Does honor and chivalry still exist?
- Thread starter Lord DragonsWing
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Joe Wordsworth
Logician
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- Apr 22, 2004
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It's also a very common movie plot.
Joe Wordsworth
Logician
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Originally posted by Belegon
Yeah, I guess. But it is probably common because people like it.
I think that's probably true.
Colleen Thomas
Ultrafemme
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Lord DragonsWing said:
Chivalry never existed as more than an ideal. It was the ideal of the medevil knight or nobleman. It's expression was scene at the tourney, on the battlefield and in the expresssion of "courtly" love. It died with the invention of the crossbow and later gun powder.
Honor has existed forever and always shall. Its expression is not bounded by any single thing, but is more the sum total of a person's ethics and value system.
A man can be ethical, but not honorable, your best example is the unscrupulous lawyer, who is always ethically correct, but never does the "right" thing. A man can be honorable, but not ethical, your best example is the gentleman highwayman. Most people bounce betweenthe extremes, displaying their own personal code of ethics and values. Honor is muteable and open to interpretation.
If person A, flatly refuses to sleep with his best friend's girlfriend, he would be said to be honorable by most. Yet if he loved her and his best freind was just using her for her body and he did sleep with her, and took her away from his mate, but married her and loved her and grew old with her, he might still be said to have done the honorable thing while his mate might be said to have been acting in a dishonroable way. Yet, if his mate and the girl had entered into the relationship for nothing but sex, and both had been honest and upfront about that, then he could be said to be honorable, even though fucking her for nothing more then the physical gratification might be viewed as dishornable by some.
In the end, a man's honor or lack there of is a value judgement by those around him as well as a value judgement of himself. The habitual liar, with a heart of gold, who would give you the shirt off his back if you were in need, might be viewed as very honorable by some while viewed as a rascal by others.
Honor exists, but it isn't a natural construct. It's a concept and like all concepts, it is open to interpretation and subject to change. The most that can be said is that some live with a more stringent code of honor than others. While some live with a code that is just as stringent, but warped by their personal experience. Gang members habitually kill people who have gone against the wishes of the gang. To other members, they are honorable, avenging a wrong. To most others they are thugs, spreading fear and mayhem.
-Colly
