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What you will find here is not a laundry list of complaints about culture, but a description of what happened to traditional honor. In my opinion, these societal movements brought about both positive and negative changes, and reviving those positive aspects will be the topic of our next and final post in the series.
art ofmanliness.com http://artofmanliness.com/2012/12/10/manly-honor-vi-the-decline-of-traditional-honor-in-the-west-in-the- 20th-century/?utm_source=Daily+Subscribers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=d36822b110- RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN Manly Honor VI: The Decline of Traditional Honor in the West in the 20th Century by Brett & Kate McKay on December 10, 2012 · 10 comments in A Man's Life, On Manhood Our last three posts – on Victorian, Northern, and Southern honor respectively, detailed the final manifestations of traditional honor cultures in t he West, while also hinting at the cultural forces that were emerging even then that would eventually erode them almost entirely. Today we will cover how those forces were amplified, manifested themselves, and led to the disappearance of traditional honor in the West over the course of the 20 th century. At the same time, a discussion of these elements provides an excellent opportunity to review the concepts we’ve discussed so far. We’ve come a long way since the first post, and this is such a complicated topic that I think this re-orientation will be quite beneficial. On that note, this post does admittedly have more of a scatter-shot quality than the rest . The complex nature of the history of honor cannot be reiterated too many t imes. Without excusing the limitations of our writing abilities, which are myriad, there is no clear coherent narrat ive to the evolution and death of honor, and it is impossible to construct one. What we offer below are sketches of cultural f orces which could each be their own book; each is int erconnected with the others, and multi-layered. In the absence of a tome-lengt h treat ise on each cultural force/change, what we have given is a snapshot that is simply designed to give you an overview of the element and provide you fodder for further pondering and connection-making to history and your modern life. Also, it is very important to mention that t he list below is not a list of “bad” things. Each cultural movement discussed has its advantages and disadvantages – as does traditional honor itself. Were it not so, traditional honor would not have disappeared in the first place! What you will find here is not a laundry list of complaints about culture, but a description of what happened to traditional honor. In my opinion, these societal movements brought about both positive and negative changes, and reviving those positive aspects will be the topic of our next and final post in the series. This post is as beastly as the last – if it helps you, try to think of this not as an article but as a chapter in a book. Read it when you have a quiet block of time. Urbanization and Anonymity Traditional honor can only exist among a group of equal peers who enjoy intimate, face-to- face relationships. It is entirely external, and completely predicated on one’s reputation as judged by fellow members of the honor group. Without close ties, there is no one to evaluate your claims to honor, and thus the possibility of a tradit ional honor culture vanishes. In 1790, 95% of Americans lived in small, rural communities. By the 1990s, 3 out of 4 citizens made their home in urbanized areas. While in small towns everyone can keep track of the doings of their neighbors, in cities and suburbs relationships tend to be more impersonal and anonymous; any city dweller has experienced the sensation of being in a large group of people and yet feeling entirely alone. In large populations you can live out your whole life without anyone checking up on what you’re doing, much less judging your reputation as honorable or dishonorable. In cities and smaller towns alike, civic participation and community-mindedness has fallen significantly since WWII. And while honor formerly centered on one’s clan, extended families no longer live close together and familial relations have constricted to the nuclear family alone, which itself is often split up. As a result of these shifts, immoral, unethical, and cowardly behaviors are rarely known outside one’s immediate circle of family and f riends. And even then, for reasons we’ll discuss below, they are more likely to shrug and say, “It’s none of my business,” or, “To each his own,” t han to condemn and challenge the errant behavior. The internet has only accelerated the shift towards impersonal and anonymous relationships. Traditional honor is designed to act as a check on people’s claims to merit and force them to stand behind and defend their insults; exaggerations of one’s deeds or shameful actions are called out and challenged by one’s associates. On the internet, however, people can claim to be a Navy SEAL or issue the basest of insults to another person without having to prove their claim, suffer consequences for their character, or allow the insulted person to defend themselves. They can be anyone and say anything, all while safely ensconced behind a screen. Diversity, Leading to Conflicts Between Conscience and Honor As we have explored in previous posts, during the 19 th century in England and the American North, the honor code began to shift from being based on outward behaviors (like prowess and strengt h) to inward moral virtues and character traits. Despit e these changes, the Victorian, or Stoic-Christian honor code, remained rooted in traditional honor. For while the st andards of the code had shifted to internal