Southern Honor

[diane]

Shame is just an action of that thing called conscience. If your conscience tells you thus and so is wrong and you do it anyway, you're going to be ashamed. That strays into a spiritual realm. The honor code we're talking about had more to do with society and one's place in it.

 

[diane]

To this day, one of the harshest things a favorite aunt will say to someone is "I am ashamed of you" or "have you no shame?"

That sounds like tribe! You're supposed to comport yourself in such a manner as shows good character and morale fortitude because you are the sum total of all who went before. If you ask an old timer Indian who he is, you'll get the whole Creation story clear down to the clan he comes from. (Just ask what's your name...!) If you do wrong and don't make it right, or try to, then you've shamed every single ancestor in your whole clan. (None of these folks are really dead from our view point, by the way.)

 

[gem]

Shame is just an action of that thing called conscience. If your conscience tells you thus and so is wrong and you do it anyway, you're going to be ashamed. That strays into a spiritual realm. The honor code we're talking about had more to do with society and one's place in it.

i consider shame and honor somewhat hand in hand as they are both intangible qualities.

The honor code guided how one is supposed to act in society. What would happen if they did not act as they were supposed to? shame and dishonor. Not being honorable leads to shame. For some in the antebellum that was a fate worse than death. Certainly for many Japanese Samurai death was a way to salvage one from shame and thus restore honor.

 

[diane]

i consider shame and honor somewhat hand in hand as they are both intangible qualities.

The honor code guided how one is supposed to act in society. What would happen if they did not act as they were supposed to? shame and dishonor. Not being honorable leads to shame. For some in the antebellum that was a fate worse than death. Certainly for many Japanese Samurai death was a way to salvage one from shame and thus restore honor.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs for our purposes on this thread, but I believe shame and honor are separate items inside the same basic cube. One can have no shame but be quite honorable, you know. Shame is inside. Honor is outside. The rub is real honor involves real shame as it involves morality and responsibility.

 

[damYankee]

Having the legal right to beat someone to death because they are the wrong color just doesn't sound honorable to me, the fact that slaves could be put to death for defending themselves sounds cowardly to me.
Sorry folks, the whole idea of Southern Pride seems overblown, it seems to imply that Southerners were the only people who had a "code of honor" or had the capacity to act in a honorable fashion.
If that were true, they would have allowed the slave to fight back and the better man win, but they didn't do that, they stacked the deck..no different then tying a puppy to a fence post and whipping them. Last time I saw someone beating a dog, I did the honorable thing and stopped him.
Wouldn't you?

 

[ole]

What "honor" I have, I got from the Mom and The Dad. Don't lie and don't say anything bad about anyone else. Quite simple.

It works for me.

But I am now in a position where I must pass judgement on what others say or do. I'd rather not be called on make that judgement. I figured it wasn't necessary. Didn't everyone get that lesson? Or were we just not paying attention?

 

[Drew]

Last time I saw someone beating a dog, I did the honorable thing and stopped him.

No, you did not. You segregated the dog into a ghetto and you looked the other way while the dog and his fellows tore each othe apart. Stop with the sanctimony, please.

 

[bama46]

No, on both counts. I, for one, refuse to allow anyone to re-define our language to the point where "honor" and "cowardice" are compatible. They are not. Perspective and/or experience is irrelevant and that, frankly, is what has got us into all kinds of trouble. Allowing any group in our society to exit social norms and redifine our language to suit their own terms is outrageous. "Honor" and "respect" are easily found in the dictionary. Violence perpetrated and justified outside of these definintions is indicative of contemporary pathology, period.

Wanting to kill due perceived slight is bad enough, but the dueling described in the video has NOTHING in common with business conflict or "disrespect" felt by those who would ambush a defenseless adversary in a way the ensures their own safety, survival and escape. This is cowardice. Look at the video again and think about it.

Sumner was confronted by his adversary, one to one, and did not face lethal force projected from a safe distance. Surprised, he may have been. Many of his colleagues present were not. Not the same as a drive by, sorry.

With respect, the purpose of my comment was to point out that sometimes one must look at an event thru the eyes of another who has vastly different values then we do. You seem to be saying that everyone needs to look at events the same way you do..I do not agree with the concept of the drive by being honorable or of defending someone's honor, but I can see how others might.

 

[lakertaker]

[quote="dvrmte, post: 601927, member: 2381"]I enjoyed that! I'm reading a book that includes the Benjamin Perry vs Turner Bynum duel. They and many other prominent antebellum South Carolinians gave stump speeches at the militia mustering grounds less than a mile from where I live.

I'm not sure if Cooper goes into more details on the origins of the Southern code of honor in other lectures. It really should be called the Scots-Irish code of honor, because they brought it with them when they moved southward. It didn't originate in a slave society.

Much of what he stated gives further support to what Lacy K. Ford concludes in his book on southern radicalism. In at least South Carolina, the planters didn't have to push the yeoman towards war, the Scots-Irish yeoman had their notions of independence threatened and their honor insulted by some in the North. That's all it took.

I think Cooper's theory that the end of slavery ended duels, is reaching at best. Suffering defeat in the ACW(huge duel) and Reconstruction could be easily correlated with an already decreasing popularity in dueling.

