Mike Austin raises the issue of the postgame handshake

25 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by dan demetriou in honor and sport, honor code, honor in contempory media, honor in the news, philosophy of honor

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Commissioner's Directive, Kentucky High School Athletic Association, Michael W. Austin, post-game handshake

Mike Austin (Eastern Kentucky) is one of the top philosophers of sport. In a recent blog post for Psychology Today, Austin notes that Kentucky high schools are now being advised to discontinue the practice of postgame handshakes.

As reported by the Lexington Herald Leader,

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association has issued a “Commissioner’s Directive” advising schools not to hold organized post-game handshake lines because of too many fights and physical conflicts.

“While it is an obvious sign of sportsmanship and civility, many incidents have occurred … where fights and physical conflicts have broken out,” according to the Commissioner’s Directive that went to schools on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, the adrenaline and effort required to participate in the sport sometimes seems to deplete the supply of judgment available to participants.”

According to the missive, more than two dozen fights in the past three years in Kentucky have broken out at post-game ceremonies. Although athletic and school officials were buzzing about the order Tuesday afternoon, Commissioner Julian Tackett downplayed the order, saying it was “much ado about nothing.”

There are no rules requiring the post-game handshake, and too many times, there hasn’t been enough supervision to stop conflicts during the ceremony. Students can still shake hands with other players voluntarily.

“You’re on notice, if you’re going to do this, you’re going to be accountable,” Tackett said.

Austin asks a number of questions about the handshake ritual that directly appeal to honor:

Sports and the Postgame Handshake Psychology Today

You can contribute to the online discussion here.

David Harsanyi: “Bring Back Dueling”

20 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by dan demetriou in honor code, honor in contempory media

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David Harsanyi, dueling

Admit it: every once in a while you think it…

Honor and racial justice

03 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by bcb in honor in contempory media, social psychology of honor

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Identity-based oppression is usually framed as a harm to dignity. When someone has suffered an injustice based on their race or gender, we commonly say that they have not been treated with dignity, or that their dignity has been violated. On the dignity account of oppression, oppression is morally wrong because 1) it is a failure to respect an individual as a human being, due to their identity in a social group, and/or 2) it is a failure to even recognize that an individual is a human, due to their identity. Note that social identity is the reason for oppression, on this account, but it is not the primary thing that is being disrespected. What is being disrespected is fundamental humanity, if we can abstract such a thing from supposedly morally irrelevant features of identity. To stop oppression, we should get oppressors to see their victims as humans. We need not respect collectives as such, only the humanity of individuals within these collectives.

I am skeptical that the dignity account correctly diagnoses the nature of oppression. Oppression seems to occur not because people fail to see similarity, but because they fail to respect difference. At best, the dignity account tells an incomplete story. It may even go so far as to obscure the nature of oppression so that some means of resistance are seen as illegitimate. I want to suggest that honor, an old tool that has historically been used by radical activists, might allow us to look at oppression with new eyes. As Sharon Krause has noted in Liberalism With Honor, Frederick Douglass and the suffragists have framed their oppression using the language of honor, emphasizing the martial virtues and the duty to stand up or die trying. So have radicals from groups as diverse as the founding Zionists and the Black Power movement, who rejected assimilation into the dominant culture and thought their cultures worthy of special respect. Today, black racial justice activists continue this tradition by describing the Baltimore protests as an “uprising” and emphasizing self-love not in spite of their race, but because of it. Since these individuals were and are on the frontlines of resistance, we should take the idea of honor seriously instead of trying to shoehorn their ethos and actions into the dignity framework. Continue reading →

Peter Singer on honoring racist historical figures

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by dan demetriou in honor and political philosophy, honor in contempory media, honor in the news

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Ajume Wingo, Honoring racists, Peter Singer, Thomas Jefferson statue

The ethics of honoring seems to be increasingly relevant in mainstream discussion, no more so than the controversies over the monuments, statues, and institutions honoring great—but racist—historical figures.

