Honour Culture | Forum

"Also, if you lie about me, it should not stain my honour. The burden of proof rests upon the accuser."

You seem to underestimate the power of manipulative rhetoric. The point is not to be right but to persuade the audience that you're right, even if what you say are blatant lies. Appeal to emotions, primal fears, using exaggerations and half lies all of that makes the bullshit more palatable.

Ideally, the burden of proof should rest upon the accuser but in reality it's often enough to spread malicious rumor to a sufficient number of "concerned citizens." Actually, it's not an empty insult that damages someone's reputation but slander/libel. If false accusations are not countered, people will rely on the narrative of the slanderer.

And of course, this is not fair, but it's a special snowflake's type of thinking that people will know you're right just because you yourself are convinced you're right.

Anyway, whether it's an insult or a false accusation, it just feels better to respond. It doesn't have to be in the form of physical fight or throwing insults back but assertive setting the boundaries, reprimanding the perpetrator or standing up for yourself feels empowering, it builds one up. Sure, nothing is like black and white and there are certain situations where it's better to let it go but generally sucking it up is unhealthy. It's basic psychology. 

Also duelling might seem barbaric to us because we live in a culture that celebrates victimhood. In the past when gentlemen felt offended, they sorted it out between themselves. Now we have crybabies running to complain to the authorities. Not only to courts. If a colleague is mean to you, you're encouraged to report him or her to HR instead of confronting the offender directly. If people feel offended by a professor's lecture, they run to complain to the university authorities instead of challenging the views they think are wrong. If faced with hostility on social media, you're encouraged to snitch to moderators or go offline. 

 I use "you" to refer to people in general. I hate the word "one" so don't take it personally. Perhaps, where you live it's different but there's this pervading atmosphere of sermon on the mountain pacifism, the subtle pressure to rise above the human meanness, not to let it get to you, to stifle justified anger or worry, to convince yourself you don't really care. All of it only robs the targets of emotional bullying or social injustice of the feeling of agency, allows their boundaries to be violated time and time again. 

Let's be realistic. Insults hurt. False accusations hurt. With few exceptions like when they are uttered by homeless junkies lying in their own piss, mentally challenged or psychotic people or when they are not really insults but careless remarks of socially insensitive individuals who might not be aware of your sensibilities. Some sense of humor and a distance to oneself is needed in order not to treat everything people say as an assault on the self. But fake it till you make it superficial serenity is emotionally damaging. Responding to the offender helps to restore genuine peace of mind. If you're pissed and offended, there's nothing wrong with expressing that in the way you think most appropriate and beneficial to you. 

It doesn't have to be acting on impulse. One thing to remember about duels is that they had restraining function. By being heavily codified and ritualized their aim was to curb violence rather than escalate it, to prevent an endless cycle of vendetta. Not all of them were deadly. Sometimes, people got wounded only or the parties reconciled. The point was more to show courage and the willingness to die for your dignity than kill your opponent. Although fatalities occured too. I wouldn't call it barbaric though. It was a civilized way to settle personal disputes back then.

" I use "you" to refer to people in general. I hate the word "one" so don't take it personally. "

Okay, got it. Thank you for clarifying. 

I'd like to go over some of the points you make, as I understand where you are coming from, I think, but some of these points warrant going deeper/clarifying. 

I don't know if courts of law are ever truly independant, but keep in mind I mentioned this in the context of whether an accusation can have consequences (other than just hurt feelings). I meant that the court of law acts as a third party that can restore someone's reputation (think of metoo hoaxes such as the ones against Johnny Depp and M Manson, where the accused only got their respective careers back after being proven not guilty in court, denying it on social media or television did absoluetly nothing). 

I understand the general points you are making, I think we're coming at this question from a different angle/perspective, possibly due to different life experiences. I agree that fake serenity is unhelpful. But the other extreme of exploding due to every little remark someone else makes (I used to be like this in high school, ages ago) is just as damaging. 

I agree that it feels better to respond, and that's part of my interrogation and why reading Schopenhauer's thoughts on the question really surprised me: perhaps the fact that responding produces a feeling of power is cultural to a large extent. I know some people who feel more powerful not responding, others who feel more powerful in responding. I don't know if this is personality or upbring, some mix of both, but I do think it interesting to see how other cultures have and do approach this issue. 

