A Short Survey of Honor and Dignity
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Charles S. Herrman
I want to introduce you to the core precepts of honor and dignity. And I want to introduce you also to the problems these two concepts seem to occasion. But first I will show you how fundamental these concepts truly are by illustrating how they account for several other pairs of ideas. There are three major ones, including the principles of two ancient Greek philosophies, namely, Epicureanism and Stoicism, as well as the eighteenth century European movements of Romanticism and Classicism and finally, of today’s liberalism and conservatism. Lastly, I want to suggest how we can deal with the problems raised by honor and dignity both here and abroad.
One of the very few scholars working in this area, Orit Kamir of Israel, tells us that (with apologies for an extensive excerpt),
Whereas, for most members of honor cultures, honor is earned and maintained through careful, painful observance of a specific cultural code, many define dignity as an essential human quality obtained at birth. All persons are worthy of human dignity and/or possess it merely by being humans, it requires no action. Honor cultures are thus duty-based, whereas cultures based on human dignity are rights-oriented.
Honor entails variable status and virtue for the few honorable persons of high social rank; dignity entails invariable, fundamental virtue for all human beings. Whereas a person’s honor can easily be lost through the slightest social error, or stolen by another, many would argue that one cannot lose or be deprived of his or her human dignity under any circumstances. One may attack another’s dignity, but can never destroy – or even tarnish it. The right to dignity thus entails a prohibition on any attempt to destroy or undermine a person’s dignity – although such an attempt is inherently impossible.
Honor encourages rivalry, antagonism and sometimes aggression, whereas dignity fosters consideration and constraint. Honor, (like a commodity, a valuable possession, a trophy), can be accumulated; dignity is often portrayed as the most essential human asset, which cannot be quantified or accumulated. An honor culture, therefore, offers higher stakes and higher risks, whereas dignity secures a fundamental minimum. In this sense, whereas honor promotes ambition, dignity inspires a “minimalist” social code. Honor implies “live and let die,” whereas dignity implies “live and let live.” [i]
Kamir adds that, “comparatively viewed as potentially competing, adversary, fundamental notions, honor and dignity emerge as two antithetical bases of unique value systems.”[2] Anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu noted that “The ethos of honor is fundamentally opposed to a universal and formal morality which affirms the equality in dignity of all men.”[3] These distinctions are stated too starkly, however, as there are several areas of common ground between the two cultural types.
I should note further that the seeming implication (in the long excerpt above) that there is something wrong about the honor-based groups is not generally accurate; modern honor-based societies have much to offer the world at large, and it behooves the dignity-based peoples to recognize this. Each of the cultural types has its negatives as well as its positives. As a final correction or modification of the above excerpts, it is not true that what I will term “pragmatic” dignity – the practical, worldly dignity of everyday life – cannot be gained or lost. Criminality presupposes a loss in pragmatic dignity, for which jail is a public response; but no crime, however bad, can completely denude a human of inherent or “idealistic” dignity.
To this discussion I add my own notes modified from an unpublished paper:
Once you have inherent, or “idealistic” dignity, you have it for life. Honor must be maintained, but not dignity. One can lose all honor; one can never lose all dignity. Honor is “loud”, onlookers originally celebrating a good deed for the benefit of the group or society; in some cultures those with the greatest degrees of honor can, but only when holding the “bragging cup”, sing the praises of their own feats. Too much of a good thing harms pragmatic dignity, giving it a bad outward impression. “Pragmatic” dignity is by and large quiet, cool and sober. This dignity can be said to be the backbone of honor, whereas honor is the face of dignity. Honor is characteristically earned through public esteem; but pragmatic dignity arises from the silent praise of others and from the self, in witnessing an efficient and effective use of one’s abilities in achieving acceptable goals.
Honor-based cultures make up approximately ninety percent of the present world population. They include all archaic and indigenous societies as well as all nation-states except for those of ancient Rome and, later, England and all of her former colonies along with Western Europe.
* * *
The French philosopher Pierre Hadot mused as follows: “Here at the end of the [twentieth] century – and no one is more surprised at this than myself – we are witnessing an increasing interest in these two philosophies [namely, Stoicism and Epicureanism] on the part of the reading public. This is a remarkable phenomenon, hard to explain.”[4]
Well, with twenty-twenty hindsight we can perhaps explain Hadot’s surprise. What he observed was evidence of a very modern phenomenon that has ancient roots. It is the modern expression of a longstanding cultural reality. Since my chief interest is with cultural philosophy, I have taken a keen interest in this phenomenon for the past fifty years. To state the matter perhaps too briefly, the phenomenon is the role of dignity and honor in forming the cultures of modern societies.
To step back again, Stoicism elaborates the principles of dignity, just as Epicureanism speaks to honor-based norms. But how do we identify honor-based and dignity-based traits? I’ll start with pragmatic dignity. Its nearest synonym is doubtless “gravitas”, conveying authority and inspiring trust, a degree of seriousness along with authenticity and adaptability, a balance between weight and levity, and a mien that tends to be quiet and contemplative. Think of some celebrated Amerindian chiefs (for example, Chief Joseph [Nez Perce], Tecumseh [Shawnee], Sitting Bull [Lakota], Red Cloud [Oglala Lakota], or Cochise [Apache]).
Basically, all Amerindian tribes were honor-based. Should these chiefs be labelled dignity-based? Yes. Despite coming from thoroughgoing honor-based societies? Yes again. Every person and culture is a mixture of terms characterizing honor-based and dignity-based traits. But for each instance there tends to be a drift of traits leading one of the two possibilities to assume dominance. Those particular chiefs were full of pragmatic dignity in otherwise very honor-based societies. Which is to say that they are honor-based as members of their respective societies, but dignity-based as individuals aside from that.
It is hardly uncommon to see occasional oddities. For example, the Southeastern states are often considered honor-based, yet they are all living in the United States, a nominally dignity-based country. Are they both at one and the same time? Yes indeed. In fact, the ideal personality is a fair admixture of the two types of traits. In terms of its classification, the United States would be a mixed intermediate dignity-based society – mixed due to the presence of relatively independent areas of the cultural types, and intermediate in terms of “loudness”, whether of voice, tone and/or conduct.[5]
Now in addition to pragmatic dignity there is also the so-called “ideal” of dignity, which has a comparatively recent appearance. In the eighteenth century Enlightenment period, so called because intellectual life was let loose to review and comment on the world, the philosopher Immanuel Kant declared aude sapere – dare to think! Do not suffer yourselves to bow down to authoritarian figures who tell you what you can think and say, and what you can’t. Kant’s message included the dictum that dignity entails the respect we owe to every other person in this world. We are all born with inherent dignity which no one can entirely erase. We are without price, and exist as ends in ourselves.
The principles of idealistic dignity are transcendental; that is, they are known and accepted as a priori, true without need of explanation. There are four cardinal principles: 1) dignity is inviolate (the first sentences of the German constitution contain those very words); 2) dignity is the origin of human rights; 3) dignity is pragmatic (rights have limits defined pragmatically – e.g., housing is in theory a human right, but pragmatic dignity recognizes that any modern society – excepting the ideal communist states – can broach that ideal only at a distance), and 4) dignity – idealistic and pragmatic – sponsors compromise and aids in turning enemies into potential or actual friends.
Honor is known through the office which it supports, and the office is known as a platform for the exercise of authority, known in turn by the fear, compulsion or regard which it may instill. Themistocles, the Greek war hero of Athens, was given a de facto office. He didn’t “win” it and nobody had to nominate him. He simply knew that he had been gifted an office which he was expected to represent, in and out of military affairs. Unfortunately, he was accused of finagling with the Persians, and the Greek population voted on shards that he should be taken from his office and forced into a ten year banishment in an action called “ostracism”. He had tarnished the office and the people that the office was intended to serve – the very people who signed off on the banishment.