I have heard the argument put forth that the South is not much different from the remainder of the country. If one takes in account the concentration of Scots-Irish settelers in the South, you get a very different outcome in the dominant culture of the South. Personal honor means alot, in some cases the demand for satisfaction and the need for a second. For more on the contributions of the Scots-Irish in the South and America, might I suggest two books, the first one is The Scotch Irish, A Social History by James G. Leyburn, The University of North Carolina Press. The second book, Born Fighting How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by James Webb. Broadway Books.[/quote]
I think Cooper's theory that the end of slavery ended duels, is reaching at best.
Agree with you, CSA, as I couldn't wrap my head around that theory. He stated something to the effect that no one could be insulted as "slave-like," anymore - therefore no more duels. He also stated, "Today, honor is an empty word." Perhaps he meant antebellum honor, but he didn't say that.

 

[gem]

I have heard the argument put forth that the South is not much different from the remainder of the country. If one takes in account the concentration of Scots-Irish settelers in the South, you get a very different outcome in the dominant culture of the South. Personal honor means alot, in some cases the demand for satisfaction and the need for a second. For more on the contributions of the Scots-Irish in the South and America, might I suggest two books, the first one is The Scotch Irish, A Social History by James G. Leyburn, The University of North Carolina Press. The second book, Born Fighting How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by James Webb. Broadway Books.

I think Cooper's theory that the end of slavery ended duels, is reaching at best.
Agree with you, CSA, as I couldn't wrap my head around that theory. He stated something to the effect that no one could be insulted as "slave-like," anymore - therefore no more duels. He also stated, "Today, honor is an empty word." Perhaps he meant antebellum honor, but he didn't say that.[/quote]

its certainly a stretch.

His logic goes like this:

With slavery there is a subhuman class. If one could be pused down into that class, it had the potential to could create the most violent reaction, the duel.

Without slavery there is no subhuman class. Now that the pit is not as deep people did not feel the need to duel.

The problem with his theory is that there are many other plausible and even more plausible explanations.

 

[damYankee]

No, you did not. You segregated the dog into a ghetto and you looked the other way while the dog and his fellows tore each othe apart. Stop with the sanctimony, please.

BS! I have stopped more then one case of a human bullying another human or abusing a dog or other animals. You know little about me, less about my past.
But as I understand it, if you witnessed a person beating a helpless being you would either do nothing,or join in the beating...what you call "honor"..,it is not about being sanctimonious. It's about being a man and standing for what is right, even when nobody is watching. If that makes me sanctimonious so be it.

 

[Nathanb1]

I shall be sanctimonious myself. Either tone it down, stop the insulting remarks or this gets locked as well. I may set a record today.

Posted in Capacity as Moderator

 

[damYankee]

Don't confuse pride with honor.

 

[gem]

BS! I have stopped more then one case of a human bullying another human or abusing a dog or other animals. You know little about me, less about my past.
But as I understand it, if you witnessed a person beating a helpless being you would either do nothing,or join in the beating...what you call "honor"..,it is not about being sanctimonious. It's about being a man and standing for what is right, even when nobody is watching. If that makes me sanctimonious so be it.

I agree with what you are saying to a point. A key factor is that the South had an honor code and in that code the slave was subhuman. Another key factor is that society had a major role in defining what was honorable and what was not.

One may think that the honor code was totally crazy, but that was the code. That was the standard that society had set.

That being said simply because there was a code does not mean that southerners were completely hardwired to act in a certain way. In fact we know that many Southerners joined the Union not the CSA an act which one could say violated the code.

I think perhaps the most important point is that one should not ignore the code and the role it played in leading Southerners to make certain decisions. We may hate the code we may hate the decisions but why ignore the role that the code played?

 

[damYankee]

I agree with what you are saying to a point. A key factor is that the South had an honor code and in that code the slave was subhuman. Another key factor is that society had a major role in defining what was honorable and what was not.

One may think that the honor code was totally crazy, but that was the code. That was the standard that society had set.

That being said simply because there was a code does not mean that southerners were completely hardwired to act in a certain way. In fact we know that many Southerners joined the Union not the CSA an act which one could say violated the code.

I think perhaps the most important point is that one should not ignore the code and the role it played in leading Southerners to make certain decisions. We may hate the code we may hate the decisions but why ignore the role that the code played?

To be brief, Pride goes before the Fall...

 

[gem]

To be brief, Pride goes before the Fall...

what do you mean by that?

 

[Dave Wilma]

Sam Houston left Tennessee for Texas around some issue of honor. The account I recall was that he married a young woman who may not have been properly briefed on the details of the wedding night. She went home upset. Rather than dishonor her in any way Houston left the state. Wiki has an account of the end of the marriage and it does appear complicated. In any event, honor compelled Houston to abandon the governorship of Tennessee and strike out for the West.

 

[gem]

With respect, the purpose of my comment was to point out that sometimes one must look at an event thru the eyes of another who has vastly different values then we do. You seem to be saying that everyone needs to look at events the same way you do..I do not agree with the concept of the drive by being honorable or of defending someone's honor, but I can see how others might.

I think you hit on a key concept. Honor is defined by man and society.

Thus, what one man and society may consider honorable another man in a different society may consider dishonorable.

Thus we have to be extremely careful when we discredit as dishonorable acts of a society outside of our own society.

Honor is subjective and based on a society and culture.

 

[proud texan]

why was there less violence in the honor code in the North?

I believe I've posted these here before. Great articles on Honor.
http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/1...hristian-code-of-honor-in-the-american-north/

http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/26/manly-honor-part-v-honor-in-the-american-south/

 

[proud texan]

I believe I've posted these here before. Great articles on Honor.
http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/1...hristian-code-of-honor-in-the-american-north/

http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/26/manly-honor-part-v-honor-in-the-american-south/

If yall have time read the series of the links I posted. Answers or will stimulate ideas and more fodder for conversation.