virtues, a man’s adherence to those virtues was not judged solely by his own conscience but also by his peers – his public reputation continued to matter. This evolution in the meaning of traditional honor also sowed the seeds of it s eventual destruction as a cultural force. An honor code based on moral virtues and character traits can only survive when the necessary virtues and character traits are agreed upon by the culture as a whole; besides intimate, face-to-face relationships, the second key element that makes a traditional honor culture possible is a shared code. Each member of the honor group understands the standards t hat must be kept to attain and keep horizontal honor, and everyone knows how honor may be lost; this is key – honor that cannot be lost is not true honor. While the manly honor of courage and physical strength transcends culture, a moral honor code, because it deals with issues of philosophy and faith, is more open to differences of opinion and can vary from societ y to society and man to man. Could a man gamble and drink and still be honorable? Was it more honorable to fight over everything or to have the self- control to walk away from a challenge? Should a man’s honor code include Christian beliefs? What about Muslims and Hindus, did they not have their own codes of honor? These questions led to conflicts between a man’s allegiance to his conscience and his loyalty to the code of his honor group. This prompted debates about which allegiance – conscience or honor — to give higher priority, and which decision on that count was more honorable, or at least more deserving of respect . These conflicts in turn eroded the st abilit y of an honor culture, as Frank Henderson Stewart explains: “Once the shift is made from basing honor on a certain kind of behavior (always winning in battle, always keeping one’s promise) or on the possession of certain external qualities (wealth, health, high rank) to basing it on the possession of mostly moral qualities (the ones we refer to compendiously as the sense of honor) then the way is open for the whole notion of honor to be undermined. Imagine a German army officer of a hundred years ago who is challenged to a duel. He declines the challenge because is a devout Catholic, and the church strongly condemns dueling. Now for the honor code to be really effective, the officer must be treated as having acted dishonorably. Yet people may find it difficult to do so, since they are sure (we will assume) that he acted as he did not out of cowardice but because of his attachment to his faith. They are convinced (we will further assume) that he is profoundly committed to everything in the honor code that is not incompatible with his religious beliefs. In these circumstances people may feel it appropriate to say of him that he has a strong sense of honor; even if they do not, they will have to admit that he is a man of integrity, and having said this they will find it hard to say that because of his refusal to accept the challenge their respect for him is much diminished. And if the loss of his right to respect is not accompanied by any actual loss of respect, then the honor that is assigned by the honor code has been emptied of his primary content.” The more diverse Western societies became, the greater the chance that a man’s personal values of faith and philosophy would not exactly align with the cultural honor code, increasing the likelihood of men opting out of certain provisions of the latter when they contradicted their conscience. Yet as Stewart points out, it was not possible for this trend alone to cause the unraveling of traditional honor – its ef f ect was contingent on another cultural shift: tolerance. Traditional honor is inherently intolerant; if you fail to follow the code, you are shamed, you are despicable, you are out. In the hypothetical example of the German army of f icer above, his peers could have judged his decision to excuse himself from the duel on religious grounds as dishonorable and unworthy of their respect, thus maintaining the strictures of the traditional honor code. However, a trend towards respect and tolerance for different viewpoints, which began in the 19 th century, would become, some have argued, the virtue of the latter part of the 20 th . The relativistic ideal of “to each his own” would allow each individual to choose his own set of values without cultural repercussions – without shame. Diversity, Leading to Tolerance and Relativism Another one of the key elements of a traditional honor culture is the belief in the absolute superiority of one’s honor group, and that this excellence can directly be traced to the superiority of the group’s honor code to all others. Honor cultures are based on an “us vs. them” mindset. When tribes and communities were more isolated, maintaining this belief wasn’t hard; honor groups didn’t encounter too many others groups that were much different from themselves, and when they did, a battle between them would quickly and clearly establish the validity of their respective claims. But the globalization that began in earnest during the 19 th century and accelerated during the 20 th , greatly diversified the populations of Western societies, bringing different cultures physically together, while also increasing general knowledge of societies halfway around the world. That each culture had their own variat ions on what constituted honor created doubt in some minds about the superiority of their own. It began to be posited that absolute belief in the rightness of a certain way had led to terrible societal ills – racism, chauvinism, war, slavery, persecution, and so on. At the same time, using violence or war to prove one’s honor fell out of favor (see “Wariness of Violence” below). Instead, in