothing else. In many ways, horizontal honor is a way for the group to di erentiate between the outside and the inside, between them and us. Horizontal honor can be thought of as a kind of card to a very select club. To get it, you have to meet certain criteria, otherwise, you won't even be considered; as long as you have the card, you have access to the club and can enjoy the privileges reserved for members; but if the other members judge that you no longer meet the criteria or if you don't respect the rules of the club, you can lose the card at any time. And overall, it's much easier to lose the card than to get it. For horizontal honor to exist, there must be a group and an honor code. Man of Honor Men of Honor The group: Horizontal honor, as we have seen, is expressed within a group of peers, who live or try to live according to the code of honor in question. It is understood within the group that everyone adheres to the values of the honor code and that these are not likely to be questioned at any time. Adherence to the code does not need to be explicit, nor does it need to be claimed, and neither does adherence to the group: thus, you belong to your family group and will be judged according to the values of your family's code, whether you like it or not. The same goes for professional groups (no need for a professional order or an explicit code for judgments to exist), friendships, religion, associations, etc. Man of Honor Men of Honor Because honor is a question of respect, the group must be constituted of equals, without hierarchical links, so that each one can freely recognize or not recognize the virtues of the others, without risking anything or expecting any bene t from his judgment. It is also, in return, the respect you feel towards the other members of the group that gives value to the judgment they make towards you: if you despised them, it would not matter to you if they respected you or not. It is important that this group is more or less closed: membership in the group is earned, whether by co-opting other members, by admission tests or by an initiation ritual. But in any case, there can be no question of the group being open to everyone. In many ways, inclusiveness and absolute democracy are opposed to the notion of honor, which is necessarily exclusive and aristocratic (which does not mean that it concerns only the nobles, but that it is addressed to a small group of chosen ones). Strictly speaking, therefore, there is no such thing as purely individual honor: one is only honorable in the eyes of a group of peers who judge one. The solitary equivalent of honor, that is to say, what pushes one to exemplary behavior even when no one is there to witness it, is virtue, or possibly morality, and this is not exactly the same thing. Honor, on the other hand, implies the acceptance, and even the research, of the judgment of one's peers. Man of Honor Men of Honor It is a partial renunciation of one's freedom to judge one's own actions, considering that the people one esteems or sets as an example have a say in the value of what one says or does. The code: Honor depends on adherence to a code, that is, a set of rules, explicit or implicit, describing the behavior expected of a group member. These rules are nothing more than a list of what is honorable and what is not. Generally, an honor code de nes ideal behaviors that are far removed from real, everyday behaviors, and adhering to them is di cult. This is normal: if it were easy, everyone would be honorable. Man of Honor Men of Honor The code of honor is necessarily xed: it cannot be modi ed according to the situations, nor to the moods or opinions of each person. If it were not, everyone could freely declare himself honorable, by simply issuing an ad hoc code, corresponding to his actual behavior. Finally, the code of honor is necessarily more constraining than reality and the law: obeying the law or conforming to reality is not particularly honorable, it is only the common lot. Confusing civic-mindedness (which, by the way, is also a quality) with honor is a common bias, and the way some people like to adorn themselves with the laurels of honor even though they have, quite simply, been afraid of getting their ngers rapped. Man of Honor Men of Honor VI. Vertical honor: In contrast to horizontal honor, vertical honor consists in recognizing the superiority of those who deserve it, whether by virtue, ability, rank, service to the community, and so on. While horizontal honor knows no hierarchy, vertical honor is competitive: it goes not only to those who adhere to the code, but to those who excel in it. Vertical honor is derived from horizontal honor and cannot exist without it. It is the way in which the members of the group distinguish one of their own. Vertical honor can thus be seen as a form of decoration or medal, awarded by peers, that elevates one of them above the fray, like the leader of old who was lifted on the shield. But vertical honor is not just about being praised or medaled by one's peers. It also (and even more importantly) lies in having the humility and clarity of mind to distinguish and congratulate a peer who is not oneself, when that peer deserves it. Man of Honor Men of Honor And there is, in this matter, as much honor in giving as in receiving. V. Honor and violence. The privileges granted to the man of honor were motivating enough to push him to defend his honor and reputation when these were attacked, or to try to repair the dishonors caused by his own misconduct, or even that of his children or relatives. Thus, any attack on a man's honor could imply a demand for immediate reparation, and often by arms: At a time when one's reputation for courage or integrity was the absolute sesame to all one's relationships, allowing it to be tarnished was tantamount to accepting a form of social death. Taking up arms to defend your reputation proved, at the very least, your courage and your adherence to the common code of honor: it was therefore an a rmation that you were, indeed, part of the club. Man of Honor Men of Honor Integrity: There are two distinct but complementary aspects to the idea of integrity, the rst directed toward others, and the second toward oneself. Integrity turned towards others is the absence of bad intention in one's acts: the fact of acting towards others according to a code that one has set for oneself, according to the rules of courtesy or according to the common law, without seeking to cause them to harm if this harm is not made necessary by the circumstances. The man of integrity towards others is therefore a man who integrates himself into society without a priori causing it harm and who, except in exceptional cases, behaves in an honest, civic manner and with a minimum of empathy and concern for the well-being of others. Self-integrity is the desire to be true to one's inner self. The fact, therefore, of acting in accordance with