Impossible Dreams

A friend asked me recently, what I believe in.
Everything and nothing, I told her, in about equal proportions.
A facile answer, but true only to a point. To be completely truthful I would have to say that there is something I believe in completely and without doubt: honor.

But “honor” is one of those words that can mean a lot of different things depending on who’s using it, misusing it, or abusing it.
So I’d better explain.

hon·or (ˈä-nər), noun. Middle English, from Anglo-French onur, honur, from Latin honos, honor 13th century: a keen sense of ethical conduct : integrity b: one's word given as a guarantee of performance

Good definition.
As far as it goes.
But who’s to say what’s “ethical?” Just what is “integrity,” anyway.
Fair questions.

Ethics is, as you probably know, a branch of philosophy that explores the meaning of “right” conduct and living a “good” life.

I’ll spare you my witty summary of Plato and Aristotle. You should read these cats for yourself, anyway, if you haven’t already. And I’ll skip normative ethics, meta-ethics, hedonism, stoicism and a bunch of other –ism’s, and fast-forward right to the things that make sense to me, that have the ring of self-validating truth about them, the way gravity has, because you can see it at work and observe what happens when a person or a Wile E. Coyote tries to play fast and loose with it.


Reputation is what other people know about you.
Honor is what you know about yourself.
- Lois McMaster Bujold


In The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, one of my favorite books, Eric Fromm coined the term biophilia (literally meaning “love of life”) and suggests that healthy human beings are attracted to all that is alive and vital.

Contrary to the Freudian notion that there are two separate-but-equal instincts (eros, the life instinct, and thanatos, the death instinct) at war for control of the human psyche and soul at any given moment, Fromm would say that constructive, creative, pleasure-seeking, life-enhancing behavior is the “natural” state of human beings, and that destructiveness, pain-seeking, life-diminishing behavior is psychopathology.

Unfortunately, not all human beings are healthy.
Some individual lack the ability to feel connectedness, in the same way that some individuals are born without the ability to see colors. Color-blind people can understand what colors are, intellectually. And they can learn to mimic the behavior of color-sighted people – for example, learning to stop when the top traffic light comes on and “go” when the bottom one lights up.
But they can never experience the colors the way color-sighted people do.
Those folks who are emotionally/spiritually “color-blind” are called “psychopaths.”
Some, like Ted Bundy (a classic example of an “essential psychopath) are criminal psychopaths. But many others are not. They may function within the bounds of the law but wreak havoc, hurt and harm on a social or interpersonal level.

Later on, others extended the term “biophilia” to include "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.”
This, I think may be the biological basis of “honor.”

Lawrence Kohlberg devised a six-stage model of moral development. At the highest stage – which few, according to Kohlberg, ever achieve -- there is what I would consider an excellent definition of honor.
Kohlberg says, "Right is defined by the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles appealing to logical comprehensiveness, universality and consistency. These principles are abstract and ethical (the golden rule, the categorical imperative) and are not concrete moral rules like the Ten Commandments. At heart, these are universal principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of human rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individual persons."

This brings me to my particular flavor of honor, called “chivalry.”
The root of this word is “cheval” or “horse,” in French. Literally, then, it means “horsemanship.”
My Webster’s 10th edition says chivalry is “the system, spirit or customs of medieval knighthood.” That is to say, chivalry included the moral code, as well as the martial arts, of the Ideal Knight. That Ideal Knight, in my opinion, would be the Knight-Errant, more about whom, shortly.
For me the term is personally appropriate because I have learned as much about “right conduct” and living a “good life” from horses as from people.
More, come to think of it.
Maybe some knights did, too.


I consider there to be four foundational principles of chivalry: prowess, veracity, loyalty and benevolence.

Prowess, to the medieval knight, meant skill at armes, the sine qua non of success in that profession. The Ideal Knight engaged in a continuous, life-long quest to cultivate consummate skill in horsemanship, swordsmanship, tactics, strategy and courtesy, proper behavior off the battlefield as well as on it. Today we could say that prowess means the pursuit of excellence in all things, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. While the medieval knight needed skill at armes to vanquish foes, the modern knight practices chivalric skills to vanquish in himself/herself everything that is petty, selfish, fearful or in any way dishonorable.

Veracity, or truthfulness is as important today as it ever was -- and as rare. The medieval knight must never “be a party to any untruth.” 21st century chivalry requires not only that the modern knight does not lie, but that he/she does not tolerate lies in their presence. This includes lies of omission as well as commission and all manner of lying by obfuscation, and evasion. The knight has an obligation to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” but is also keenly aware of any possible bias, prejudice or limitations of perception. Ask the common person what color that house is and he or she will say “It’s white.” Ask a knight and the reply will be, “It’s white on the side that I can see.” (Thanks to Robert Heinlein’s “fair witness”)

Loyalty in the middle ages meant loyalty to the knight’s lord or monarch, to whom he gave his pledge. Today, our loyalty is to the code of chivalry itself and only secondly to any “lord” or superior. -- and then only as long as that superior’s conduct does not violate the essential principles of that code, or requires us to o so. Here we may make the distinction in “warriorship” between the common man-at-arms or soldier, and the Ideal Knight: a soldier follows orders; a warrior follows his conscience. You might say that one’s loyalty belongs to whatever one pledges loyalty to – so above all, to one’s own word, one’s own honor.


The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
- H.L. Mencken


Benevolence is the fourth of the foundational principles of chivalry. It comes from Latin and means “a disposition to do good.”
As previously noted, there are a few people (psychopaths) who will always choose to do wrong, to inflict pain, to harm, to destroy no matter what the circumstances, provided that it serves some whim of their own and they can do it with no risk or cost to themselves. They have no empathy and view others as “things” that exist only as toys for the immediate gratification of their every desire

Most people will do good when there is some material or social reward involved for doing it, or when it is, at least, not inconvenient or dangerous to do. Likewise the common person refrains from doing wrong because they fear the consequences, materially or socially, if they are caught.

There are a few people who will always choose the right thing, the fair, just, merciful, honest, true thing, the life- enhancing thing, with compassion, integrity and dignity, no matter what the circumstances, regardless of any risk or cost to themselves. These are the people I would call “good,” or benevolent. The biophiliacs, if you like. Or the “anti-psychopaths,” if I may be so bold.

The Ideal Knight comes from this number small number of benevolent persons. The knight does good because it is good. It has become his nature. She no longer has a “choice;” anymore than a person has a “choice” not to breath. She is compelled to do what is right and just, what preserves and enhances life under all circumstances, without exception, and does so fully understanding that one can never do right without risk or cost to oneself Likewise the knight refrains from doing wrong because it is wrong, because it is hurtful or harmful to innocent persons whom he must always protect, rather than from any fear of punishment or other unpleasant consequences to himself.

The Ideal Knight-errant goes further. Unlike the Ideal Knight for whom doing good is a constant, but a happenstance, the Ideal Knight-errant sallies forth into the world aggressively seeking out opportunities to do good.


Maybe you’re thinking, that’s a tall order, Pal.
I agree.
It’s an “Impossible Dream.”
That’s exactly what makes it a Dream worth striving for.

sj



The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

- Socrates