Absence of Honor

I find that the word "honor" is difficult to define.  A review of dictionary definitions will establish that it has various meanings depending, of course, on its use in a sentence.  It may be used as a noun or a verb.  But even limiting definition to the use of the word as a noun doesn't promote much in the way of clarity. Here, I mean by it a quality; a personal quality.  A quality which clearly is not possessed by any prominent person in our sad age.  I hope it's possessed by some of us nonetheless.

H.L. Mencken wrote that honor is simply the morality of the superior man.  Mencken had a tendency to speak of men (and people in general I would think) as superior or inferior.  Certainly certain of us are superior in certain respects from others, but I'm not inclined to follow The Sage of Baltimore in making such a classification.  More specifically, he also wrote something to the effect that the difference between a moral man and an honorable one is that the honorable man will regret a discreditable act even when it works and he is not caught.  This doesn't say much for the honor of the moral man, which I suppose was Mencken's point.

Mencken's honorable man possesses something akin to what I try to refer to as "honor" in this post.  It is an expectation one has of oneself, not of others.  That expectation is that I, or you, will act honorably at all costs.  In other words, that I, or you, will do certain things, and not do other things, regardless of the circumstances, not primarily because it is moral to do or not to do a certain thing, but primarily out of self-respect or self-regard.  Because we have honor or a sense of honor, we would lose respect for ourselves if we do something dishonorable or fail to do something honorable.  We would hold ourselves in contempt, regardless of whether others do so.

I feel some discomfort with this definition as it seems to resemble what some have purported to be saying when referring to someone as a "gentleman" (as opposed to a "bounder" I suppose, or a "cad").
And I'm afraid the knight of chivalry comes to mind as well, prating about his "sacred honor."  In addition, "honor" is often used in reference to the military, e.g. "Duty, Honor, Country."  Also, God help me, I can't help of thinking of the Star Trek character Worf (sp?) gravely saying of someone that "he has no honor."

Even so, "honor" as I speak of it here is adherence to a code of conduct for its own sake and for one's own sake.  Synonyms would be "integrity" and "dignity" and in the Roman sense gravitas.  Naturally, the code of conduct must be worthy of honor (here used as a verb), but curiously, it seems to me, we tend to admire those whose honor compels them to act or not act in a particular way even when the code they adhere to is unworthy.  We all know the phrase "honor among thieves."  What makes a thief honorable would be adherence to the thief's code, for its own sake and for his/her own sake.

Try to think of any prominent public figure who is a person of honor in that sense; who has honor or is honorable.  I know of nobody I would consider honorable, but know of many I think are without honor.  Of particular note are our politicians.  They're craven, venal, duplicitous, and seem to compete with each other in being dishonorable.  There is it seems no limit to what they are willing to do to retain their positions and better them if possible.  They're anything but honorable, and sometimes boast of being dishonorable.  Among them, dishonorable conduct appears to be admirable.

The absence of honor in our time may be attributable to lack of a moral code; lack of a real moral code one would have to say, as it's the case with our politicians, especially those of the right, that they persistently claim to be good Christians--a laughable conceit given their behavior.  Pharisees they may be, but nothing more.  Or it may be do to something more surprising, or at least I think so.

I think that as a rule, self-respect is not a concern among us, and especially for those of us that are public figures for one reason or another.  It isn't merely that we're indifferent to what others think of us, it's that we don't much care what we do except at a superficial level.  Expedience is what concerns us, and if what we do is expedient that is all that matters.  That what is expedient may be dishonorable is not an issue.

Like Werner von Braun in the Tom Lehrer song, our allegiance is ruled by expedience.  It makes our age a very petty, very sleazy time, very grubby time, remarkable in that sense but no other.  It's no surprise then that our leaders are variously petty, sleazy and grubby.