In a recent essay, Peter Singer takes up the issue. Especially noteworthy is that he mentions honorethics.org contributor Ajume Wingo‘s Veil Politics in Liberal Democratic States, which discusses (inter alia) the importance of image-making and civic mythology to liberal democracies.

Should We Honor Racists by Peter Singer Project Syndicate

Basketball Blowouts and Sniping on Twitter

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by dan demetriou in honor and sport, honor and war, honor in contempory media, honor in the news

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The last couple days saw two noteworthy instances of honor psychology in the viral media.

The first involves a California girls’ basketball team whose coach, Michael Anderson, had his Arroyo Valley Hawks run up the score to a 161-2 victory over their opponent, Bloomington High.

It’s a principle of honor that you don’t humiliate your opponents. Honor also enjoins us to seek out fair contests when possible. And thus there is something embarrassing for the winner in lopsided contests, suggesting perhaps that they sought out weak opponents they could bully around the playing field in an unseemly attempt to shore up a fragile ego. Unfortunately, in sports with a set schedule, it is impossible to avoid mismatches. And further research into this case suggests that the coaches for the two teams had an understanding that Arroyo would be allowed to practice their full-court press on Bloomington in preparation for future games against tougher teams. If the game was mutually understood as a sparring match for Arroyo, that also speaks against judging Anderson too harshly from an honor perspective. In any event, Anderson was suspended for two games.

Anderson’s suspension has been criticized by some parents and sports commentators. What I found interesting is Continue reading →

A Dish Best Served Hot: Top Chef Duels and the Public Perception of Honor

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by craigbrucesmith in history of honor, honor in contempory media

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What does honor taste like? In its recent season finale, the Bravo television series Top Chef Duels was likely the first to ever ask this question. The ten-episode series concluded this fall by having celebrity chefs Tiffani Faison, Kevin Gillespie, and CJ Jacobson cook an entrée that represents their own interpretation of honor. And the answer lies somewhere amongst Faison’s “lobster gnocchi with corn puree and lobster sauce,” Gillespie’s “wood oven roasted duck with mushrooms and crushed pea pistou,” and Jacobson’s “crispy duck with orange and Manzanita berries.” Leaving one to conclude that honor probably tastes most like duck.

The portrayal of honor on Top Chef Duels reveals a great deal about how this idea is popularly understood in America today. With $100,000 at stake, host Curtis Stone challenges the contestants to “make a three course meal inspired by what duels have been fought over for centuries…Love…Honor…Pride.” Yet again honor is seen through the inherently violent lens of a duel. On the surface, this view seems very much in line with the general public’s negative preconception of honor culture (as discussed in Laurie Johnson’s previous post on “A Definition of Honor?”). But if you peel back the layers of this very stereotypical representation, an opportunity to examine varying definitions of honor still exists. The nuances discussed by the show’s judges and contestants illustrate that honor is very much a diverse concept with many possible interpretations and an openness to ethical understandings of honor.

While the chefs cook, the guest judges engage in a spirited discussion of the Hamilton-Burr Duel of 1804. Joanne Freeman’s Affairs of Honor (or at least the famous 1990s “Got Milk?” Aaron Burr commercial) has found a ready audience. But it’s apparent that the public consumption is more historical than comical, as judges Jonathan Waxman and Tom Colicchio are both eager to correctly cite that the duel “took place in New Jersey. Because they couldn’t do it in New York.” Historians everywhere should be proud!

But within this discussion of honor as dueling, we see more nuanced approaches. Virtually all present vehemently agreed that to cheat in a duel afforded one “no honor!” Although, Austrian native Wolfgang Puck chides that if you did “You’re still alive!” Michelle Bernstein reminisces over “physically…defending my husband’s honor” after a patron’s disrespectful words, while her colleague Hugh Acheson considers honor as a matter of “character.”

For the actual honor entrées, the three contestants all interestingly interpret the term (and their dish) as paying tribute to a person or place. Rather than focusing on the violent elements of honor, they take it in a more celebratory context. It shows a ready acceptance of honor as something beyond the trappings of a duel.

