Source of book: Borrowed from the library
“As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have
its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
popular.” ~ Oscar Wilde
***
One of the most bizarre phenomena of the Obama presidency
(2008-2016, for those of you not immersed in US politics…) was the horrified
pearl clutching about thoughtful ideas that didn’t seem particularly partisan.
Basically, President Obama would mention some respected (and often centrist)
academic sort whose ideas had influenced him, and suddenly, that innocent
person would be branded as the next coming of Stalin, and his or her ideas
spoken of the way one tends to speak of human sacrifice or cannibalism.
Probably the most famous, of course, is Senator Elizabeth
Warren (before she entered politics), for suggesting ideas - and detailed plans
supported by evidence - which would have been uncontroversial to, say, Horace
Greeley, Theodore Roosevelt, JFK, or FDR.
Or, for those of us with a legal background, the first we
noticed was probably Cass Sunstein. Who is, if anything, center right (at least
by 1980s standards) and not even in the same zip code as a communist.
[Side note here on Sunstein: Why
Societies Need Dissent made my
list of most influential books - for good reason. Both the modern American
Right Wing and white Evangelicalism have purged those who refuse to bow down
and worship the political dogma, and have thus become increasingly extreme and
f-ing crazy over the last few decades - and Sunstein explains why. Likewise, Nudge
is a powerful look at some ways to work for the common good through incentives
and default settings, rather than regulation - a conservative approach for
sure. And Constitutional
Personae is a fun exploration of judicial styles and the US Supreme
Court. Seriously, unless you are a blind ideologue, Sunstein is a delight to
read - but Obama liked him, so he has to be evil, right?]
Another unfortunate victim of the “everything Obama likes is
evil” thing was Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Appiah was born in London to
a British mother and Kenyan father, but was raised in Kenya. He has
taught at such august institutions as Cornell, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. He currently teaches at NYU. As far as I can
tell, his philosophical and political leanings are what most would characterize
as somewhere between center-right and centrist - at least by more global and
historical standards. (It is weird to have to point it out, but the current
American Right is actually radically reactionary and nativist, not
traditionally conservative in any recognizable way, so I use the alignment that
makes sense for most of the 20th Century, not the present.) I would say Appiah
would be recognizable to the likes of de Toqueville and Burke as being in the
generally conservative tradition, with a bent toward “liberalism” in the sense
of human rights.
The Honor Code is
a fascinating book. Appiah’s basic premise is that human society throughout
history and geography, has tended to be governed more by “honor” than morality
in the abstract sense. We care more about our reputation, so to speak, than our
actual goodness. Christ put his finger on this a bit with the idea of “washing
the outside of the cup.” We care about looking
good more than we care about being
good.
But this perhaps doesn’t quite capture the idea of honor. It
is hard to describe something this abstract in words - and Appiah does it
better than I do. While cultures vary greatly in their concepts of what is and
is not honorable, the basic ideas transfer well. Certain actions or inactions
are honorable, and others are dishonorable. If a person who is entitled to
honor does not receive it, he (usually he…) is entitled to retaliate - often
violently. Someone who adheres to the code of honorable conduct gets honor,
while he or she who fails to do so is dishonorable, and thus loses honor.
As Appiah notes in his concluding chapter, honor isn’t good
or evil. It can be either depending on the circumstance. On the one hand, as
the book points out, honor can be a source of utterly stupid violence and
oppression. On the other, it can be a powerful counterbalance to economic and
social power. It can work to control the worship of profit (something we sure
need in our times), and it can temper the abuse of power. Honor is a tool of
human psychology (like religion, which is related), capable of good or evil.
But honor is in many cases far more powerful than the force of law - and often
operates in defiance of the law.
To explore this theme, Appiah looks at four moral issues,
past and present, where he believes that honor was or is a determinative
factor. In the first three - the historical cases - he shows how honor went
from preserving a violent injustice to being turned on its head and being used
as a powerful weapon in ending the practice.
