The impetus for this entry is hard to pin down, so I won't try to. But what I can say, based on that, is that the reasons for this entry can be gathered from many corners of my experiences.
There are many instances in our lives—and in human history—that offer choices and outcomes based on honor. In fact, either directly or indirectly, most of the oppression that we face in our lives comes from actions based on the goal of honor.
That is said, knowing that honor is never possible without its constant companion: shame. Shame is that which is without honor, and a person is shamed when their sense of honor and self-worth are removed. Entire societies have come and gone, basing their social order and their politics on the honor/shame model. Many of these social constructs exist today, as it turns out, and their patterns seep out into the rest of the world, providing a well-understood basis for doing whatever feels "right." More's the pity.
One good example is the typical honor/shame society as it existed in the Mediterranean world a few centuries ago. Simply put, men held the honor of the family, while women guarded against the shame of the family. Men we "born with honor" based on their family's status. Women were "born into shame" based on that same reasoning. It was difficult for a woman to attain honor. However, she could either guard against shame or allow herself—and by extension the family—to receive shame. Protection against shame required certain ways of dressing (e.g., the birka) and acting (e.g., not being alone with a non-family male). The examples, by the way, also belong to that region's dress and deportment centuries before our current scriptures were written. But merely doing something that might make shaming possible is shame itself in one way or another.
Honor, on the other hand, is something that the males were born with, to greater or lesser degrees, according to their family. Some family occupations (shepherd, for example) did little to offer honor to the males of the family. But honor was also something one could gain through one's actions. And gaining it mean that someone else—another male, in the case—must lose some honor and feel some shame. That old tale about how David was plucked out of a shepherd's family and achieves greatness actually attests to that. He came, not from a merely lowly upbringing, but from a relatively honor-less one. How he later became great is an object lesson that has never been lost, so it seems: kill and oppress. First, there's Goliath. Battles have always been "field of honor" encounters, but here the outcome was to be decided in a one-on-one duel between the champions sent by each side. The Philistines sent their "most honored in battle" (i.e., most victorious) Goliath. The Israelites had nothing to match him. So the "least honorable" warrior—not a warrior, but a shepherd, seizes the moment and kills Goliath, thereby gaining the honor that the entire Philistine nation lost that day. That's how things worked back then. As a warrior in King Saul's army, David continued to gain honor after honor—that is, he killed a lot of enemy soldiers in battle. Even how King Saul died was ultimately portrayed as "less honorable than David." Saul died on the field of battle—the so-called field of honor—but not at the hands of the enemy, but at the sword of his servants. You see, the story is ultimately about establishing the great honor of King David. A less "honorable" King could never bring home the Ark of the Covenant. David's actual history remains shrouded in mystery. The need to explain his stature—that is, his honor—was all-important.
The point here is not about uncovering King David's past, but the need by cultures to define and use both honor and shame. The story about David is merely interesting because someone had to show how one growing up in an honor-less family (i.e., shepherds, who were deemed also unclean due to their, shall we say, closeness to their flocks) could become King of an honorable nation. You see, this has never gone away. Honor and shame are the forms of currency in an economy that rules most of the world as we know it. And as a ruling entity, it has done more to oppress and subjugate its inhabitants than even the most vile dictators the world has known. Honor versus shame has been the starter of wars, the ethnic cleanser, the caller of armies, the armorer of the hordes and the warriors. It has infiltrated our cultures to make gangs useful "alternatives" and to focus their violence and hatreds. In all armed conflicts, both sides ante-up the currency of so-called "honor" in order to bring shame upon their enemies. In business or politics, the stakes might not be as deadly, but the currency is all too often the same. Honor to the winners. Shame to the vanquished.
So let me offer one thought: Shame on nobody. Honor is meaningless, as is valor or glory. These will never end suffering or bring harmony to any situation. They can only add oppression, destruction, hatred, and despair. Enough for now. Alternatives are for another entry.
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