Another interesting element of the show is how it separates honor and pride. Contestants interpret honor as being about others, while pride is more personal and about the individual. By framing the ideas in these terms, the chefs seem to show an openness to honor as an idea that is more reflective of society, rather than just the individual. As ethics is also often discussed in terms of society, this offers a possibility for the definition of honor to be more fully expanded into a larger discussion about ethical concepts.

Although this duel of kitchen knives is settled on taste rather than on the dishes’ success at representing honor, the episode sheds new light on this idea within American society and the continued difficulty in defining the term. In this duel Jacobson may have defeated his competitors, but the true victory came in fostering a public debate about honor before an audience of millions.

Should conscientious writers use scare quotes around the phrase “honor killings”?

07 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by dan demetriou in anthropology of honor, honor code, honor in contempory media, honor in the news, philosophy of honor

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Pakistani human rights activists protest against the killing of pregnant woman Farzana Parveen for marrying a man she loved. Photo: Getty

Since honor killings are so-called, they present honor theorists interested in rehabilitating honor with perhaps our greatest rhetorical challenge. One strategy would be disassociating honor with honor killings: to say that they are honor killings in name only, but not in fact. As part of that strategy, we might decide to put scare quotes around the phrase “honor killings.” A recent, excellent article on honor killings by Aisha Gill exemplifies this liberal use of the scare quote approach.

[A note for non-writers and students: using quotes to mention a phrase qua term (as I did two sentences ago), and using quotes to draw attention to a term (as I do in the next sentence), are different from using scare quotes, which signal that you’re not endorsing the attitudes that might come with a sincere use of the quoted term.]

So this post isn’t devoted to condemning honor killings so much as making a “meta” point. Suppose a writer

Condemns honor killings,
Finds them even to be dishonorable, and
Wants to communicate both her condemnation of honor killings and yet her endorsement of the importance of being honorable.

Such a writer will inevitably contemplate using scare-quotes around the phrase “honor killing.” I want to argue that the scare-quote approach is incorrect.

My argument is premised on the claim that the word “honor” really is a descriptive term. It is not like “justice,” which is a “morally thick” term that has both descriptive and normative content. “Honor,” at least in the sense being used in the phrase “honor killings” (both in the mouths of those who condemn it and those who approve of it) simply refers to esteem, good standing, respectability. And these things supervene on the opinion of the honor group. Honor killings really are done for honor. Not faux-honor, but actual honor. Thus, using scare quotes around the phrase “honor killings” is not correct, even for a writer of the sort we’re imagining.

Objections and replies

OBJECTION: But these killings are not honorable—in fact, they’re dishonorable!

REPLY: Agreed. But honorableness is not the same as honor. Honor is analogous to wealth, or any other goodie (pleasure, freedom, candy, whatever). A capitalist thinks capitalist principles correctly say how the goodie of money should be gained and distributed. A socialist thinks socialist principles say how the goodie of money should be gained and distributed. They both see money as a goodie, but they disagree about the “ethic” that governs that goodie.

Honorableness concerns the correct way to get and distribute the goodie of honor. Unfortunately, honor theory is undeveloped at this point, and there are no handy names such as “socialism” or “capitalism” to denote different comprehensive and integrated theories about what’s honorable. All you and I know right now is that, whatever the correct theory is, it doesn’t permit honor killings.

Thus, the conscientious writer we’re imagining holds that the ethic governing honor says that honor shouldn’t be given to those who kill helpless, usually already-victimized girls and women. But just as it would be silly for a socialist to announce that, say, managing hedge funds isn’t about money but rather “money,” it would be incorrect, even for the conscientious writer above, to say that an honor killing isn’t about honor but “honor.”

OBJECTION: But we’re trying to shame people out of the practice of honor killings through our writing, and using scare quotes around the phrase helps drive home the message that we condemn honor killings.