Today, sports heroes feel the obligation to represent their status through good deeds, evidence of that very same office that the Greeks knew so well. When they violate their official expectations the public weighs in and the player is dealt with by his sport’s association, the modern equivalent of ostracism. Needless to say, that is an honor-based punishment. Most archaic honor-based punishments are, if not banishment for a period of time, accomplished via restorative justice, to reform the perpetrator and return him to society in a meaningful role. It is primarily the dignity-based (the cult of dignity, that is, of either of the two cultures)[6] who have exacted serious punitive punishments for some of the lightest crimes. As another exception to expectation, China retains capital punishment. It is otherwise comparatively rare in honor-based groups. Here, the dignity-based might better follow the restorative example of the honor-based.
As I mentioned, the Stoic view of the world equates roughly to the dignity-based view. Every man is a citizen of the world. All men are due the respect we would accord to one’s friends. The Stoic is of a more serious mien, aware of his duties and offices at all times. He is rational, as or more rational than the romantics accused the Enlightenment folks of being. For him the object is, according to Pierre Hadot, “to act in a programmed, rational manner…as a part of the whole formed by the city of those beings which share in reason.”[7] The Stoic acknowledges the importance of being an active member in the community. These are some few of the many traits of dignity.
The Epicurean view of things is based on avoidance of what is bad or hurtful, and recognizing the pleasure of delving into the mysteries of the universe. The Epicurean values family above all else and avoids politics, unlike the Stoics. Also, unlike most Stoics, the (modern)[8] Epicurean father will hide his thieving child from the authorities. The (modern) Stoic person gives the benefit of the doubt to the authorities provided from the public. The Epicurean values community rather than the Stoic tendency (of modern times) towards individualism. The Epicurean is fun-loving and engages with his fellows regularly. He is a traditionalist in most matters, whereas the (modern) Stoic person might acknowledge the value of progress and of science. The Epicurean traits are indeed honor-based traits. Despite the overriding difference in the world’s preferences, the dignity-based, comprising but ten percent of the world population, have been the most progressive, successful and powerful, though the honor-based groups are growing in strength, as witness the comparative progress of Iran, Russia and China over the last century.
Here I’d like to explain a few more characteristic traits from both cultures. Dignity-based peoples will air their dirty laundry, where honor-based peoples would never hear of such a thing. The dignity-based rationale is the feeling that people are owed full transparency from those that govern. If you can show dirty laundry, you can expose your malfeasance. Honor-based peoples are realistic, almost hyper-realistic, whereas dignity-based peoples are idealistic. Honor-based peoples do not fear death in the same way dignity-based do; they tend to be calmer and more fatalistic about terminal matters.
Most honor-based societies believe that able-bodied people must work; psychiatric conditions are often treated as character disorders and people who can’t work, while not expunged, are sidelined with the bare essentials or taken care of by their families. Honor-based peoples are generally more family oriented and many relatives frequently live together, whereas in dignity-based societies people are presumed through middle-age to be able to get along by themselves, and in retirement with social security.
Most honor-based peoples favor individuality over individualism;[9] they are more artistic, pay more attention to the aesthetic aspects of life, and are also more nature-loving. Too many dignity-based people treat art as somehow mysterious and difficult to understand. Self-made honor-based people are justly proud of themselves. In dignity-based cultures most bright, engaged people are expected to be self-made and to be proud is to be a touch arrogant. Finally, modern honor-based cultures are the most likely to have endemic corruption and to display xenophobia.
Also, there are three buzz words that seem to capture the flavor of the respective cultures. The honor-based feel a special kinship with respect, trust and earned worth, while the dignity-based peoples favor faith, acceptance and inherent worth. One might almost refer to some honor-based peoples as “respect-based”. It isn’t that each culture fails to utilize and praise the words of the other groups; rather it is simply that they are granted far more favor in one cultural milieu than the other. Owing to idealistic dignity, its cultural type values acceptance on the faith that inherent worth is likewise prized. The other culture would say that earned worth makes for respect, which in turn makes for trustworthiness. Hadot mentions that “tension” characterized the Stoics, whereas “relaxation” characterized the Epicureans. So do they also represent dignity and honor respectively – as they are currently in evidence.
* * *
It comes as no surprise that the Epicureans and Stoics were constantly at loggerheads with one another. But each group began at roughly the same dates and each lasted roughly six hundred years (ca. 300 BCE to 300 CE). So despite their evident differences, the public apparently responded positively to both of them for all that time. In America, honor and dignity have illustrated fault lines, if indirectly, in the form of conservatism and liberalism. Ever since the founding of our republic individuals have tried to explain this. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and for eight years the third President of the country was also a polymath with the most varied interests, including estimating the northern and southern traits of the country.