I quoted Oscar Wilde at the top of this post - as does
Appiah. Because that is how a matter of “honor” goes from being a serious
problem to the sort of thing one laughs at. Appiah doesn’t quote Dorothy
Sayers, but I will, because I can.
“The idea that a strong man should
react to great personal and national calamities by a slight compression of the
lips and by silently throwing his cigarette into the fireplace is of very
recent origin.”
The first practice that Appiah looks at is a perfect example
of this: the duel. From the perspective of the 21st Century, the practice of
dueling seems somewhere between laughable and horrifying. Why would anyone bother? Why take the risk?
For true defamation, file a lawsuit, and for the rest, just laugh, right? But
it was not always so.
Appiah points out that dueling was an upper-class practice,
related to the military tradition. Well, the military tradition back when the
martial arts were limited to the upper classes. (Again, in an era when most of
our soldiers are working class, this seems bizarre.) Only a gentleman was
entitled to a duel in a case of honor: a commoner who insulted a nobleman would
just be horsewhipped. It was when dueling expanded beyond the nobility that it
became gauche. When ordinary tradesmen (who may well be wealthy, but lack
titles) and {gasp!} those vulgar Americans
started doing it, it lost its lustre.
By the mid-19th Century, dueling was on its way out, and
Evelyn Waugh could note that the response to a challenge would be derisive
laughter.
Fun additional note here: Lin-Manuel Mirada didn’t come up
with an original idea for his song in Hamilton, “The Ten Duel Commandments.” In
fact, there were multiple “codes” that governed duels, which had a number of
commandments that were supposed to apply. Miranda borrowed from these codes
(and from the late Biggie
Smalls, of course) for his song. Which is fantastic - there is zero shame
in borrowing and reimagining in art.
But where Appiah gives a profound insight is in this: duels
were roundly morally condemned - and outlawed - for literally centuries before
they died out. Wait, what? All the moralizing and even criminalizing didn’t
stop them? Nope. Because ultimately “honor” trumped all. Need some proof on the
moral side? Well, there is Shakespeare,
writing a few hundred years before dueling ceased. The two “fools” - who
can speak their mind - Touchstone and Jaques - give a hilarious riff on the
rules of the duel.
Despite all this, though, it wasn’t until the meaning of
“honor” changed that progress was made in ending the practice.
This segues into the second practice which Appiah examines: footbinding.
For those who don’t know, during over 1000 years of Chinese
history, the feet of well-born Chinese girls were bound until the bones were
broken and the feet irreparably damaged. There were a variety of reasons for
the practice. Some were aesthetic (and a bit similar to the use of high heels
for women today.) Some were sexual and fetishistic. But Appiah also notes two
connections to honor. First, because
honor is often connected to class, it was about class signaling. Working class
women didn’t have bound feet, because it made manual labor difficult to
impossible. A woman with her feet bound was a decoration, so to speak - she
didn’t have to work.
But even more than that, footbinding was a symbol of
chastity. A woman who couldn’t walk far couldn’t (theoretically) exercise
sexual self-determination. She must remain pure until marriage, and faithful
thereafter. And thus, for the upper classes, a footbound woman was “honorable,”
while an unbound woman was dishonorable - a slut.
It isn’t difficult to see why the practice persisted. Once
it because bound up with family honor, that consideration would overrule law
and morality. The moral arguments against the practice were made for literally
hundreds of years. And various rulers attempted to outlaw it. Again, Appiah
shows that, while moral arguments and legal restrictions were part of the
process of change, what really made the difference is when China started
caring about the opinion of the rest of the world. Once footbinding was seen as
a national shame, it ceased to be “honorable.” And this ended it.
The third section is on the transatlantic slave trade. This
should not be confused with slavery itself, as the Unitied States needed a
vicious and bloody war to end slavery, and far too many today are still not happy about the outcome -
that’s how you get a white supremacist elected to the presidency. Appiah
focuses instead on England -
because England
abolished the slave trade by legislation decades before the American Civil War.
