Asklemmy

I associate honor with it being a part of culture and I think of the Japanese way of honor. Like Bushido.

Honor is a social construct which is used to promote "pro-social" behavior. It can be useful in the absence of or in concert with other systems of social control (e.g. laws, religion). Of course, "pro-social" is very much a construct of what the creating society considers to be positive. This can include acting in ways which we, in our current social constructs, would consider "anti-social". Honor ends up getting idolized in media because it often includes an element of self-discipline and self-sacrifice and is usually associated with warrior cultures. Though, it also tends to be conservative and resist changing as social mores change. This has led to some famous consequences as honor based systems tried to cling to social constructs which were no longer tenable. For example, the Satsuma Rebellion saw the existing feudal class seek to maintain it's grip on power in then face of a changing society.

Ultimately, any system of honor would need to be taught to new adherents. It's no different from a religion or legal system in that regard. No one comes out of the womb fully indoctrinated to a system of honor. So no, it isn't really self-explanatory. Like any social construct, you would need to define the system and how it interacts with the society in which is was created. Otherwise, it's just naming a system for social control and hoping no one notices that it's a hollow shell.

I consider honor to sorta be the opposite of hypocrisy. Its to lead ones life as one as one espouses and truly believes and be consistant in word and deed. It is not necessarily good but more often sought by good people.

No, and I am honor-bound not to explain it.

Slave traders were honored guests in lords’ palaces.

Of course not.

Honor is situational, cultural, and often nebulous.

It can't be self explanatory. The closest it gets to that is within a given culture, it can be so engrained as to be learned early enough that it seems self explanatory from within.

I'm normally pretty long winded, but that's really all that needs to be said imo.

I feel like you're talking about multiple things that are only loosely related, some of which could be called honour. It's varied enough that I wouldn't call it self-explanatory.

Certainly, I could see someone defining honour as, at some point, the respect of military peers. This still exists with honourable or dishonourable discharge, but reaching back in time one could imagine an honourable knight treating his peasants poorly (and certainly less well than how he treats other knights), to say nothing of women specifically.

Likewise, Japanese culture is said to be an "honour culture" but it could be said to be a particular form of Japanese Machismo that has evolved from the Japanese martial classes (an elite) to the modern proletarian salaryman.

But in common modern usage, I see enough "honourable klingon" memes that use honour as a sort of earnestness and respect amongst everyone.

Not saying any of interpretations are correct (or wholly wrong), just that there's enough of them that are plausible that saying any of them is self-explanatory is a bit of a reach.

Erm, I'm a bit high

The mere fact that you felt you needed to explain and define it should be proof that the answer is no.

To me, honour is being answerable to your duties of being a good citizen. Being honest, being helpful, being civil, having integrity - all that can be part of honour.

Honor is a sense of a child doing things for which parents will praise them. An adult substitutes parents with other people and institutions, but honor is still a desire to be accepted and praised by others and anticipation of it.

It's not self explanory. It's strongly tied to a culture or even a person.

I don't see anything bad in not being married nor having different skillet than your parents. Let alone honor being used to kill women and in general justify violence from the powerful to the weak

imo honor is roughly a synonym for integrity.

yet integrity means different things to different people.

and people also mistake honor and pride.

I think honor is living by the rules one sets upon themselves and others. Especially when shit gets hard. It's easy to say "I help people" but it's a lot harder to push a car to the shoulder in the rain because somebody has a flat on a highway. It's also easy to say people should let you in line because you have two items but do you do that when you have a full cart but really want to get home soon? I try to teach my kids "if you can help, you have to help". When they do that, they bring honor to themselves and the family.

Ymmv.

is it dishonorable to find loopholes in the rules of the honor culture

Dueling culture in 18th and 19th century Europe was commonly organized around concepts of "gentlemanly honor". Even back then, people recognized the need for loopholes.

Consider the case of two friends who got drunk at a tavern, each one declaring how much they loved the other. Eventually, one friend goes overboard "I love you more than you know!" to which the response is "But that cannot be, for my love of you is infinite!". Soon this becomes an argument over who loves the other more, and eventually they have to settle their friendship like gentlemen: With swords at dawn. If they're smart and sober up in time, their seconds will work out a solution before the fight, but there are cases recorded where the friends kill each other because honor trumps love.

There were also loopholes which worked to favor the person that society already deemed more "honorable" (wealthy, connected, liked, etc). It was generally accepted that a gentleman of certain standing could honorably refuse another's challenge to duel if their social stations were different. Think a "new money" banker's son challenging a minor nobleman over a loan that's due. It simply wouldn't look good to have some commoner slaying an aristocrat, even if said aristocrat was an asshole.

Graeber in Debt has made an interesting point that honor historically meant an ability to reduce freedom of other people.

When I say honor, what I mean is the idea of every individual being called to answer to everyone else.

It was not my will to be alive, but I was brought here anyway

It was never my will to keep living, but I still have to "because reasons"

The fact that I am alive right now is already enough. I don't owe any fuckers anything. You owe me. I answer to myself.

I don't need honor to not rape or kill because I'm not a pscyco, but my life is my own and if you don't like Boo-fucking- hoo

Honor means a lot of different things. And it has been used to commit so many different crimes against minorities.

I think nowadays in the western culture it means individual honor. It means to be trustworthy and to stand by your word. By the classic saying: "A gentleman can settle the bill later".

The way late stage capitalism goes, honor culture will be left behind. Where every individual is reduced to a number, the concept is disappearing. You pay first before pumping gas. And the only time your wow matters is in the court when you say you won't lie.

When I hear the word "honor" I mostly only conotate it with honor killings where a brother kills his sister or a father his daughter because she dared to date someone they don't approve off. I've not seen it with my own eyes but read about it many articles in Germany and Sweden where Turkish or Afghan migrants did this.

So for me this word has a ver bad conotation.