He assessed the northern states (that have long been dignity-based and liberal) as follows: “cool, sober, laborious, persevering, independent, jealous of their own liberties, and just to those of others, interested, chicaning, superstitious and hypocritical in their religion”. As for the southern states, their people are “fiery, voluptuary, indolent, unsteady, independent, zealous for their own liberty, but trampling on those of others, generous, candid, without attachment or pretensions to any religion but that of the heart”.[10]
Nothing could be more dignity-based than being jealous of one’s own liberties while also being just to those of others. Cool and sober are also spot on. From there we could progress to rationalism, etc. Nothing could be more honor-based than generosity in the form of hospitality, or being zealous of our own liberty but trampling those of others. Today southerners manage this latter trait by attempting to legislate their religious values over the country as a whole, thus trampling over dignity-based liberties.
So the liberals are broadly dignity-based, the conservatives broadly honor-based. Lately there has even been an international movement towards the right, which is again characterized by a desire for traditional values, a generally poor view of science and technology (though there are conservative factions that do view these favorably), and a strong preference for religiosity and community values.
Honor got its start with the earliest societies; community values that would become traditional over time were a necessity given the difficulties of survival in an often hostile environment. To avoid social discord, also a real fear to these early groups, members helped one another to build houses and canoes, offered food to the poor, and joined in public festivals as a group united, often valuing themselves as superior to their neighbors. These projects, for the most part laudable in themselves, were done out of necessity by the honor-based and remain to this day only as ideals in the dignity-based groups. But they are by very many (mainly liberals) considered to be profoundly worthy ideals.
Other philosophers have mused over these very issues. The nineteenth century Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev saw matters this way: “The fundamental contradiction in my thinking about life is bound up with the juxtaposition in me of two elements – an aristocratic interpretation of personality, freedom and creativeness [honor-based], and a socialistic demand for the assertion of the dignity of every man, even of the most insignificant of men, and for a guarantee of his rights in life [dignity-based]. The contradiction is age-long [my emphasis].”[11]
I began by using two philosophies as an introduction to honor-based and dignity-based traits. There are many other equally valid comparisons, leading us to wonder if the common feature amongst them – the honor-dignity dichotomy – isn’t really at the bottom of everything we are getting at here. Consider the classicist-romantic opposition, where the classicist was declared “rationalistic” by the romantic; where the romantic demanded to see more individuality as opposed to the classicist individualism. For these cultural traits, the romantic is honor-based and the classicist dignity-based.
Speaking of which, here again is Berdyaev, who avers to “using classicism and romanticism not as aesthetic, literary categories but in a much wider sense as universal metaphysical categories which cover all phases of creativity, perception, moral life and everything.”[12] The dignity espoused by Kant and his fellow travelers, along with their rationalism, with the associated legal and scientific objectives, gave rise in the Romantic movement to a rousing contempt for them. We have in America much the same problem for many of the same reasons.
* * *
Are there any lessons to be learned? Let’s return to the Stoics and Epicureans and examine what they shared in common. Both groups favored thinking in the present moment, disregarding past and future; both favored traditional relations and the value of family and community. Both ignored unnecessary and unnatural desires, and both accepted a certain degree of fatalism. Though from the outside it looked like the groups were at loggerheads, an examination of the principal values of each belief system reveals that neither of them is “purely” this or that, but an admixture in which one of the components is stressed more than the others.
Thus Hadot tells us that, “The difference between the two attitudes consists only in the fact that the Epicurean enjoys the present moment, whereas the Stoic wills it intensely; for the one, it is a pleasure; for the other, a duty.”[13] Counterintuitively, it is the honor-based which sees matters as of duty, and it is the dignity-based which, no longer having to fight for existence against the forces of nature, has the time and disposition for taking leisure and pleasure. It may be that it is because these two systems split the difference between honor-based and dignity-based traits that they each enjoyed success through six centuries despite their outward contradictions.