REPLY: I think that this strategy perpetuates shallow and ultimately unpersuasive talk about values. No capitalist is (or should be) persuaded out of his capitalist beliefs by calling his money “filthy lucre”: that filthy lucre still pays the bills. And I doubt any proponent of honor killings will be persuaded out of his ancient beliefs by calling honor killings “honor killings,” especially when his honor group continues to honor him for what he does. The debate needs to turn to the ethics of honor. What are the principles that should govern our distribution of honor? Who should we honor, and why? These are questions about the meaning “honorableness”: “honorable,” like “justice” and unlike “honor,” is a morally thick term.

If I’m right about this, here are examples of correct usage:

“According to the U.N., 5,000 women are slain in honor killings every year.”

“These ‘honorable’ killings are often carried out by the victim’s family.”

“The so-and-so believe these acts to be honorable because of such-and-such.” [Acceptable because belief is a propositional attitude, and whatever you put in its scope isn’t an assertion of its truth.]

Ajume Wingo: Source of Mandela’s greatness is that he gave up power

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by dan demetriou in announcements, history of honor, honor and the law, honor in contempory media, honor in the news, philosophy of honor, political science of honor, stories of honor

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mandela and honor

Honorethics.org contributor Ajume Wingo had a great letter published in the Denver Post yesterday on Nelson Mandela. It discusses an important point almost totally ignored in the encomia we are hearing about the South African president: how unique and important it was that Mandela gave up power.

The true source of Mandela’s greatness is how he gave up that power. It was his exit — dignified and orderly — more than anything else that sets him apart. His exit from office at the height of his power, popularity and health put him in the company of Cincinnatus of ancient Rome and George Washington — exemplars of the rule of law and the ideals of leadership in a republic.

I know Ajume has been thinking and writing on the theme of rulership and liberalism for some time. In the developed West, we have grown accustomed to our leaders stepping down when their tenure is up, but of course there is little reason to make the same assumption in many parts of the world. Figuring out how to persuade leaders to give up power—especially when the populace will let them get away with keeping it—would be huge accomplishment for the cause of liberalism and rule of law.

Could leaders be persuaded by money? Maybe. However, as Wingo’s piece notes, African billionaire Mo Ibrahim has funded a foundation offering $5 million, and an annual stipend of $200,000, to African leaders who (among other things) “serve their constitutionally mandated term.” The prize seems to be an insufficient incentive. Maybe the prize cannot compare to the richer spoils of electing oneself president for life. However, we do have some historical precedent on the matter. As Ajume notes, Washington and Cincinnatus also refused sorts of kingship.

Beyond their non-pecuniary motives, I cannot say much about Cincinnatus’ or Mandela’s motives. But in the case of Washington, some historians argue that concern for honor was key. Douglass Adair, Lorrraine Smith Pangle and Thomas Pangle, Joanne Freeman, and Gordon Wood all speak to the concern Washington had for his honor and reputation. Continue reading →

David Brooks on character: the Western hybrid of honor and Judeo-Christian mores

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by dan demetriou in history of honor, honor code, honor in contempory media, honor in literature, philosophy of honor, stories of honor

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I missed this insightful talk by David Brooks this summer at the Aspen Ideas Festival. The talk is entitled “The Character Code.” Here’s the abstract:

We’re in a world full of good people, but who don’t have a clear vocabulary for character. We don’t have a moral system. Here, David Brooks puts forth Western civilization’s ancient recipe for being a better person—and how we forgot it.

Essentially, Brooks argues that the Western character code is a hybrid of the Greek honor model (excellence, competitiveness, pride) and the Judeo-Christian model (obedience, self-abnegation, humility).

I think he ignores the cultural ubiquity of the honor code. He suggests for instance that chivalry was an attempt to combine classical “Greek” honor values with Christian ones, when in fact a devotion to the honor code was quite indigenous among the Pagan Europeans the medieval Christians were trying to covert, as writers from Tacitus to William Ian Miller and George Fenwick Jones point out. Nonetheless, this is a very interesting talk. You can find the transcript here.