an att empt to live peaceably with each other and avoid conflict , tradit ional honor was replaced with the ideal of tolerance and respect for all groups, even those on the fringe who did not fit into the majorit y culture. Whereas outsiders had formerly been treat ed badly, but invited to join the insiders and earn their esteem through adherence to the honor code, they were now encouraged to celebrate their own values as opposed to assimilating t o dominate norms. The only value most of society can now agree upon is openness. People generally fall into one of two camps. Either they do not believe t hat any specific honor code is the “right” one and that one is not necessarily “better” than another, or they remain an “absolutist” and believe they are following the one true code, they know that they should not shame or condemn others for not living up to their own chosen standards, should never assert the superiority of their code in public, and must at least give lip service to respecting the beliefs of others. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine. This “to each his own” ethic is incompatible with traditional honor, for, as philosopher Allan Bloom argues, “Men must love and be loyal to their families and their peoples in order to preserve them. Only if they think their own things are good can they rest content with them. A father must prefer his child to other children, a citizen his country to others. That is why there are myths to justify these attachments. And a man needs a place and opinions by which to orient himself…[In traditional honor societies] the problem of getting along with outsiders is secondary to, and sometimes in conflict with, having an inside, a people, a culture, a way of life. A very great narrowness is not incompatible with the health of an individual or a people, whereas with great openness it is hard to avoid decomposition.” Choose Your Own Honor Code Traditional honor codes are designed to motivate people to adhere to a standard that the group believes promotes its best interest. In seeking to avoid shame, group members are impelled to submerge their own personal interests for the sake of the common good. In the increasingly diverse society of the 20 th century, ideas of what constituted the common good splintered. And with that splintering came uncertainty about who should be shamed or honored for what. Thus with more and more people opting out of certain provisions of the shared cultural honor code without any consequences, a cycle began: because people who opted-out weren’t shamed, this decreased the honor given to those who kept the code (see “Egalit arianism” below), making them more likely to opt-out t oo, and the cycle would continue, unraveling the honor code further. As the benefits of keeping the shared honor code dried up, people became increasingly unwilling to deny their own personal needs for the good of the group. They rebelled against authority — “the man” — and the idea that a common good should be dictated. In the absence of a shared honor code and an agreed upon common good, people began to celebrate pursuing whatever one deemed to be their personal good (follow your bliss!). Because no honor code was judged to be better than another, individuals were free to pick and choose values from each of them in order to assemble their own personal patchwork honor code. While each individual man’s assertion of his own values could have caused great conflict in theory, in practice it was used to eliminate discord: “I’ve got my values. You’ve got your values. To each their own.” Bloom elaborates: “Conflict is the evil we most want to avoid, among nations, among individuals and within ourselves. Nietzsche thought with his value philosophy to restore the harsh conflicts for which men were willing to die, to restore the tragic sense of life, at a moment when nature had been domesticated and men become tame. The value philosophy was used in America for exactly the opposite purpose–to promote conflict-resolution, bargaining, harmony. If it is only a difference of values, then conciliation is possible. We must respect values, but they must not get in the way of peace.” Because every man has the freedom to assemble his own set of values, respect is now given to a man not based on which values he chooses to live, but that he chooses to live with values, any values, at all. Deprived of the chance to earn honor from one’s peers, but still desirous of finding meaning in life, the goal becomes select ing values that together add up to and convey a unique lifestyle – one that embodies a morally-neutral attribute: purpose. Bloom again: “A value-creating man is a plausible substitute for a good man, and some such substitute becomes practically inevitable in pop relativism, since very few persons can think of themselves as nothing. The respectable and accessible nobility of man is to be found not in the quest for or discovery of the good life, but in creating one’s own ‘life-style,’ of which there is not just one but many possible, none comparable to another. He who has a ‘life-style’ is in competition with, and hence inferior to, no one, and because he has one he can command his own esteem and that of others.” The amount of esteem one gets f rom living their values now depends on their fidelity to their personal code. Or as Bloom puts it: “Commitment is the moral virt ue because it indicates the seriousness of the agent. Commitment is the equivalent of faith when the living God has been supplanted by self-provided values.” We often admire men, even when we don’t agree with their values, as in, “I don’t really underst and it myself, but he sure is sincere/serious about it/passionate/totally into it.” The abilit y to choose one’s own code evolved honor’s meaning from outward