Real honor, as distinct from the fake honor of “face” or of being proud of your ancestors, your education, or some other honor that was mostly bestowed on you, is a harsh mistress.
It is particularly a harsh task mistress when you live in a civilization where the other kind of honor is emphasized and revered. I know because I watched my dad — a natural born paladin — carry his honor like Christ carried his cross. Rationally speaking it was a stupid thing to do, at least at first glance. Not only didn’t being incredibly honorable, having pride in his work, giving full measure packed down every day, not earn him any glory or praise, but it made the people he worked with and for assume he was stupid. After all, why couldn’t he be “smart” and cut corners, he must be stupid.
And yet he persisted, day after day, year after year, under the weight of being an honorable man, who followed his beliefs in the dignity of others and the duty he owed G-d, family and country. He’s still doing it, even though retired.
It is men and women like that who keep civilization going, even in sick cultures, even in those that are falling apart, even in places where everyday functioning is difficult.
If you think on it, you know those people.
They are not the “activists”; they don’t bang the drum for giving government money to people; they don’t talk about how much they speak for the voiceless or help the helpless.
They just get up in the middle of the night, put their pants on and drive across town with their daughter to pick up the daughter’s friend who was stranded by her boyfriend at a party for refusing to put out. They get up in the middle of the night, put their pants on, and go donated blood because they’re part of the rare blood club and someone had an accident and needs that blood type. And if you’re not the one who brought him the emergency, and you’re not in on it, you don’t know anything about it when you get up in the morning and he’s making breakfast (and giving you a bit of his apple, because that’s the tradition) just as cheerful and calm as ever. And you don’t know all the things he did for people until you’re much older: the money he gave from the little he had to help a young couple who’d got in trouble; standing with the girl marrying someone of another race when some of her family wouldn’t; writing stuff out for friends who were inarticulate. And working. Never taking time when he was needed. Sometimes working through the summer when everyone else was on vacation, because there was no backup and he had to keep things going.
This is not an eulogy for my dad — Thank G-d. I don’t think I could take his death right now — but just what I learned about real honor from him.
Honor is not comfortable. It forces you to do things you don’t want to do, like admit it’s your fault. Like make reparation. Like help people even when you’re mad at them and it’s the last thing in the world you want to do. Like pay it forward. Like sacrifice for the future. Like do the little thankless tasks as though every little thing were the most important ever, all adding up to doing your work the best you absolutely can, even when no one else does.
So why do people do it?
I think because it’s a deep set evolutionary valuable trait. And I’m not — NOT — going to argue if it’s inherited genetically of through example. I know that I do a lot of things I’d much rather not do — I’m not a paladin, me — because I don’t want to let dad down. Even if it’s things he’d never hear of, or wouldn’t care about if he did.
Like coming out of the political closet when the requirements of keeping in the political closet went from just “Keep your mouth shut” to “you must vocally proclaim pernicious bs that will hurt others.” That was a doozy. But if dad were in that situation and understood what I was being asked to do, that’s what he’d do, so that’s what I had to do too.
It’s uncomfortable, and it certainly isn’t natural to me. I’m not the “yes, they wronged me, but this is their due, and I must help them” I’m the “tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye” and an extra kick to the groin, kind of person. And yet, he looks over my shoulder metaphorically speaking and so– Instead of getting down in the mud and raining vengeance, I — heaven help me — try to do what dad would do. And when I would give the first draft a cursory look and a spell check and send it in, or when I’ve sent in a story and realize it’s not right, even if I know it would be accepted, I remember dad, and I pull back the story and spend three days on a rewrite and send it in. Or I spend three months — glares at Witch’s Daughter — making the it the best I can even though I know most people won’t notice.
I’m not naturally honorable, but I have a man of honor looking over my shoulder.
I think people with real honor, people who keep up that real honor, the standards of civilization, the pride in their work, in the end are the only thing keeping us from flying apart, from breaking down under the incompetence and the cheating of the “smart guys.”
They rarely get the thanks they deserve. They never get the payment or the glory they deserve.
G-d bless them.
Do try to make them proud.
According To Hoyt 
Amen
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What he said.
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<quote>I’m not naturally honorable, but I have a man of honor looking over my shoulder.</quote>
I bet he’d say the same thing. For folks who find honor in doing their absolute best, every so often it’s “____ would be so <i>disappointed</i> if I skimped on this!” that keeps us from sliding.
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“The Lieutenant would not approve.” 🙂
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I was getting ready to write that…
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Definitely hard to do. Especially measuring up to Father and Grandfather. You see, I can do the things they did to be like them, but I’m not doing it for the same reasons why they did them. It’s not second nature for me; it’s deliberately contrived to be what I think they would have done in my place. Good outcomes for others, but it just feels like I diminish myself with spiritual growth. Makes me wonder at times if there’s something fundamentally broken in me.