Even the exemplars of the two systems reveal something quite interesting. Epicurus and Epictetus each had a serene mixture of traits, some of one’s own belief system, some from the other. In the romantic-classical disputations the same phenomenon appeared: the polymath Goethe and later the historian and hermeneutic scholar Wilhelm Dilthey each held views from both sides and each fared quite well. In the problem limited strictly to honor and dignity, again there are examples. Berdyaev mixed and matched traits and developed a fine philosophical system despite integrating them. The British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead did likewise.[14]
An effort to study and even attend to some traits of the opposing culture brings benefits. Americans could stand a little more tendency to dancing and frivolity, to gamesmanship, integration with one’s community, practical jokes and punning, a relaxed view regarding death, the elimination the death penalty, fighting fire with fire in some instances, and a reputation for hospitality and generosity with a reliance on the value of one’s word. Many honor-based cultures could stand a little less acquaintance with authoritarian rule and a little more respect for the rule of law, as well as a patient acceptance of human rights, all of them (such does not generally apply to current indigenous groups). Hadot called this give and take “contamination”, “the process according to which paganism or Christianity were lead [sic] to adopt the ideas or the behaviors characteristic of their adversary.”[15]
It has been demonstrated time and time again that merely sitting down with the other camp and talking things out against the backdrop of a sincere promise to keep things calm and cheerful leaves each member thinking better of the other. Many dining establishments rely on long tables where you are prompted to meet and greet others on a casual and friendly basis. This is seen in many honor-based establishments and also those dignity-based which have a hankering to expand their cultural horizons. It is a working strategy that both groups can make use of. If the topic is about rights, the liberal view is headstrong in this direction, which can be a help or hindrance but everyone can discuss it in calm and reflective terms. For we all value our dearest rights in common even if some groups don’t like calling them “rights”. As Kamir stated above, honor-based societies have been known as “duty” cultures whereas dignity-based groups are known as “rights” cultures.
Internationally, the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Palestinian-Israeli war illustrate the honor versus dignity dichotomy. Russia and the Palestinians are honor-based and the other two are dignity-based. While the dignity-based might well cater to the adage that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, honor-based peoples live by a very different motto: being held in contempt is to ask for the strongest possible response. Back when Israel’s Sharon walked over the Temple Mount I had a blog of sorts. That very day I announced the advent of the Second Intifada. I saw the contempt which Sharon poured on the Palestinian people, and felt it in my bones as well. I just knew this was going to provoke a warlike response. In two books former President Carter excoriated the Israelis for practicing apartheid. Coming from a devout Christian, that’s saying something.[16]
While Israel is nominally dignity-based for having a democracy and assured rights (reflecting idealistic dignity), it doesn’t always look very good at the pragmatic dignity level. At that level this country is a “cult of dignity” (the same entity I mentioned earlier without further explanation), indicating a condition where the in-group (or powerful group) considers it’s dignity to be better and greater than that of the out-groups. This is certainly true of the relation of Israel to the Palestinians. A saying has been popular among some Israelis that each of them is worth a thousand Palestinians. This not only degrades pragmatic dignity, it suggests contempt into the bargain.
Pure contempt can be described in a vignette: one day decades ago I walked into a Denny’s restaurant and sat down at the only remaining seat at the counter. To my left sat a taciturn young man who struck me as of Mediterranean extraction. What most occupied my attention, however, was the inch-long fingernail on his right pinkie. Try to think just what is involved in keeping a very thin one inch nail from breaking! I asked him, Sir, will you take off the fingernail once you have shoved Israel into the Mediterranean? Indeed, I was taking something of a gamble, but actually it only made good sense to one who understands culture. He replied, suddenly excited, Yes! he said, How could you…know? I replied, Well, I know the meaning of contempt to a Palestinian. He shook my hand and we were friends. Just like that. He had been in an Israeli prison. Clearly he understood contempt.
