To me, living honorably has always been about treating all people fairly, equally, and compassionately. It does not represent the strongest and fastest fighter or those people who can prove themselves in different realms of society. A quiet and unassuming person can live an honorable life by holding strong to moral values and placing the concerns and needs of others before him or herself. In my opinion, if the notion of honor as it existed in the societies we have studied, such as the ancient Greeks or the Romans, and even other older societies, such as medieval and Victorian periods, were applied to modern sensibilities and situations, it would seem archaic and even barbaric. For example, many honorable conventions of older time periods included strictly defining gender conventions, such as a woman’s purity being synonymous with virginity and a man’s strength depending on his physical violence and ability. To me, these concepts have less to do with finding personal perfection that they do with controlling the lives and bodies of people through unfair and damaging societal standards of living an “honorable” life. I definitely think that honor still exists in the world today, but that it is simply defined differently. It has less of a strict connotation; it tends to denote when someone does the “right” thing in a given situation rather than providing a strict code on ethical or moral conduct. Honor should be defined personally, not by society of a ruling class. It should be present in today’s society insofar as it influences and prompts people to be consistently fair and compassionate towards other people. Honor is only an outdated concept if the values it upholds do not change with the times.
I try to live honorably in the context of being in school by, at the very least, completing my own work without cheating. In a broader context, however, I have always found it honorable to be open minded about the situations, personalities, and needs of different people. Treating others with respect and equality is honorable to me in ways that violence cannot rival. Fighting for what one believes in can be equally or even more effective with words and activism than it can be with violence; many of today’s battles are settled in Congress or in court or in diplomacy, and war is no longer the primary way of asserting moral correctness on others. I generally believe that every person has the right to decide for herself a correct and moral way to live her life and that it is dishonorable for another to take that right away. Religious intolerance, racism, homophobia, and sexism are all examples to me of warped and twisted systems of false honor. This kind of hate only perpetuates dishonorable conduct by taking away a person’s freedom to choose the manner in which to conduct her life.
Violence in contemporary times has its place, but I do not think it should be as acceptable or widespread as it has been in the past. There are some justifiable causes, in my opinion, that warrant physical force as a way of achieving a moral end goal (going to war against Hitler, etc). However, violence should not be the go to way of solving conflict or proving personal worth. I think that a lot of people who grow up with violence as an integral part of their lives are prone to harming others unnecessarily, and I think it is important to recognize how devastating violence can be to the lives of innocent people when it is not wholly justified.