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Yes. Same thing. I get it.
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“You see, I can do the things they did to be like them, but I’m not doing it for the same reasons why they did them.”
Are you entirely sure about that? Are you sure they did not have their own exemplars in their own pasts, whose honor they strove to emulate? Are you sure they didn’t have quiet doubts about themselves, but keep them buried and act the way they knew they should? Are you sure it was pure second nature to them, that they hadn’t been taught the way they ended up teaching you?
Give yourself a bit of credit. Or a break. Either one works.
Republica restituendae.
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“They never get the payment or the glory they deserve.”
I choose to believe they will, eventually. I hope my dad did or does.
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“I’m not naturally honorable, but I have a man of honor looking over my shoulder.”
Stealing that for Father’s Day. Now I have to go dust the room.
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The word mensch leaps to mind.
Thanks for sharing, and G_d bless your father. We need more righteous men of his kind.
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The “honor” that’s really pride vs the “honor” that is morality and more than a little humility. One might say two opposing concepts shoehorned (I would say improperly) into the same pigeonhole.
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Dad was (and is, on the Other Side) that kind of person. Someone needed something, he was right there. Never a complaint, or an argument that this person “doesn’t deserve it.” He did his job and then some, and came home to make dinner or play with us so Mom could have a break.
Then you have my BIL, a house flipper by any other name, so proud of his money and getting his name in the paper for donations and whatnot. He said anything goes as long as its not specifically illegal and “We’re just going to paint over the problems and let the new owner deal with them.”
He also thought it was funny to register as a Republican just to vote for the less viable candidate, and he told my sister to “Forget the facts. Stick to the talking points,” when she lost a political argument with a 12 year old.
Dad had honor. Still does.
BIL has the reputation that is so important to him, but no honor.
It made Dad angry because the honor of his family was also important to him.
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My wife used to be mad at me for being registered Democrat. It wasn’t that I identified with any national Democrat stands or policy. But in our little mostly rural area, often the Republicans only ran one guy; no choice to vote for in the primaries unless the guy put up was really awful, which I don’t remember ever happening in a contest I COULD vote in. But the Democrats, locally, would often have several people running, and sometimes one of them was a really good guy. If I could start getting some decent people in locally, hopefully some of that could work it’s way up, and the party as a whole might improve.
The most important point my Dad always drove into me was that only an idiot votes “straight party ticket”. Always look at who you are voting for. In the elections for office, I pretty much always voted MOSTLY Republican. But if a decent Democrat had somehow gotten on the ballot, he would get my support. Because sometimes the Republican incumbent wasn’t “bad”, but was getting complacent and lazy.
About twenty years ago, that was getting harder to stomach. About 12 years ago was the last time I found a Democrat worth voting for in the local primaries. (Though getting to vote against Hilary twice was also worth it.) But I almost jumped then. And Trump turned out better than OK. So when they put up Biden, and had totally cleansed the local Democrats of anyone with half a clue, it just became TOOOO embarrassing. No point at ALL anymore. And the local Republicans started putting up more than one locally approved candidate, so I’m an ‘R’ again. Still try to find a Libertarian or Constitutional candidate to vote for, so I can keep to Dad’s admonishment.
But hopefully, for a while, I put a counterbalance on that BIL. Not because I ever thought it was funny, or was trying to “screw the other side”. I was trying to SAVE the ‘other side’, and do my bit to save the country. Now it seems sometimes the best I can do is leave some print outs of this blog around for people to read, and maybe get a clue. Yeah, ‘none so blind’ and all that, but still, Hope Springs Eternal!
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The weight is important. Without the consequence of weight it would be relatively easier to forget it was there. Burdens are what make us who we are. The things we voluntarily pick up and carry, be it for a few steps on special occasions-
Or once and ever after, without ever putting it down.
It’s almost a curse, in some ways. But as far as that goes? There are worse ones.
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My father was a lot like that and people thought highly of him, some, I only found out about after he was gone. I try to live up to that standard but it isn’t easy. Do the best I can, don’t want him to be disappointed in me.
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all Britain is agog about the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. I suppose they have to cover up the r@pe gangs, MAndelson, teenage Ukrainian rent boys attacking Starmers house, the usual. There was an article about how far the fallen and someone mentioned that he had access to firearms, which reminded me, as does the title of the article, about how this would have been handled 100 years ago. An officer of similar rank would come along with a bottle of whiskey and a revolver. Do the honorable thing and spare everyone else of the responsibility. Can you imagine anyone in office today doing the honorable thing, anyone at all?
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The last one I remember was several years ago, when a bank- and stock-related thing fell apart and people lost their retirements or entire savings. A Swiss broker did everything he could to minimize the damage and apologized to his clients, then killed himself. I’m … not certain I agree with his actions, but I understand why he chose that route.