There are Monsters, and then there are Monsters

Now and then, and in any case too often, I find myself drawn to discussions, of a sort, concerning Heidegger in a philosophy forum I frequent.  I don't think I can say I'm irresistibly drawn to such discussions, as I've managed to avoid some of them.  In this particular case someone asked for assistance in understanding a paragraph from Being and Time.  I found the paragraph so obscurely written, so crammed with what seemed to be jargon, that I succumbed to the unworthy desire to mock it.  This led one helpful poster to provide what I think must be called a translation...a surprising one to me as it seemed only vaguely related to the topic apparently being addressed in the paragraph in question.  Having helped me, though, the poster then scolded me, saying that I should learn the meaning of the vocabulary used by Heidegger if I wished to criticize him.

I personally think that a person should not have to learn the meaning of special words in order to read and understand a philosopher's work, or that of anyone else for that matter.   I think philosophical and most other points can be made without recourse to arcane language.  There should be no code one is required to discover (the "Heidegger Code"?) before the meaning is revealed.  Be that as it may, though, this post is inspired by a statement made by another poster after the word "Nazi" was brought up (I wasn't the first to do so).  That statement was to the effect that in assessing (with admiration, it apparently goes without saying)  Heidegger's philosophy we shouldn't get "bogged down" in the fact the man was an absolute monster.

This statement interests me, and not just because it acknowledges Heidegger was a monster.  Most of his apologists admit, as they must, that he was a member of the Nazi party.  Most know of the speeches he made in support of National Socialism and Hitler.  Most know, or should know, that he was a party member until the end of the war, that he never criticized the Nazis, or Hitler; that he never mentioned the Holocaust; that he never expressed regret for being a member of the party.  It's no longer possible to maintain he was not an anti-Semite after the publication of the Black Notebooks and his letters to his brother.  It's increasingly difficult for an apologist to maintain, reasonably, that Heidegger was not an enthusiastic Nazi, though some try to do so still.

So, instead, one hears from apologists that it doesn't matter.

I find the statement interesting because it speaks to the title of this post.  When we say someone is a monster, what do we mean?  Does someone who is a monster cease being a monster in some circumstances?  If Heidegger (or someone else considered a monster) was a monster, was he a monster when "doing" philosophy (or something else considered worthwhile)?  Does/should it matter if a monster does something worthwhile--does/should it make the person less of a monster?  Or, is a monster still a monster when doing something admirable, but that fact does not reduce the merit of what was done?  If that's the case, do we admire the monster or what the monster did?

The picture at the beginning of this post is an illustration used in the 1831 edition of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.  It doesn't depict the monster as most of us know him.  Men, women, children can be monsters, but they need not be evidently a monster, a monster by appearance.

Do we, can we, say of someone "he/she is a monster, but a great philosopher/artist"?  When it comes to art, I don't think we usually distinguish between the creator and the created in any definite or significant sense when we understand that the act of creation was intended, and admire what was created, nor do I think it reasonable to do so.  We admire an artist who creates a great work of art because he/she creates it.  Nobody but the artist could so; the work of art is essentially a product of the artist as a person.  It isn't the work of just a part of the artist, i.e. the good part.

Nor do I think we make such a distinction in the case of a philosopher whose philosophy we admire.  If we admire Heidegger's philosophy, we admire Heidegger as well, for the same reason as we admire the artist.  Only Heidegger could write his philosophy, and Heidegger is a person.  But, we can't intelligibly say that we admire Heidegger the philosopher, not Heidegger the Nazi, as they're the same person.  Heidegger intended to be a Nazi and intended to write philosophy.

Say that's the case.  Can we nonetheless say the work of art/philosophical work can be considered apart from the artist/philosopher?  Can we say the fact Heidegger was a Nazi isn't important to his philosophy, or that we cannot or need not get "bogged down" in the fact he was a Nazi in reading or assessing his philosophy?  Well, I don't think we can deny or explain away the fact that if we admire Heidegger's work, we admire what the Nazi did and thought; we admire the Nazi's philosophy.  That Nazi sure was a hell of a philosopher.

Some have argued that Heidegger's philosophy encouraged or justified, or led to, Nazism.  What I've read of him indicates to me that he believed in the superiority and special destiny of the German language and people and did so for quasi-mystical, quasi-philosophical reasons, and this oddness is found in Nazism and other "isms" based in German romanticism.  But as to his ontology, his metaphysics, I will probably never know.  I'm not keen to learn, or discover, or decipher the Heidegger Code.