HONOR - Don't leave it to the dogs and the right

True, honor occupies a greater space on the right than on the left, but it's in no way patently obvious nor ontological. Honor is an ethical and spiritual matter and it's regarded as a prerogative of the right only because the left has unfortunately given up everything about those notions for historical and ideological reasons.

There’s a place for honor as a value in the left-wing culture. I'm far left, utterly touchy about honor and I tend to understand the righties who are and to despise the lefties who aren't. If the left still knew what honor was, we would win more elections more often.

The left has no loyalty and no sense of honor whatsoever because, in a nutshell, they are apologetic self-haters who bow to the right's orders (the Democratic Party) and to the right's standards (the people who regard themselves as moderates and even as libs). If Bush says : "Get this Patriot Act going, it's for our safety, honest" - they get it going. All of them. If the Reps say : "Thank you Michael Moore, you made Bush win", they disown Michael Moore and suddenly discover that F9/11 was shit. All of them. And I could go on forever.

But if Michael Moore and a few rare others of his kind are so intensely hated, it's precisely because THEY know what honor is all about and THEY know what loyalty to America is all about. And so, when all of these losers look at them, they feel uneasy about themselves and that's what they really hate.

Loyalty to America is loyalty to the ideals of the founding fathers. This is America and there is no other. Here are two admirable texts, one about the meaning of the flag by Michael Moore, one about honoring the dead in Iraq by Cindy Sheehan :

The Patriot's Act: What's More American Than Asking Questions?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=61

Third Anniversary

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=615

True, it's not just the "left" that's abandoned "honor", it's all of civil society, and it's nothing to be proud of. True again, honor is an all or nothing type of behavior.

But nope, honor isn’t about invading Iraq. Nope, honor isn’t limited to family feuds and pistol duels. And nope, you can't abandon honor in place of law, reason and negotiation.

Honor is not an obsolete, barbaric value now fortunately replaced by more civilized ways and manners in a perspective of progress. No. I don't buy that.

Honor is a specific virtue - precious and irreplaceable. Its essence lies in the sense of the unbearable. It is questioned each time something you regard as more important than yourself is violated, endangered, transgressed, humiliated. It is questioned each time you feel challenged to ever look at yourself again in a mirror. A pistol duel is a matter of honor. But hiding a Jew in your home under the Occupation is a matter of honor too. Honor is all or nothing because there are all or nothing situations, situations which have nothing to do with law and negotiation. And when you have a sense of honor and your honor is questioned, it's war.

The ultimate aim of a war is not to kill, it's to defeat. Spiritual war is necessary, merciless and doesn't require a single drop of blood. That's why some Muslim scholars insist that the true, noble Jihad is not physical. I can see very well what they mean.

Honor happens when life becomes less than a value. Maybe a single human life is more than all values put together. But in my opinion the life of someone who is unable to die or kill for more than a series of empty evenings in front of his TV set is worth peanuts.

Honor is linked to the aristocracy, that is, the military and the clergy, while law and negotiation are related to bourgeoisie, that is, the merchants. Law and negotiation are not “better” , they are simply the tools of the new ruling class. Peace through commerce is a bourgeois utopia, that was one of Voltaire's ideals, and that is what made democracy and capitalism two sides of the same coin. This is historical. But I'm not sure - not sure at all - that the bourgeois values are “better” than the aristocracy’s. They just came after.

"... during the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honor, loyalty, etc. were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts freedom, equality, etc." — Marx and Engels, The German Ideology.

Honor and loyalty are simply not of the same nature as law and negotiation. They're not meant to respond to the same types of situations. Besides, while honor doesn't necessarily kill, law and negotiation CAN kill : death penalty is commonly accepted, and the appeasing attitude of the European democracies in 1938 proved murderous. So, regarding them as a progress is simply complying to a belief in progress, which is itself a bourgeois creed and therefore just a prevailing postulate.

A culture of law requires that people become willing to back down and refuse to immediately retaliate. But in such a culture, little is punished and not everything is punished. You also got to trust the legal system enough to accept to delegate, and to identify with it enough to think that it's competent for your case. Honor is like civil disobedience. You listen to its voice when the solutions offered by your society look untrustworthy or inefficient. Then you follow your idea of morality instead of society’s.

Clearly, murdering people whenever you feel disrespected is destructive to civilization. But if an excess of something is bad, this does not mean that its absence is good. The existence of obesity doesn't prove that starvation is good. An excess of honor can be dangerous. But what about too little honor, or none at all ? Is there anything to negotiate when you've been humiliated or betrayed ? Can you believe what people say, if they no longer use or imply the phrase "My word of honor" ? Can a culture, a civilization survive, if citizens no longer feel that honor demands that they fight – and if need be die – to defend it?

From a Christian point of view, honor is not the highest value. Not at all. Pride, personal will are major sins. But negotiation sure isn’t the highest value either. You don’t discuss God’s will, you don’t worship the Golden Calf. Period. The highest value is non-violence. Forgiveness is incompatible with honor. But so is tepidity.

But you can’t say that Jesus had no honor. You can say that he got over it. The New Testament is all about the war against the powers that be for being a worthy man – and abandoning this ontological gain on the cross.

But not before you actually gained it.