Appiah points out once again that there were abundant moral
arguments against slavery and that these were made continuously for years and
years. It wasn’t until the trade triggered an honor reaction that progress was
made. In Appiah’s view - and he may be right - it was the working class Brits
who turned against slavery. Unlike in America,
where a poor white man could always say “at least I’m not a n----r,” in England, poor
whites were at the bottom of the heap. Visionaries like Wilberforce hit on a
successful strategy by showing that slavery meant that manual labor was treated
as dishonorable, and that by permitting slavery, working people were being
dishonored as well.
The other successful tactic - and one that I have been using
for the last few years - was to point out that England’s reputation as a so-called
“Christian nation” was undermined by its thoroughly unchristian actions. We
need that more than ever - to point out to those who support family separations
and concentration camps for migrants are in fact dishonoring our country and
our faith. (Yep, I have family and acquaintances who defend this evil - and are
not happy when I point out that they are dishonoring Christ by doing so.)
The final practice addressed by Appiah is one which is more
or less ongoing: honor killings. Appaih starts off by looking at the practice
in a less familiar setting. There is nothing inherently religious about the
practice of honor killing, and it has been pretty widespread throughout rather
divergent religious cultures. So, Appiah first looks at how it was practiced in
Sicily. Who
knew, right? Well, there was a complex system of “honor” surrounding female
sexuality which required varying levels of violence to restore honor to a
family dishonored by female sex. In some cases, this meant killing, but in
others, it meant that a woman would be forced to marry her rapist - even if she
was engaged to someone else. (Hey, that is actually in the Bible, by the way -
so don’t make it an Islamic thing.)
Appiah then looks at it in the context of Pakistan, which
is the Islamic country where honor killings are the most problematic. He points
out some things which get lost in the miasma of Islamophobia that taints our
discussion of so much in our country. First, honor killings are part of a
particular culture - and have been part of that culture for hundreds of years before Mohammed was born. Second, honor
killings are and largely have been illegal in all the places they are
practiced. Third, honor killings are considered morally wrong and downright
un-Islamic by all mainstream branches of Islam. (In other words, honor killings
are like polygamy in the FLDS cult - they are not part of mainstream LDS, let
alone Protestant Christianity. Ditto for honor killings and Islam.)
So why are they still all too prevalent? Well, because of
“honor.” That idea trumps morality, the teachings of Islam, and the law itself.
Appiah makes a fantastic point about the root issue - and he
draws on a movie made about Scicilian honor culture. A character says, “It’s a
man’s right to ask and a woman’s duty to refuse.” Or, as Appiah notes,
“Self-restraint is unmanly; resistance is appropriately feminine.”
Yep, the old sexual double standard. Men are expected to be
hopeless horndogs, and women are solely responsible to stop them. And if a man
rapes her, the woman is at fault for failing to do her duty. (Or die in the
attempt.)
You might notice that this isn’t too different from
“Christian” purity culture here in America. Or too different from the
rhetoric surrounding abortion right now. That’s because it comes from the same
belief system about gender roles and female sexuality.
I mentioned them above, but want to touch on a few of
Appiah’s observations about honor. He closes the book with a look at the
positives and negatives of honor, and how it might be directed to support moral
and ethical behavior, and not its opposite.
As an attorney, I appreciate his mention of us - along with
other professionals (teachers, nurses, doctors, accountants, etc.) who are
bound by more than the law breathing down our necks. We have our codes of
honor. Sometimes, people misunderstand that (particularly those who don’t get
why we are bound by our professional code to represent people with unpopular
cases.) But because of our ability to cause great damage to society if we act
dishonorably, those standards work to keep us on the right path where mere laws
might not. In that sense too, Appiah notes that honor can work to mitigate the
profit motive - and it is the sign of our disintegrating society that profit is
now seen as trumping (pun intended) all duty to our fellow humans and the
fabric of society.