displays of behavior centering on valor, to personal suffering – holding to your private code despite crit icism from others or obst acles in the way. The Shaming of Shame In traditional honor cultures shame is seen as an essent ial part of life – it’s what motivates members of the honor group to behave in ways that benefit the common good of the tribe. Moreover, without shame, honor itself is not possible (see “Egalitarianism” below). But beginning in the 20 th century, with the rise of psychology and the shift to individualism over group identity, shame began t o be seen as a neurosis that sickened the psyche, and as an impediment to resisting authority and following one’s personal passion and inner compass. Shame, it was argued, had out lasted its usefulness in a modern society that had solved the problems of basic survival, and was now a hindrance to the fulfillment of personal potential and destiny. Shame, it is now said, gets in the way of being comfortable in your own skin and being whoever you want to be. For example, refusing to procreate or go t o battle could get a man shamed in a primitive tribe that depended on reproduction to keep the tribe going and needed to defend itself from enemies. But in a peaceful modern society, on what some see as an already crowded planet, there no longer seems to be a pressing need to get men to adhere to such traditional (some would say outdated) standards. We have lost the sense of an immediate connection between an individual’s behavior and its eff ect on society as a whole. A prevailing modern view is that one person’s lifestyle choices will have absolutely no eff ect on the lifestyle choices of another, or on society as a whole. So while shame was formerly seen as the thing that made honor, and therefore manliness, possible, it is now the favorite target of men’s groups and male psychology gurus who argue that it’s actually what holds men back from discovering their manhood. For example, the Mankind Project, which holds weekend retreats with the goal of initiating men into manhood, argues that the “New Macho” code requires a man to “let go of childish shame.” They posit that “Shame is one of the primary emot ional states that locks many men into a perpetual cycle of self-hatred and self-destructive behavior. This behavior has wide reaching damaging effects on those around him. It harms his ability to create healthy relationships and nurture healthy families.” For this reason, a big part of MKP retreats center on getting men to rid themselves of shame. Similarly, Robert Glover, the author of the very popular No More Mr. Nice Guy, a guide to moving from unhappy pushover to confident, assertive dude, argues that “Nice Guy Syndrome” emerges during boys’ “format ive years,” when they received “messages from their families and the world around them that it was not safe, acceptable, or desirable for them to be who they were, just as they are.” [emphasis mine] Glover argues that a rejection of “who they are” results in childhood feelings of abandonment, which, as the boy grows into a man, results in “a psychological st ate called toxic shame,” which is “not just a belief that one does bad things, it is a deeply held core belief that one is bad.” By ridding themselves of this “toxic shame,” Glover argues, men can stop trying to be “good” for others, hiding their flaws, and trying to become “what they believe other people want them to be.” In ot her words, they can free themselves from the basic strictures that once constituted traditional honor. Egalitarianism and Inclusion Honor groups are inherently competitive, exclusionary, and hierarchical. There can be no true honor without the possibility of losing it and being shamed and disgraced – without the possibilit y of either f ailing or excelling a clear standard and one’s peers. Esteem and respect doled out equally to all is empty and meaningless. Or as M.I. Finley put it, “When everyone attains equal honour, then there is no honour for anyone.” In an honor group, certain rights are exclusively available to those who keep the standards of the code and achieve horizontal honor, while special privileges are open only to those who excel their peers and achieve vertical honor. At the same time, competition and set st andards mean that not everyone will make the cut, and that those who fall short will suffer shame, or at least hurt feelings. Having to compare oneself to others can lead to feelings of inadequacy, and the pain of being excluded and deemed unworthy. While traditional honor codes award esteem based on merit (although sometimes bloodlines as well), modern societies have moved towards granting more rights and privileges on the basis of the idea of human dignity, t hat all people — regardless of skill, popularity, or contribution to the group — deserve a basic level of compassionate treatment. In the 1960s, as shame increasingly came to be seen as a negative, a movement emerged which posited that removing the f eelings of pain that come with not performing as well as one’s peers could increase young people’s sense of well-being. In 1969, psychologist Nathaniel Brandon published a very influential paper called “The Psychology of Self-Esteem” in which he argued that “feelings of self-esteem are the key to success in lif e.” Brandon’s ideas were first institutionalized when a task force, charged by the California state legislature, formulated a set of recommendations entitled, “Toward a State of Esteem.” The report argued that low self -esteem caused a variety of ills ranging from academic failure to teen pregnancy, and that teaching self-esteem in schools would be a “social vaccine” to inoculate kids from these problems. It recommended that every school district in California strive for “the promotion of self-esteem…as a