The Burden Series: Honor

Honor seems like something humans constantly strive to receive or protect, but what is honor? Paraphrasing from Wikipedia:

“Honor is an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or corporate body such as a family, school, regiment or nation. Accordingly, individuals (or corporate bodies) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a specific code of honor, and the moral code of the society at large.”

Other dictionary definitions are quite similar. Honor is either something one can receive or uphold. Receipt acts as an award showing that an individual had some positive benefit to society. The upholding of honor is the ability for the individual to uphold a code of honor they have either created or borrowed. Both forms of honor can be seen as subjective, and there are other types, but these two mentioned meanings will be my focus.

To many, honor feels as abstract as love, though to us love is not abstract; it is the binding essence of the universe and the energy of God/spirit. To others, honor may be as real as love feels to us. The big problem is that honor is directly linked with a subjective moral code while the properties of love are more objective. It is more in our nature to understand what love is than honor, yet humans seek honor in a similar fashion to justice. Humans may feel that sacrifices for justice are necessary because justice must be upheld. It is one of glues holding societies together, where values dictate the repercussions of human decision. Gaining and upholding honor causes humans to do things which may be viewed as dishonorable or evil in other cultures or societies.

Honor is a way of creating worth and importance for someone following a set of moral guidelines. It does not in itself create a society run by love or altruism. A system of honor is similar to a system of law, except that it is usually not adopted by a nation-state. It is closer to a sociocultural system of justice and merit. It is not confined by state lines or geography and is much like religion in this sense. It can be said that honor is a child of society as it depends on a form of moral dualism. If there are honorable acts, there are dishonorable acts, and these acts can only be defined as such within a group. The only form of honor one could expect originating from the isolated would be the honoring of nature. Not necessarily nature worship, but a form of respect. Yet it is difficult to believe that such a feeling could exist in a man with no social evolution or values. Respect is not something that spontaneously appears; it evolves from adoration, fear, bewilderment, wonder, and perhaps most importantly, partnership. It is from a human’s perceived partnership with nature, plants, animals or other humans. This makes the higher forms of respect, veneration and honor a social manifestation which evolves over generations.

It is both honorable to follow certain values and create value. When a person finds value in destroying value or valuable things (things or beings which provide value, not necessarily priced), they are doing something immoral. However, it is not necessarily dishonorable since honor to that person may not be related to their actions or it may fortify the worth they find in such actions. Honorable things are not necessarily moral, and the human thirst for honor is certainly not moral behavior as it is the hunt for importance and prestige. When status and reputation depend on subjective morals, not only do humans do good deeds for self-gain, that good may not be good from a universal perspective. Moral deeds in return for material or social gains are not real moral deeds, but self-serving actions. The means appear to be benevolent, but the end is closer to malevolence if the perpetrators desire to be better than others. This is reflected in one of the lessons from Christ. A rich man donated a huge sum to the temple in front of others to appear great, but a poor woman donated all that she had to benefit someone else. It was clear which gift had far more value.

Along with the pursuit of honor comes the perceived value of the human. When a person views their self-worth to be dependent on their honor, they will do almost anything to defend it. This includes lying to oneself and others as well as immoral acts such as murder or violence. As contradictory as it may seem, people will reduce their value to humanity in order to preserve how they value themselves, and this takes origin in self-importance. It is my understanding that the human concept of honor facilitates self-serving behavior, most notably because it is based on subjective principles not based on cosmic values. When a person does not see that their importance takes root in God’s love for the individual, they must seek it from elsewhere. This most frequently comes from the approval of others or their perceived impact on others.

In conclusion, those who cannot discover their worth through the Creator will usually try to uncover it through other humans, and the latter will occur before the former through social evolution which occurs along with spiritual evolution. People must define their worth through progressively greater forms of truth and value or forever be caught in traditional mediocrity. Society is constantly caught in a tug of war between a standardization of values to combat destructive change and a progressive change of values to combat dangerous stagnation. Honor systems are a thing of the past, where gifting value to those following certain codes or creeds was a necessity for a society or culture. The future lies in the growing understanding of love and its impact on society. Love is the source where true worth is found along with true order and understanding. As the world advances to embrace the love and will of God, human society will function more efficiently with less need for oversight and governing. All will know where their actions stand with universe reality and become cosmic citizens.


The reason that this and the previous title mention a burden of respect or honor is because it is a burden for the human to be too focused on winning either respect, honor or other forms of admiration. These things come naturally with good deeds, and focusing on such spoils makes the activities of the individual disingenuous or insincere. This is felt on a soul-level, but will create great mental anxiety when goals are not met or when one finally learns how unimportant such goals are.