Appiah also looks at the unfortunate connection between
violence and honor. But he notes that in the three cases where honor has been
turned to the good, honor doesn’t have to be about violence and pain. It can
work against those oppressive hierarchies instead of supporting them. (For more
on the progress that has been made, and the factors that helped bring it about,
I cannot recommend The Better Angels of our Nature by
Steven Pinker enough - it is a fantastic book. And thus, one which the
Right has decided to hate…)
I want to end with a couple of thoughts. First is this quote
from a book by J. M. Coetzee, which Appiah uses to illustrate how we can push
back on evil using the language of honor:
Demosthenes: Whereas the slave fears
only pain, what the free man fears most is shame. If we grant the truth of what
the New Yorker claims [regarding torture during the gulf wars], then the issue
for individual Americans becomes a moral one: how, in the face of this shame to
which I am subjected, do I behave? How do I save my honor?
Appiah suggests that we will have more success in changing
the world for the better if we work to reshape the meaning of “honor” than if
we “simply ring the bell of morality.” Rather than asking people to be good, we
may do better to wield shame and “carefully calibrated ridicule.” It isn’t that
morality and justice and human rights are irrelevant - they are crucial parts
of the discussion. But all too many people will not be moved by these abstract
concerns so much as they will be moved by understanding that others see them as
dishonorable and shameful.
Whether or not one agrees with everything Appiah says in
this book, he makes an interesting case. Clearly, he has thought his thesis
through, and supports it throughout with citations to primary sources. In
particular, his description of how moral and legal arguments alone were
insufficient until the code of honor changed is as compelling as anything I
have read as an explanation for how societies make major changes in the course
of a single generation. I think we are seeing a similar shift right now regarding
a constellation of human rights issues (gender equality, racial equality,
economic equality, immigration, and gay rights), and I am reasonably confident
that after the Baby Boomers shuffle off, there will be revolutionary - and long
overdue - changes.
I feel I haven’t done justice to this book, alas. But I hope
I have given a bit of a picture of what is in it. It’s not that long, but it is
a good read, and it raises some intriguing ideas about how to fight injustice.
***
On the “anything
Obama likes is evil” phenomenon:
Initially, I figured this was just raw partisanship. And it
is that. The polarization happened on the Right long before it spread to the
Left - and honestly, the Left is far more open to a range of ideas right now.
But there is more to it. Obama “tainted” others far more
than Bill Clinton did - or for that matter, more than any white male on the
Left has done during my lifetime. And I think that is part of it. Before Obama,
I did not realize just how deeply and viciously racist white people still are
(on average) in this country - and particularly white people on the Right. Both
the Obama era and the Trump
whitelash made that abundantly clear. For someone like Appiah, he is doubly
tainted by being liked by Obama and being of African descent himself.
But perhaps another level applies here too. I didn’t realize
it until the Trump era: for the most part, the American Right is terrified by
reality. Anything that smacks of actual evidence, consistent ethical thought,
or in any way challenges their political theological beliefs (including
unregulated Capitalism, Social Darwinism, White Supremacy, and Christian
Nationalism among others) is anathema, no matter how well supported by
overwhelming evidence. Which is why they have been willing to remain in denial
about climate change, cascading income inequality, and anything that smacks of
sociological or economic research. The dogma is all that matters, and who cares
if it destroys civilization? Our theology (I use that in the secular sense too)
is right, the evidence be damned.
“Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” And that is how legitimate
thinkers like Sunstein and Appiah get tarred with the “pinko” label, while the
village idiot can say obviously ludicrous things and be defended to the death.
I don’t even know what to say anymore.
I am rather horrified by the way that anti-intellectualism
and anti-reality thinking took over my former religious and political tribes.
And how quickly conservative ideals were abandoned as soon as a more (dare I
say it?) pure form of racism and hate
presented itself. I left both the GOP and Evangelicalism because I refused to
check my brain and my conscience at the door.
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