Honor And Shame

Once upon a time, our nation was quite familiar with the notions of honor and shame. Any nation must be if it is to survive and grow. Societies cannot develop without such concepts, nor can established civilizations do anything but fall once they have abandoned them. Honor is a necessary foundation to any successful communal undertaking, for there can be no trust without an implied understanding of honor. In valuing the idea of honor, we are recognizing ideas and interests beyond the selfish and self-serving. When we strive to become honorable, we must necessarily view our actions not only through our own eyes and own interests, but through the eyes of society itself. We see ourselves as others see us, try to make ourselves—our true selves--worthy of the admiration of others. To have a sense of honor is to have a deep regard for the opinions of others, a respect for universal and timeless values.

We cannot be forced to act honorably, but if we fail to do so, we shall inevitably be reminded of shame. Shame is an awareness that others see you as you are and do not like what they see. It is a reminder that you have failed to live up to a common code of decency, that you are not to be trusted. There is certainly a negative aspect of shame, one that can be used by bullies and abusers to denigrate and subject others to their will—but shame is also a natural consequence of poor behavior towards others. Shame has its place in that it teaches us to avoid treating others as we would not like to be treated.

Honor is taught by example, is taught best by those who would take on the burden of leadership. Shame is a result of hubris, the fate of those who sought to be more than they were or else presumed to partake of honors they did not earn. There can be no honor without the risk of shame, can be no shame where we no longer strive for honor.

There is no shame anymore, our leaders have done away with the idea. They want power without responsibility or accountability. They have no interest in being judged by their actions. Honor asks that we remember someone’s achievements and noble deeds, whereas today our leaders rely on society’s forgetfulness and ability to be distracted. It is an effective strategy so long as the public is willing to forget the notions of honor and shame.

And for the most part, voters and citizens have no interest in the honor of those they vote for, more concerned are they with their hatred for those they vote against. Like their leaders, they are so intent on the struggle for power they have abandoned the very principles that are worth fighting for.

So today we have politicians who engage in the most shameful behavior and, when caught, prefer spin to accountability. Let us for a moment consider the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee. You cannot vote for a war based on lies and expect to keep you honor intact. People died. Many thousands of real people died because of what was deemed politically expedient. As far as moral crimes go, that has to rank right up there. There has to be consequences for the actions of politicians or they will begin to feel unaccountable. Democracy cannot exist when its elected leaders feel unaccountable.

I can understand why people decided to vote against an establishment candidate for president, one who had demonstrated a complete disinterest in accepting responsibility for her actions. They wanted to view the United States as an honorable nation. What I can’t understand is why so many of them voted for a man who is incapable of understanding concepts like honor or shame. Honor would have led him to fulfill his military duties, shame would have prevented him from using heel spurs as an excuse. There has never been an instance where Donald Trump has exhibited the slightest degree of honor or shame or even an understanding of what such things mean. If I am wrong on this, please cite me an example. Pride, yes. Vanity and egotism, yes. God help us all if we as a nation cannot distinguish vanity from honor. Or just don’t care.

If our leaders are incapable of grasping the values of honor and shame, it is up to us to remind them. Otherwise we will be led—no, we in fact are led—by people with no honor, and no capacity for shame. Each and every one of us are to blame for that. It is our honor as human beings, as citizens in a democracy, and as Americans, that is on the line. It is our shame if we permit it to continue. The rest of the world is watching, even though we and our media have chosen to keep us ignorant of outside opinions.

In a society whose leaders have no honor, there are still those who seek to gain honor themselves by performing their functions faithfully. There are men and women willing to serve and to give even their lives in that service. But there is no honor to be gained by serving an unjust cause or an unjust leader. How can you honorably serve those who have no honor of their own? And if you serve for honor itself, then it is empty honor: it stands for nothing. It is vanity. No, there is no honor in serving an ignoble cause.

We have forgotten the very idea of democracy. We are constantly lectured about our freedoms, mostly because the powerful and wealthy use the concept of freedom as a way of acquiring more power and wealth. It is a selfish and twisted sense of freedom, a freedom that can never be held by the many but only by the few. Nevertheless, it is the narrative spun by the propaganda machines who wish to make you believe yourselves to be nothing more than passive consumers in a society that is about nothing more than selfish acquisition.

But democracy in its essence is not about freedom but about participation. It is the idea that all of us have a say in our government and a responsibility for the way it operates. As those who want to send others to die for wars that have nothing to do with freedom so often remind us, freedom is not free. Democracy is not the right to behave like unattended children but the tool by which we may act as unsupervised adults. It is only in the service of others that we gain honor, it is only in selfish action that we accumulate shame.

Democracy is in a very real sense dependent not so much on our leaders but upon its citizens. No power can strip democracy from us, we can only lose it through an inattentiveness to our own best interests. Democracy exists to a degree in all societies, is strongest when the citizenry is most willing to claim its role in the political process.

And we can best do this by applying the values of honor and shame to our political representatives. They have no desire to be held accountable to such standards, and will twist and turn in order to avoid being fit into such constraints. Those without honor will seek to sully the earned honor of others. Those without honor will seek to sully the very notion of honor itself. Those without honor will seek to change the conversation from honor to seemingly more practical or pressing issues. It is up to us, only us, to demand better of those who would exercise authority.

It is up to us as citizens to raise the bar once again, to honor ourselves, our fellow citizens, and our nation enough to demand honor of our elected officials. If we cannot respect ourselves, our politicians never will, either. We have to ask more of ourselves if we ever want more from those who we choose to represent us. And the way to do that is to remember such values as honor and shame, values our leaders would rather we just forget.