I do find something in your response contradictory: on the one hand, that insults hurt, and on the other, that duels seem barbaric because we live in age where victimhood is rewarded. But if words hurt, it is so for alot of people (not saying you personally) because they have been taught to be cry-bullies by the culture. A bullet is more damaging than a word. Always. I think it's more gentleman-like, and less of a victim mentality, to not pull out a gun everytime someone were to insult you. Regardless how much an offended person becomes aggressive, they still appear triggered to me, much like 'woke' college kids screaming over something a public speaker at their campus said. I wonder how much of this is cultural, though. If we were taught to see insulters in a different light, we would, I think, react differently to insults(False accusations are perhaps a different matter). Insults hurt because they are either1) true 2) coming from someone who's attitude we care about and it is seen as hostility/betrayal or 3) We feel humiliated in front of a third party (real or imagined). The third case is often so because people in some cultures see initiating aggression as a sign of confidence/dominance etc - it holds third parties in awe. I think there is some universal constance to this, but it's nevertheless partly cultural too. 

Keep in mind where I live now is very different from where I grew up, in this regard. I grew where insults were as common as carbon emissions. And people took them seriously, and that is why they were so common. It's very short-sighted, I think, to have duel with guns every time someone makes a hurtful comment - everyone would be dead if that were the case. I'm not saying to turn the other cheek, no, but I think 'insult culture' is a sign of a low civilization - the proof of this is that the communities with the most intra-mural violence (such as black communities in the US) always remain the lower strata of a broader demographic. 

I'm pretty much criticizing a cultural attitude more than I am trying to preach about truning the other cheek or anything like that. I understand this might not speak to you, and that's fine. 

Duelling was never about being "triggered." Like "You insulted me little bitch so I need to smash your head otherwise I won't sleep well." It was a self-restrained, well-structured, ritualized and culturally accepted response to an insult. There was a protocol, rules, etiquette. And it was reserved for gentlemen. Peasants weren't supposed to duel. But they could fight in street fights and shout obscenities at each other. If you're worried about too much emotional  reactivity among people, pehaps it's the matter of culture becoming more dunno peasant-like? Because I don't really think street fights or vulgar displays of verbal aggression stem from the culture of duelling. 

Anyway, I don't encourage here punching a random person who insulted you in the face or calling them a slut or whatever. But from time to time some passive-aggressive dominant bitches need to be reminded in a polite but FIRM way that their mean behavior needs to stop. Especially in places where you have to set clear boundaries, like work or school for example, or even among family or friends.

I'm talking about culture in a broader sense, not your personal need to set boundries at work or school. The latter seems to be a fixation for you. So like, work on that? 

I'm not worried about people becoming more impulsive. Re read my points above if you want an honest discussion. 

Duels were heavily codified, plenty of rules and restrictions. They weren't spontaneous impulsive reactions to an insults. So I don't really get it why you think they were barbaric or uncivilized. It's your personal subjective opinion and nothing more.

Also duels were among gentlemen, the people of high social prestige and equal standing. You couldn't have a fight with a person of lower status. So all your talk about low rotten people is just well... yet another opinion.

Personal honor has no market value if it's not shared by other people. If someone's reputation gets challenged or damaged, it has to be defended or recovered by appealing to social standards anyway. It was duelling in the past but It's the same with your courts. If you go to the court, you appeal to the legal system, not your personal honor.

If you're don't care about fighting over petty insults, that's OK, but it doesn't mean the culture of duelling was less civilized. In the societies with ambiguous or corrupted or less developed legal system, it was an acceptable way of resolving issues.

I'm European too, you know. That doesn't mean I have never lived elsewhere. 

And I think we will just have to disagree. It was my intent to show that there are different ways of viewing honour and respectability across different cultures, which you don't seem to grasp, as for you honour seems to be a question of 'market value'. Dueling doesn't resolve issues, that is just a fact, it doesn't determine who is right or telling the truth - just who is left standing. 

But you don't have get it, I don't care. Maybe others will chime in, or find my perspective interesting. Maybe not. It's all fine by me at the end of the day.