clearly st ated goal, integrated into its total curriculum and informing all of its polices and operations” and that “course work in self-esteem should be required for credentials…for all educators.” Other states and schools were swept up into this movement and incorporated self-esteem- boost ing exercises into their curriculum and programs. These exercises and guidelines – which often revolved around eliminating competition from the classroom — were designed t o make student s feel good about themselves, under the belief that these good feelings would then beget all sorts of success for them. However, as later researchers found out, true self-esteem actually has two components — feeling good and doing well. The self-esteem movement had gotten their order mixed up. While the California report posited that low self-esteem causes problems like teen pregnancy and welfare dependence, studies have shown that the opposite is true; low self-esteem is the consequence, not the cause, of such behavior. Thus you can’t start with “feeling good” and have it lead to doing well. It happens the other way around. Feeling good, and true self-esteem, naturally follow from doing well. You can’t pump kids f ull of self-esteem — it’s something they have to earn for themselves, t hrough true merit. Despite these findings, policies designed to protect young people from feelings of shame remain in place in nearly every school. At an awards ceremony, every child, regardless of their achievement, must receive an award. All players on a sports team receive a “participation trophy.” High school yearbooks are required t o show a picture of each student an equal number of times, regardless of that students’ popularity or involvement in school activities. Schools have children use invisible jump ropes instead of real ones so as to not cause a child embarrassment for tripping up on his rope. The Rise of Psychology With Freud’s psychoanalysis, and Jung’s interpretation of dreams, people began to be more interested in the individual workings of their mind and the variations of their unique psyche. Whereas in a traditional honor culture, one’s personal identity could not be separated from one’s identity as part of the group, and one’s own feelings and needs were subservient to the common good, psychology encouraged people see themselves as distinct individuals and to view their own feelings and needs as just as real, and important, as those of the group. Psychologists argued that ignoring or suppressing those feelings was unhealthy and comprised one’s well-being. The tension between psychology and traditional honor can be seen in debates over whether what were once seen as shameful character defects – drinking, gambling, obesity, serial infidelity – should better be relabeled and dealt with as diseases and addictions. But perhaps the best and most memorable way to explain the conflict that arose between honoring traditional honor, and honoring one’s individual psyche, can be conveyed in a story from World War II. In 1943, coming off his dazzling victories in the Sicily campaign, George S. Patton stopped by a medical tent to visit with the wounded. He enjoyed these visits, and so did the soldiers and staff. He would hand out Purple Hearts, pump the men full of encouragement, and off er rousing speeches to the nurses, interns, and their patients that were so touching in nature they sometimes brought tears to many of the eyes in the room. On this particular occasion, as Patton entered the tent all the men jumped to att ention except for one, Private Charles H. Kuhl, who sat slouched on a stool. Kuhl, who showed no outward injuries, was asked by Patton how he was wounded, to which the private replied, “I guess I just can’t take it .” Patton did not believe “battle fat igue” or “shell-shock” was a real condition nor an excuse to be given medical treatment, and had recently been told by one of the commanders of Kuhl’s division that, “The front lines seem to be thinning out. There seems to be a very large number of ‘malingerers’ at the hospitals, feigning illness in order to avoid combat duty.” He became livid. Patt on slapped Kuhl across the face with his gloves, grabbed him by his collar, and led him outside the tent. Kicking him in the backside, Patton demanded that this “gutless bast ard” not be admitted and instead be sent back to the front to fight. A week later, Patton slapped another soldier at a hospital, who, in tears, told the general he was there because of “his nerves,” and that he simply couldn’t “stand the shelling anymore.” Enraged, Patton brandished his white-handled, single-action Colt revolver and bellowed: “Your nerves, Hell, you are just a goddamned coward, you yellow son of a bitch. Shut up that goddamned crying. I won’t have these brave men here who have been shot seeing a yellow bastard sitting here crying…You’re a disgrace to the Army and you’re going back to the front lines and you may get shot and killed, but you’re going to fight. If you don’t I’ll stand you up against a wall and have a firing squad kill you on purpose. In fact I ought to shoot you myself, you God-damned whimpering coward.” When t he first slapping incident leaked to the press, it became an international scandal; many were horrified and called for Patton’s removal from command altogether, and even the Army itself. Faced with an intense public outcry, Eisenhower was incensed with Pat t on, but ended up retaining him, feeling he was “indispensable to the war effort – one of the guarant ors of our victory.” Still, Ike gave him a sharp censure, relieved him of command of the 7 th Army, promoted Omar Bradley to lieutenant general over him, kept him from having a central role in the D-Day invasion (although strategic fact ors were also involved in that decision), and