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OK, but I’m inclined to quibble that there’s a difference between despair and avoiding disgrace for one’s family, etc.,
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My dad is like this.
My father-in-law was too.
My husband is the finest person I know and I am beyond blessed.
I am a better person than I would ever have been on my own because of them. And the world is definitely a better place because of them.
It is my great hope that our children and grandchildren rise to the high bar that has been set for them.
I see glimmers of hope.
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The greatest tragedy of Communism, as practiced so far, is that it must perforce repress the paladins – the honorable people. Personal conscience cannot be allowed to interfer with the party’s historic mission. Russia is still crippled by 70 years of adverse selection. Most of her best men died in GULAG. It is no coincidence that Russian popular culture today is suffused with gangster slang and aphorisms. (To a degree that really would shock most Americans bemused by the degradation of our public culture. They are a terminal case.)
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Even more so than the gangster slang called “rap”?
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Yes. Very much so. Rooskie gangster themed content, complete with Russian prison ink, is the approved mode of mainstream patriotic discourse on Russian language social media, especially since the “Special Military Operation” began. The Formerly Red Army recruits heavily from gangster-heavy Russian regional “social clubs” and euphemistically named “sports clubs”, creating entire new segregated units solely manned by such, with oddly heavy gangster themed representation, and their discipline at the front is what you’d expect.
An argument which holds a lot of weight is that the ex-KGB takeover of Russian organized crime after the USSR fell apart, and then that new combination ending up in power, has resulted in a society that’s criminally structured all the way from top to bottom.
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A terminal case of regulatory capture. NKVD/KGB used blatnoy to do their dirty work in the camps and the two merged into one. I fear that this is the inevitable result of the Communist disease. Our own revolutionary vanguard, Antifa, is already thoroughly criminalized.
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More than an order of magnitude. It has become the dominant culture from top to bottom.
‘Course, when you consider that Snoop Dogg is the grand old man of American popular culture, this generation’s George Burns, it’s hard to be smug. The trendlines don’t look good.
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Communism must destroy paladins because they will not hide behind a facade of lies, and communism MUST hide behind a facade of lies because it is a construct of lies, all the way down.
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Yeah. I have met your husband ;)
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I’m reminded of a saying (now obsolete because of the decay of the NYT): “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read on the front page of tomorrow’s New York Times”.
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All the news that fits – the (leftist) narrative . . .
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My first job out of college was fixing newspaper computers, the software specifically. So I worked mostly with the union trades people — composing room, layout, printers. Occasionally editors, not any reporters I can think of.
One thing I learned is that newspapers are (were) 1/3rd news, 2/3rd advertising. The reason is that’s the minimum news content to qualify for 2nd class mail rates. So the correct slogan is “all the news that fits, we print”. In other words, each day the editors would have their meeting and start out with “how much advertising do we have today?” They would add 1/2 of that for the news content, convert that to pages, and that would give them the size of that day’s paper. The news is very much the tail wagging the advertising dog.
Even more surprising for me was that the classified ads are the #1 moneymaker, not the fancy big display ads. That I learned when a major LA area newspaper was losing some fraction of their classified ads between ad entry and the time the paper was set. Major crisis, and I had to find and fix it. Learned a lot in that job.
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*Tired kitty sigh* I agreed to a change in my schedule at Day Job because it solved other people’s problems. It cost me a chunk of writing time per day. Would I do it again, knowing that? I … I would, because it was needed, and did turn an enormous mess into a solvable situation. There are other things that have eaten my writing time as well, but doing them is the right and best thing to do.
I’m not a paladin. I just do my duty as I see it, or try to. I internalized too much honor reading military history and certain types of fantasy as a kid. That and watching DadRed quietly do what was needed, teaching others how to help better, and dealing with other people’s (literal sometimes) messes without grumbling. MomRed as well.
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I like the 1938 movie, The Four Feathers (best of the seven or eight versions of AEW Mason’s book put to film).
When Faversham explains why he needs to be branded and skin colored to reach the British troops by cutting across the desert to give them back the white feathers they gave him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmtT4RAPyxo
“A mad race, the English.”
I have also been a coward and was not happy. But I try every day to be more like a man of honor. I have seen such men.
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“I think people with real honor, people who keep up that real honor, the standards of civilization, the pride in their work, in the end are the only thing keeping us from flying apart…”
This is certainly true. There is a limit to what you’re going to get with fear of retribution alone. For civilization to stand, people have to do what they’re supposed to when nobody is looking.
Ask the Russians and the Chicoms. They know this.
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That’s my big sis.
“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself. […] There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That’s soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.”
— Bujold, A Civil Campaign
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Grandpa was a man of honor. I still miss him.
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Try to be a man of honor.
Fear, far too often, that other people use this because I am so lonely on the ramparts.
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