And when the October seventh attack of Hamas on Israel took place I predicted a war and the result that Israel would attempt to take advantage of the resulting ruination and preclude the capacity of anything or anybody to resurrect their countless homes and businesses, whereat the conservatives would get their way of ridding themselves of the Palestinians once and for all (and Trump could through its ownership be the mainstay in rebuilding Gaza – not part of my prediction but one which, knowing Trump, makes perfect sense). As per the last sentence, this from an Israeli cabinet minister: “God has sent us the U.S. administration, and it is clearly telling us—it's time to inherit the land.”[17] Trump’s bright idea was very possibly the brain child of Netanyahu and/or his right-wingers.
The contempt of some Israeli conservatives for the Palestinians knows no bounds, and the Palestinians are vitally aware of the fact. Owing to the war they will doubtless have no say in what becomes of them. A normative solution will be to erect tent cities for the Palestinians while their country is gradually rebuilt. Israel, along with foreign aid, will be responsible for this action. Foreign aid will also have to be sufficient to reconstruct Gaza. A two-state solution should be finalized. Hopefully the war will have convinced Palestinians to change the leadership of their political parties away from fighters and toward peacemakers.
Honor-based Russia has many interests in Ukraine. Putin’s rationale is in part political, in part economic and in part cultural. Dignity-based (though with several honor-based traits), Ukraine’s self-defense goes to the political make-up of their country, in which self-determination ranks among the supreme principles. It is distinctly dignity-based, and the European and American response has been largely based on the same principle. To be clear, it is one of the top four indicants of a dignity-based moiety (the others are freedom of conscience, associated with rights of speech, assembly and religion; the rule of law, and voting rights).
One solution is to offer Russia the lands they presently hold, something on the order of twenty percent of the country. It need not be based on a referendum. The capital city of Kyiv can be designated an international city with a Russian co-sovereignty. Ukraine receives assurances of security from any of Russia’s possible future plans for re-invasion, which would logically entail NATO membership, though there are many who will object to this. Russia wants a country-wide election overseen by Putin. This is manifestly an overt attempt to do in reverse what the U.S. did covertly in 2014. The difference is that the 2014 election was reasonably fair and did represent the wishes of a strong constituency never mind the U.S. was admittedly meddling. A country-wide election (under Putin’s supervision) is not the way out of this problem. Ukraine will have sacrificed tens of thousands of lives for nothing if that be the case. Recall that honor-based cultures exhibit a tendency toward authoritarian governance, and dignity-based towards democratic rule.
Russia will have to learn that the rationale for NATO is based primarily on her own past aggressions concerning which she has not given reason to suggest a change of attitude in the interim decades, as recently reflected in the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the political takeover of Georgia. It is based as well on Lenin’s objective to win over the world to communism, by whatever means available. Russia has never cared for the international legal order, and NATO is the result. Significantly, the very notion of an international legal order is dignity-based. The U.S. is no angel, but her spells of bad behavior are mainly in the past (with the exception of the 2003 Iraq war) and her present foibles are no worse than Russia’s.[18]
* * *
I would like to say a word about the facts and theories responsible for the labelling of the two cultural types. In the honor-based world, it is idealized that every member possesses the capability of obtaining honor, and of conducting oneself with some degree of pragmatic dignity. There is no settled criterion marking the society as honor-based; the label is based on behavioral observations, many of which I have highlighted above (many more, however, have been left out for reasons of space).
These particular behaviors are found to be especially common among the honor-based, and less common in the dignity-based societies. They are also more than probably the various expressions of regard paid to honor, respect, trust and earned worth – and these are not uncommonly found in colloquial communication as well as formal oratory – as opposed to their lesser occurrence in dignity-based societies.
Honor-based societies as a whole reflect honor on formal occasions with words like peace (or war in some historical instances) justice and compassion. If they know of the word dignity they may mention it often as well. There are usually no instruments to indicate the relevance of these words besides the use of custom. These three additional words will with regularity represent the entire society.[19]
The dignity-based acceptance applies mainly to humankind and refers in particular to the tolerance extended to foreigners. Faith is found, for example, aback the innocence presumed of those charged with wrongs, and of the gift of second chances. Inherent worth is the founding concept for the other two. These are known more by their reflection in practice rather than in colloquial conversation.
