Honor

Orson Scott Card writes about an endangered concept and what it should mean for individuals - and for nations:

Duty. Honor. Country.

Once these words could inspire the hearts of patriots. Now, in our benighted era, the elite in our nation sneer at the words and at those who still believe in them.

But there is such a thing as honor, and whether we name it by its right name or not, we depend on it.

Honor is akin to the word "honest." We say a person is honest if he tells the truth about what he has done and seen in the past.

But when he gives his word about what he will do in the future, and then keeps it, we say that he has honor. ....

It is honor that causes a football player at the bottom of a heap of players to refrain from pushing the ball just those couple of inches that would make it seem that it had broken the plane of the goal line.

It is honor, in a game of pickup basketball, that makes a player say, "I traveled," when no one noticed it but himself.

It is honor that keeps a married man from flirting with a woman who is not his wife. It is honor that holds parents to their responsibility to their children, sacrificing much so their children can thrive. It is honor that makes adult children care for their aging parents to the grave.

It is honor that makes a child assume the debts of his parents, or a brother to pay the debts of his sibling.

It is honor that makes it possible for us to trust the word of other people, for we know that they would rather keep their word than bear the shame of breaking it. [more]

Source: Civilization Watch - April 1, 2007 - Honor - The Ornery American

I learned of this essay at the World Magazine Blog