The age of duels, for example, disappeared when a culture of honor was superseded by a modern culture of dignity. Campbell and Manning describe culture of honor as a context:
“Honorable people are sensitive to insult, and so they would understand that microaggressions, even if unintentional, are severe offenses that demand a serious response,” they write. “But honor cultures value unilateral aggression and disparage appeals for help. Public complaints that advertise or even exaggerate one’s own victimization and need for sympathy would be anathema to a person of honor.”Honor is a matter of how one is viewed by others. In a traditional, conservative society one's characteristics are often arrived at by ascription—one's "place," as ascribed by society or tradition. Who one is comes, in effect, from outside. A threat to that assigned or inherited identity can cause one to publicly demand "satisfaction," as in a duel.
The context of dignity culture can be described in terms of a modern, liberal view of the self as an achievement of one's efforts to become what one wants to be. Who one is depends, not on social or other external standards, but on an ethical vision toward which one aspires.* The resolute inner direction of the liberal personality is relatively immune to offense. Thus Campbell and Manning observe:
“Members of a dignity culture, on the other hand, would see no shame in appealing to third parties, but they would not approve of such appeals for minor and merely verbal offenses. Instead they would likely counsel either confronting the offender directly to discuss the issue, or better yet, ignoring the remarks altogether.”In the liberal Founding, the young nation left behind what Lincoln described when he said that the United States had advanced beyond the Old World order of "classification, caste, and legitimacy."
(*) Hawthorne's The Great Stone Face portrays the effect of a life devoted to an ethical quest.
No comments:
Post a Comment