also ordered him to apologize to the two soldiers he slapped, the hospital staffs, and his troops. And yet despite the brouhaha Patton’s slapping incident created, and the vehement protest of many over what they labeled as brutal and out-of-control behavior, t he great majority of the public (about 9 to 1) sided with Patton; even Kuhl’s own father wrote to his Congressman to express forgiveness for the general and his desire not to see him disciplined. And the reaction of Patt on’s own men is most telling in gauging the life left in traditional honor, even at this point mid-century. When Patton went to issue an apology t o his troops, who were gathered in a large olive orchard and seat ed on their helmets, his penitent address never got past his f irst word – “Men!” It was at that point, Major Ted Conway of the 9 th Division remembered: “…the whole regiment erupted. It sounded like a football game in which a [...]... Think of the many presidents who had an affair during the course of their tenure in the White House In some cases the press knew about the canoodling going on at the time, but they never printed a word about it One, because “snitching” about such a thing was considered dishonorable, and two, because they did not think that such private liaisons had anything to do with the effective fulfillment of the. .. Parents are unwilling to risk the lives of their children when they only have one or two to begin with For these reasons, military service has been taken up by an increasingly small proportion of the citizenry, creating a yawning gap between warriors and civilians T he State of Honor T oday For the reasons outlined above, traditional honor cultures unraveled over the course of the 20th century The only widespread... be the final arbiter of your honor At least for those who still pay attention to their conscience (or God) The result of this shift in the meaning of honor has been an exponential increase in individual freedom But it has its downsides as well What those downsides are, why reviving some aspects of traditional honor is desirable, and how to do it in an anti -honor- honor world will be the subject of the. .. willingness to fight helped him preserve at least some face Men also fought and used violence to solve disputes, to initiate newcomers and test their worthiness for being included in the group, to gain status among existing members, and to test and prepare each other for battling a common enemy Starting in the 19th century with the emergence of the Stoic-Christian honor code, the use of violence to maintain... — an impediment to the ordered, civilized society the upper classes were trying to build Gentlemen no longer felt that maintaining an increasingly anemic concept of honor was worth dying or even fighting over; they considered themselves above it – that such scuffles were a waste of their time and energy In the 1960s, fighting and aggression were also painted as incompatible with the push to make men... hence increase the risk of others getting killed or wounded) without burdening commanders with soldiers who will fail to carry out their duties, while also looking after those who breakdown as a result of combat?” In short, what role should traditional honor play within a traditionally honor- bound organization operating in a modern world? Authenticity & Sincerity It’s rather hard to wrap our minds around... appealed to the ethics of traditional honor That she considered being called a slut the basest of insults, and that she appreciated President Obama for standing up for her and essentially defending her honor, directly harkened back to an ancient culture of honor It was an interesting juxtaposition In some ways, the standards of traditional honor have endured more for women than for men For example, during... Harbor Once the full extent of the horrors of the Holocaust became known at the end of the war, a staggeringly powerful moral reason was retroactively added to the rationale of getting involved The war could clearly be seen through the lens of good and evil, and is in fact referred to as the “Good War” for this reason All future wars have been judged by the yardstick of WWII and found terribly wanting Vietnam... private indiscretions are discovered, a man is quite often drummed out of office Wariness of Violence in a Litigious Society In the most basic, primal form of traditional honor, if you got hit, you hit back, and might made right If a man was insulted, he would challenge the accuser to a physical throwdown – perhaps to the death; if he emerged triumphant, then his honor was maintained, even if the accusation... compassionate The traits were linked to things like domestic abuse and rape, and the idea that many men will become predators to women if not taught to control their dark, macho impulses In schools, fighting was condemned as leading to injury of body and feelings, the weak being unfairly dominated by the physically strong, and the potential for volatile distractions from their educational mission Instead of being . art ofmanliness.com http:/ /artofmanliness. com/2012/12/10/manly -honor- vi- the- decline- of- traditional -honor- in -the- west -in -the- 20th- century/ ?utm_source=Daily+Subscribers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=d36822b110- RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN Manly. ofmanliness.com http:/ /artofmanliness. com/2012/12/10/manly -honor- vi- the- decline- of- traditional -honor- in -the- west -in -the- 20th- century/ ?utm_source=Daily+Subscribers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=d36822b110- RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN Manly Honor VI: The Decline of Traditional Honor in the West in the 20th Century by Brett & Kate McKay on December 10, 2012 · 10 comments in A Man's