Perhaps off topic, but I am aware of the honor culture, which is prevalent among Celtic cultures and explains the differing ethic of the American South, especially in the Appalachian region, which was largely settled by the Scotch and Irish. It's best defined, per wiki, as "The traditional culture of the Southern United States has been called a "culture of honor", that is, a culture where people avoid intentionally offending others, and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others. A theory as to why the American South had or may have this culture is an assumed regional belief in retribution to enforce one's rights and deter predation against one’s family, home and possessions."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_United_States)

It leads to such things as the Hatfield and McCoy feud. Whether it's an ethic worth defending, I don't know, and I'm guessing it's different from the ethic you stumbled upon, but it's one near and dear to my heart.

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I assumed aspects of that culture might be part of it. Also perhaps the view that certain kinds of conduct are worthy or unworthy. I think it was Mencken who said something like "Honor is simply the morality of the superior man." He tended to refer to people as superior or inferior. One thinks of the Code Duello as well.

"Properly channeled, honor encourages virtues like courage, integrity, and solidarity, and gives a sense of living for something larger than oneself." — tim wood

Sounds somewhat like a kind of virtue ethics, then.

As I recall, the cub scout oath contains language by which the scout promises "to be square and obey the law of the Pack." Perhaps that's what it is to be honorable. I can't remember what being square is, though, nor do I recall the law of the Pack. I suppose I'll have to read about it then, alas. Honor ethics, I mean.

"Properly channeled, honor encourages virtues like courage, integrity, and solidarity, and gives a sense of living for something larger than oneself." — tim wood

I think honor is simply a call for public approval and can be for whatever a particular culture considers desirable. My experience has been historically it is bestowed for valor in war, often by those who are battling each other, and often for acts performed without patriotic reasons, and so has little to do with any particular virtue,

I never was a boy scout, and was a remarkably inept cub scout. — Ciceronianus the White

I was never a boy scout or cub scout, but I was a cub scout leader, having volunteered after no one else would. It was some years ago, but my recollection is that it involved visiting fire stations and nature centers and putting together bird houses and having parents pretend their children made the professionally crafted soapbox derby cars that would be subjected to serious competition. You could also earn belt loops and pins and stuff, which some kids took great pride in and others couldn't keep track of.

I'm not sure what it taught, but it's really important to some people and a point of great pride. My kids attended because if I had to, they had to, but they were more interested in throwing and kicking balls than in citizenship and craftsmanship.

I vaguely recall doing similar things. My family has never been particularly handy, so I remember being particularly embarrassed by my efforts at craftsmanship. I know there were badges given for achievements. Merit badges. Bear badges, badges for other animals. I was a horrible scout. My wife, on the other hand, was a fanatical girl scout and is now a fanatical girl scout leader.

It's what thieves share amongst them, and families kill their errant members over - the Mafia is very hot on honour.

Folks here are are arguing about a statue of Baden Powell, founder of the scout movement and nazi sympathiser.

I'm not sure what it taught, but [...] great pride. — Hanover

Great pride, aka honour, aka hubris.

"The traditional culture of the Southern United States has been called a "culture of honor", that is, a culture where people avoid intentionally offending others, and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others. — Hanover

As the Scots have it "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." It's how one manages things when there is no law.

There are ways to maintain an honour culture while short-circuiting its negative effects. For example, on certain islands off the west coast of Ireland, the men (probably @Hanover's distant relatives) must threaten physical violence if insulted (which apparently happens quite often). However, they short-circuit the threat by calling for their friends and relatives to "hold them back". So, there's a sort of a dance of push and pull as they take their jacket off and run for whoever has insulted their honour while they shout the magic words and are dragged away from any physical contact with their adversary just quickly enough. Eventually, they are subdued and all is well again.

So, it can work... With a bit of fiddling.

I forgot about the Mafia. Honor and respect, yes.

I thought Baden Powell was one of those "muscular christian" types. A Tom Brown's Schooldays sort that George MacDonald Fraser had such fun with in his Flashman books.

Yes muscular Christian sound about right. But Note the similarity of the Scouts and the Hitler Youth; dib dib dib sieg heil. Healthy body, and military mind.

As the Scots have it "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." It's how one manages things when there is no law. — unenlightened

But theirs was/is a society in its infancy compared to the UK.

You may want to look up this link, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour.
In connection with Kantian ethics, one may want to coin honor with its opposite, shame, as these 2 concepts govern ethical mindset and moral behavior, as I do. Very useful and strong!
God and Heaven crown the whole thing together though. But that's a different story, the religious one.

As I recall, the cub scout oath contains language by which the scout promises "to be square and obey the law of the Pack." Perhaps that's what it is to be honorable. — Ciceronianus the White

It literally has “honor” in it:

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

I can't remember what being square is — Ciceronianus the White

Being square or straight, in many languages across history, means to think or behave rightly or correctly; all these words have literal etymology connections.

But theirs was/is a society in its infancy compared to the UK. — Professor Death

Yes, sort of, but actually not quite. There's not much age difference between the cultures, but an environmental one. Scotland is wild more than agricultural, communities are small - clannish more than civic. My contention is that Honour is the morality of the jungle, as evidence by the use of jungle book stories in scouting. And particularly the wolf-pack. Loyalty to the pack means loyalty to the leader unless you directly challenge for leadership. To the civilised, it is an alien culture because it is not the morality of the civilian but of the military. The Scouts and the Hitler Youth are training grounds for a militarised society.

So one sees the virtue of an honour ethic in an uncivil time and place - the jungle, the frontier, but not - very much not - in the city, where it leads to gang wars and blood feuds. It is apparent therefore that it is attractive to the fascist mindset, that seeks to simplify and absolutise loyalties and morals, and finds the emergency of war the ideal means.