Dignity-based societies utilize what until the Enlightenment period was rare indeed: legal instruments directing the respect of a bevy of rights owed to all members at birth and never to be denied. Rome and Early England (in the West) may have been alone when investing in the “rights of social membership” prior to the Enlightenment. (Greece was tending in that direction). In addition to these, they all possess a legal system which also guarantees a bevy of “civil” rights of which “due process” sums up many of them. Habeas corpus and the epithet “innocent until proven guilty” reflect this legal foundation. These are nations which have walked the walk and talked the talk in recognizing human rights. This manifestation of an approach to idealized dignity is the warrant for their dignity-based label.
Modern dignity-based societies broadly succeed at delivering these rights though not without infrequent disasters. The accused found guilty are occasionally later declared innocent. Speedy trials are too often a sad and bad joke. The wealthy occasionally manage to buy their acquittals, or so it seems. But there exist honor-based nations that manage far and away worse. Fortunately they are among a minority.
Thus the people of these dignity-based societies are not always bonified reflections of these exemplars. In fact, some traditional societies might have the edge in the category of pragmatic dignity. Some even have the edge in the founding philosophy of their criminal justice – they tend to rely on restorative methods of punishment. Dignity-based societies are punitive by comparison. They, the honor-based, particularly the indigenous, generally see people as sufficiently good as to revert their attitudes in order to rejoin society on terms ante juris-dictionis (before judicial proceedings).
Within the workaday world there are institutions which tell us something more about the occurrences of honor and dignity. These are the countless offices, from the ad hoc (personal offices of friendship, endeavor or altruism), the governmental, the civil, the military, the professional, and the trades. In all of these offices dignity resides in the title, and honor in the office-holder. This applies regardless the cultural type. With the exception of those who use their offices for corrupt purposes, most societies offer respect to all of these offices – generally speaking (again, there are exceptions mainly in the honor-based world, for example Russia and China). In the vast majority of these offices, therefore, honor is almost literally the face of dignity, while dignity is the backbone of honor.[20]
* * *
In summation, looking throughout most of world history, but especially since the Enlightenment, we have ample reason to commit ourselves to a study of two cultures, the honor-based and the dignity-based. Appreciation of this reality is the first step in learning how to deal with it. Each of these cultures has both negatives and positives, and it were the better part of wisdom for each to respect the other’s value system and to work together for an improved quality in mutual understanding.[21]
I would be remiss if I did not confront what may well be a common response of honor-based peoples to this overview. These groups are nearly always justifiably proud, but some are to an extent thin-skinned about their nations’ reputations. I do not claim, for example, that any one trait applies to everyone in a given group; traits are selected as such because pointing to a commonly observed characteristic. My attempt here has I hope been one of fairness and above all, of honesty. What Kamir has to say about certain honor-based groups[22] simply does not apply across the board. For example, most honor-based societies are anything but quarrelsome, antagonistic or aggressive. I believe sincerely that I have served the interests of reconciliation and comity rather than inadvertently stoking further division. The reader will, I hope, decide accordingly.
Finally, there are always those who are just positive that a (white) independent scholar has no business explicating peoples of whom he supposedly knows little or nothing of value about the foundations and motivators of their cultures. It is widely considered arrogant, a truly severe indictment in their world. As for me, I worked my way through hundreds of monographs and journal articles, each written by a professional anthropologist, each studying a particular ‘traditional’ or indigenous culture. I studied peoples from every clime and continent.
I would scarcely compare myself with Ruth Benedict, originator of the shame-guilt culture thesis, but I can record here her own experience with Japan, a country she had never visited prior to or during the period that she wrote a book that began as, and remained, a classic: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1946). She did ‘library research’ after being approached by the U. S. military to provide a sourcebook from which the brass might predict the behavior of Japanese soldiers during WWII.
Provided he or she meets the rigors of the academic crowd, the independent scholar is as good as most anybody else for the task which I appropriated while in school fifty years ago and continue to write about today and will throughout the future. My paper “The Classification of Honor-Based Societies” was cited by Marjorie Balzer, editor of the journal Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia 58:3, 117-122. I am currently a senior research fellow with the American Institute for Philosophical and Cultural Thought.
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Institute for Philosophical and Cultural Thought, where I am a senior research fellow.
Notes
[i] Kamir, Orit (2006). Honor and Dignity in the Film Unforgiven: Implications for Sociolegal Theory. Law & Society Review, 40. 193-233, 203-4.
[2] Ibid, 194.
[3] Pierre Bourdieu, “The Sentiment of Honor in Kabyle Society”, in J.G. Peristiany, ed., Honor and Shame: the Values of Mediterranean Society, 193-241 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1966), 228.
[4] Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Michael Chase (Malden MA: Blackwell, 1995), 281.
[5] A Japanese blogger once referred to the American people as “loud” in vocalization, in tone and in activity. See Maki (Blogger). (2009). Americans are Big and Loud. Blog, Hungry for Words: Mostly Japanese. http://maki.typepad.com/justhungry/2009/03/americans-are-big-and-loud-.html Accessed 2/19/2025.
[6] In theory, the properly conducted office is actually a “cult of honor” (in either cultural type though it got its start in the honor-based groups), the best that the culture can reach for. But such cults ultimately (or at least typically) degrade to dignity cults. The chieftainship was an early office, as was also that of the shaman. Cults of dignity are not uncommon in honor-based societies, and represent far greater influence in the dignity-based countries than most are wont to recognize.
[7] Hadot, Philosophy, 283.
[8] What I mean by speaking of a “modern” Epicurean or Stoic is the reaction they would likely have to modernity based on their ancient principles.
[9] Individuality, to the romantics, suggests personal inner character and talents – one’s “genius”. Individualism suggests, for example, the excessive resort to the individual self where collaborating may have been more productive. The individual, when acting as if an island unto itself, engages in individualism.
[10] Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Letter to Chastellux, 2 Sept 1785.” In The Portable Thomas Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson. (New York: The Viking Press, 1975). 387.
[11] See my podcast “Berdyaev and Whitehead: Toward a Personalist Collectivity without Loss or Excess of Individuality”.
Original citation is: Nikolai Berdyaev, Slavery and Freedom, trans. R. M. French (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944), 9.
[12] Ibid. Original citation is: Nicolas Berdyaev, The Meaning of the Creative Act, trans. Donald A. Lowrie (San Rafael, CA: Semantron Press, 2008 [1916]), 120.
[13] Hadot, Philosophy, 230.
[14] See Charles Herrman, Berdyaev and Whitehead.
[15] Hadot, Philosophy, 4.
[16] Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009).
[17] Bret Wilkins, “Israeli Cabinet Minister: ‘Only Solution for the Gaza Strip Is to Empty It of Gazans’,” 11 Mar 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/news/idit-silman?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=e6591a1634-Top+News%3A+Tues.+3%2F11%2F25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3b949b3e19-600256079.
[18] This is not to be interpreted as a criticism of the Russian people or of Russia’s economic system, aspects of which are praiseworthy, with the exception of oligarchic elements and the current autocratic governance with its reliance on a virtual police state.
[19] For an example, see C. S. Herrman, “A New Cultural Binary Assessed through Content Analysis”, SSRN, 24 Feb 2010. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1557835.
[20] When offices are young they meet the stiffest stewardship principles. As mentioned above, I call them ‘cults of honor’. For this sector of society see my “The Cult of Honor”, Global Journals Human and Social Sciences (C), 17 (1) (2017): 1-21. https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume17/E-Journal_GJHSS_(C)_Vol_17_Issue_1.pdf.
[21] Unfortunately, the communist countries (chiefly China and Russia) may well reject such efforts or give them lip service while bracing for war. Against this the U.S. probably has little choice but to follow suit. There are times when the dignity-based must of necessity take hold of an honor-based habit, namely, of fighting fire with fire and utilizing whatever works, no matter how awful (the dignity-based countries will, however, generally disavow chemical or nuclear warfare unless compelled to relent). As Wilhelm Dilthey once opined, efforts at compromise and understanding often fail where war is the backdrop. Still, they are worth a chance. Otherwise we could not honestly say we had done everything in our power to prevent war.
[22] My belief is that she had in mind several of the near-eastern countries and to an extent the southern Mediterranean area in general.