Of Honor in The United States and in Democratic Communities. 11-7-2010

 I think de Tocqueville implicitly recognized America was not as democratic as he might have made out.

...That some particular virtue or vice belonged to the nobility rather than to the humble classes – that certain actions were guiltless when they affected the villain, which were criminal when they touched the noble – these were often arbitrary matters; but that honor or shame should be attached to a man’s actions according to his condition, was a result of the internal constitution of an aristocratic community. This has been actually the case in all the countries which have had an aristocracy; as long as a trace of the principle remains, these peculiarities will still exist; to debauch a woman of color scarcely injures the reputation of an American – to marry her dishonors him.

Chapter XVIII: Of Honor In The United States And In Democratic Communities

  I continue my thinking that America did not become truly democratic until 1965. I suppose some would say the date should be the passage of the 15th Amendment, but think carefully about the Southern Jim Crow laws and the northern miscegenation laws (Indiana had such a law post-Civil War, and I have no idea when it was repealed.)

That the slave-holding states might not be democratic is found in this footnote:

 I speak here of the Americans inhabiting those States where slavery does not exist; they alone can be said to present a complete picture of democratic society

How do the non-slaveholding states define the honorable? This was a society favoring the active against the slothful. Commercial boldness was championed and the bankrupt suffered nothing from failure.

...Public opinion in the United States very gently represses that love of wealth which promotes the commercial greatness and the prosperity of the nation, and it especially condemns that laxity of morals which diverts the human mind from the pursuit of well-being, and disturbs the internal order of domestic life which is so necessary to success in business....

This passage sets out the difference we have between the drug user or drunkard living on the street, and the businessman secretly gets stoned or drunk.

I found this passage more curious in light of our current politics while remembering President Eisenhower:

On one point American honor accords with the notions of honor acknowledged in Europe; it places courage as the highest virtue, and treats it as the greatest of the moral necessities of man; but the notion of courage itself assumes a different aspect. In the United States martial valor is but little prized; the courage which is best known and most esteemed is that which emboldens men to brave the dangers of the ocean, in order to arrive earlier in port – to support the privations of the wilderness without complaint, and solitude more cruel than privations – the courage which renders them almost insensible to the loss of a fortune laboriously acquired, and instantly prompts to fresh exertions to make another. Courage of this kind is peculiarly necessary to the maintenance and prosperity of the American communities, and it is held by them in peculiar honor and estimation; to betray a want of it is to incur certain disgrace.

Somewhere we have raised the martial virtues above the courage of the settler, of the merchant sailor, of the entrepreneur trying to start a new enterprise. If you wonder about this, then compare the careers of Napoleon and George Washington; or of Francisco Franco and John J. Pershing.

If I were working on the ethics books I outlined this past summer, I would spend more time with this:

...In democratic States on the contrary, where all the members of the community are mingled in the same crowd and in constant agitation, public opinion has no hold on men; they disappear at every instant, and elude its power. Consequently the dictates of honor will be there less imperious and less stringent; for honor acts solely for the public eye – differing in this respect from mere virtue, which lives upon itself contented with its own approval.

 I committed the crimes I committed because I knew public opinion would be such that I would have no other choice but suicide. I believe in the power of public opinion as control over society. The real question for this day and age is what does the public keeps its eye on- how many communities do you believe in and in what capacity?

sch

[I do not know if I have to take my younger self to task, or just blame changing times. First, I did not go ahead with my suicidal plans because I ran up against an immovable object blocking my way. 

Looking at the Trump carnival, his public cannot see him; either from willful blindness, or living in an informational cocoon. The public approves his immorality. What does that say about the control of society over itself? sch 11/5/23.]