the moral code that one sets for oneself, the values that one professes, and the ideas to which one adheres. It is, no more and no less, the delity to one's own person. Integrity and values: It is therefore not possible to have integrity (or even honor) until one has clearly expressed one's values and morals. How, indeed, could one be in agreement with vague principles? Man of Honor Men of Honor To be able to claim integrity, it is essential to have made the e ort to de ne one's values. And such a work is much less easy and much less obvious than one thinks before having attempted it. One can only have integrity with respect to a corpus of strict and binding moral values. The absence of such a corpus is probably the main reason why most contemporary males are ignorant of integrity and honor. Many oat in a kind of ethical vacuum, lled only with hollow, vague principles. None of these principles can constitute a value in the real and strong sense of the word. This is not to say that, however fuzzy they may be, they are meaningless. But a value is something that makes you act in a particular way. If in your daily life (or worse: in exceptional circumstances), your so-called values make no di erence to your actions, if you would act in exactly the same way whether you adhered to them or not, then these values have no real existence. And, since you have no real code of values, you can neither have integrity nor be a man of honor. Integrity in action: Our virtue-signaling age tends to make us believe that we have values when we simply profess high principles. This is not the case. Integrity requires action. Man of Honor Men of Honor Real, material, precise acts. Actions that are the material manifestation of your values. Actions that prove that you adhere to those values. And these acts must be positive acts: not just refraining from doing wrong, but actually doing something. This is precisely why the so-called values listed above are not values. For whoever claims to adhere to them is usually content, in practice, to obey the law, to go and vote for whoever they are told to vote for, to not (overly) despise their neighbors because of the color of their skin, and to not (overly) do so because of their religion either. Clearly: he de nes his "values" only by what he refrains from doing, and not by any real action (putting a ballot for one party or another in a ballot box once every ve years is not an action that can be called real). As if the fact of not having organized a robbery was enough to make him honest, or that never having practiced bullying was enough to make him wonderfully open and tolerant. In either case, there is no way to distinguish between this form of honesty or tolerance and pure and simple cowardice, or simply apathy. We can therefore identify a real value by the fact that it leads to precise acts. And we can identify a man of integrity by the fact that he carries out these acts. Even if these acts can sometimes be costly. Man of Honor Men of Honor Integrity and conflict: For it is the con ict between your values and your interests that de nes your integrity. There is no merit, no honor, and no particular integrity in simply doing what is most convenient. If there is, in most cases, no shame in serving one's interests, there is also no reason to boast about it. At the very least, this is not enough to de ne integrity, let alone honor, quite the contrary. One has integrity whenever, having to choose between one's interests, comfort or security and one's values, one makes the choice of values. And such a thing is di cult. Di cult because everything pushes us to the contrary: our own laziness, our cowardice, the di culties that the act itself can represent, and especially the absence of any reward other than moral to our act. It must be said that we are used to medals, congratulations, pats on the shoulder, and kind looks. Many of our so-called moral acts are nothing more than attempts to attract a benevolent gaze and are, in the end, virtual signaling. But it is, conversely, when we act without hope of reward, only because we consider the act in question to be moral, only because we consider that we could not act otherwise, that we nd ourselves to be truly honest. Man of Honor Men of Honor Integrity and adequacy: One could therefore de ne integrity as acting in accordance with one's own morals. But the opposite is also true: professing a morality in conformity with one's observed acts may certainly seem less noble but is also a form of integrity, or at least of honesty towards oneself (which is not so bad). It consists in wanting oneself as one is, after an important work of introspection and a rigorous examination of one's own conscience. To want oneself as the world wants us, to use a Nietzschean vocabulary. In any case, and since only actions count, it is not easy to make a real di erence between the two forms of adequacy between one's actions and one's moral code. And, as far as integrity is concerned, it matters little in the end. This di erence, qualitative rather than material, is a matter of the secrecy of consciences and another dimension of honor Another possibility remains: the one that consists, a posteriori, in justifying all our acts by claiming them to be moral, or even by inventing an ad hoc morality, capable of rationalizing the least of our actions so that we always remain the impeccable hero of our own legend. This childish attitude is one of the most e cient ways to never face one's faults or sins, and therefore never learn from one's mistakes, never grow, and never become better. Man of Honor Men of Honor In Conclusion If you want to learn how to be a man with honor you don’t have to go to war to nd out. All you have to do is to live according to your values and to speak the truth, no matter if people love what you say or judge you for your words. Sooner or later you will reach a point in your life where you have to decide whether you follow your purpose or not. An honorable man knows that changing one person’s life for the better is far more rewarding than spending his life doing things he doesn’t believe in. Once you live a ful lling life it will be relatively easy for you to change your attitude towards women. Hatred against women is always the result of insecurities. When you want to be respected and admired by others you have to meet the men and women around you with the same respect and admiration. After you have accepted the things that you can’t change and changed the things that are unacceptable for you, it is time to give something back. Set altruistic goals and you will see how ful lling and rewarding it is to be an honorable man who helps other people. Man of Honor Men of Honor Thank you for reading! This free booklet is a Dentes Leo production. For more (& better) content regarding similar topics: Join the Social Skills University Man of Honor Dentes Leo: Find me on: - Twitter - Intagram