I'm not following the link you attempt to draw between the jungle and the city. It seems more a distinction between sparsely and densely populated areas, especially as it relates to isolated areas. If you live in small spread out communities separated by bonnie bonnie bens and braes, you're going to develop greater autonomy and a need for individualized protection because you don't have the defense of the group around you.

I also don't see how the culture of Germany is synonymous with the culture of Scotland and Ireland. The former suffered from a perverse sense of hyper-community, an out of control nationalism, and a rejection of anything slightly in variation of the norm. The latter strikes me as a hodgepodge of loosely affiliated people trying to eke out an existence largely clan to clan. The German government (and German people really) are a highly organized systematized unit. The Scotch-Irish not so much.

I just can't see how the ethic of the Scotch Irish could have ever led to a holocaust. One reason they couldn't arrive at such a plan is because they didn't have a peat covered hut big enough to meet in and most of the adult males were out fucking goats.

I also don't see how the culture of Germany is synonymous with the culture of Scotland and Ireland. — Hanover

Nor do I. They are completely opposed in many many ways. And that is why the result of the honour ethic is completely different. I am saying that the Scout movement was based on the Jungle-book stories, and in particular on the stories about the wolf-pack.

The Hitler Youth appropriated many of the activities of the Boy Scout movement (which was banned in 1935), including camping and hiking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth

The story I am telling is that honour ethics work on the small scale So wilderness of any kind. I could have pointed to the Beduin just as well as the Scots. It suits tribal living and isolated groups. It becomes unstable and dangerous in crowded urban environments because tribes (wolf-packs) keep coming into conflict. Urban man needs a Christian ethic, or a socialist ethic.

For your purposes, I suggest that The US has developed an honour ethic well suited to 'the Wild West, and if you believe Pirsig, heavily influenced by Native American ethics. Unfortunately it has now become a city based, civilian, civilised nation And the tribalism of the wilderness becomes the racism of urban man. I imagine that the modern version of the honour ethic is the Survivalist. When all the other tribes have killed each other, his will inherit the earth

For your purposes, I suggest that The US has developed an honour ethic well suited to 'the Wild West, and if you believe Pirsig, heavily influenced by Native American ethics. — unenlightened

Not disagreeing entirely, except that I think you paint too broad a brush when you speak of the US honor ethic. Most of my information comes from a book I read a while ago Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. A distinction is made between the South and North, and it's very evident when you look at the distinctions in ideologies of the New England states versus the southern ones and the types of laws the pass (especially as they relate to providing healthcare and other benefits). I suspect much could be written about the Scandinavian influences of the mid-west and we could likely go region by region in finding these variations.

An interesting study on this issue: http://cognitionandculture.net/wp-content/uploads/InsultAggressionAndTheSouthernCulture.pdf

This article describes an experiment where Southerners would walk down a hallway where a man stood in their way. The Southerner would give him a very wide berth and try to avoid him. The guy would bump the Southerner and the guy would call him an asshole. When compared to Northerners, the Southern guy gave a wider birth, would be more agitated, and when encountering the man for a second time on the way back, would give very little berth, and would attempt to provoke an altercation.

The Northerner wouldn't care and wouldn't remember.

Your description of the Southern honor culture as primitive or as in antiquated due to societal changes is commentary I don't agree with. I think if you have buy in by the citizens that this type of demanded autonomy is a moral virtue, it can and does work.

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. — Pfhorrest

This wasn't the oath when I was a cub scout. It's been changed. The word "honor" didn't appear. In 2015, it seems, they even dispensed with "obey the law of the Pack" which in my mind was the most charming part of the oath, whatever it may mean.

That's quite useful, thank you.

What little I've read about honor ethics and honor generally seems to me to be a form of virtue ethics, but one devoted, specifically, to what were and I'd guess are still called by some the "manly virtues."

Those would include, I'd guess: Courage, Honesty, Self-Reliance, Integrity, Fairness. I suppose chivalry would be involved; Courtesy to the weak. Knightliness, manliness.

Your description of the Southern honor culture as primitive or as in antiquated due to societal changes is commentary I don't agree with. — Hanover

Nor do I. Try and disagree with what I say rather than your guilty conscience. I did not call it primitive, and I did not call it antiquated. Your prejudice not mine.

Nor do I. Try and disagree with what I say rather than your guilty conscience. I did not call it primitive, and I did not call it antiquated. Your prejudice not mine. — unenlightened

My words didn't mean to criticize you for criticizing me. It's just the way I summarized it.

My words didn't mean to criticize you for criticizing me. It's just the way I summarized it. — Hanover

You didn't mean to put words into my mouth and then disagree with them, but that is what you did. "The way you summarised it", was prejudicial to me.

And I disagree with you that it doesn't matter and I don't deserve a retraction or apology. I realise I am disagreeing with something you haven't said, it's just the way I'm summarising it.

You didn't mean to put words into my mouth and then disagree with them, but that is what you did. "The way you summarised it", was prejudicial to me.

And I disagree with you that it doesn't matter and I don't deserve a retraction or apology. I realise I am disagreeing with something you haven't said, it's just the way I'm summarising it. — unenlightened

Oh good Lord. Whatever. I meant no harm. Bygones.

I don't mind really, but you've done it twice in this thread alone.

I also don't see how the culture of Germany is synonymous with the culture of Scotland and Ireland.
— Hanover

Nor do I. — unenlightened

It's a really bad habit.

It's a really bad habit. — unenlightened

I'll work on it. I think I'm incorrigible though.

He constantly does that to me too. Let's beat the shit out of him. Hold me back!

Hold me back! — Baden

No, I'm civilised. Beat the shit out of him.

:strong: :cheer: