Winning is Proof of the Gods' Favor
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| Triumph restores Honor |
Today is not just the triumph of Donald Trump. It is the triumph of the Honor vs. Shame way of looking at the world.
Cultural anthropologists observe that some cultures predominately value honor as the highest value, and shame as its opposite. Others predominately shape their members through a sense of guilt contrasted by innocence.
Every culture mixes the two but the emphasis can be different and the distinction is useful. The US is supposedly primary a rule-of-law culture and people are supposed to feel guilty when they do something evil, morally wrong, sinful. The laws supposedly conform with notions of good and bad, with good things being legal and bad things being outlawed.
We recognize that some cultures strike a different balance, with honor being the highest value and fear of shame and humiliation the thing to avoid. The warrior cultures of history and literature including the Greeks of the Iliad, the Vikings and Genghis Khan are examples. They exist in modern day, with the most jarring incidents where westerners see it and are shocked being honor killings in which a father murders a family member--usually female--to remove a stain of dishonor that she might have brought by, for example, being interested in a person of a different religion or caste.
Richard Landes, a retired professor from Boston University, writes that the Arab and Muslim notions of honor make peace with Israel impossible. It is not a matter of reasonable or peaceable solution. The very existence of Israel brings dishonor to Arabs and Muslims because it insults the triumph of their religion and the strength and honor of their culture:
Click Here: Landes article
The article is dense, and it is about Israel and its Arab-Muslim neighbors. It gives real insight into Donald Trump and his supporters, particularly his white voters and Christian evangelical voters. Trump exemplified warrior virtues. He represented the re-establishment of honor.
As Landes writes, the Arab/Muslim honor cultures could tolerate others sharing space so long as the power and primacy of the Arab/Muslim culture was observed. It was not that Christians and Jews were bad; it was that the position of Islam needed to be respected. Power and privilege are manifestations of Allah's approval. The great virtue in honor cultures is respect, solidified by strength and confirmed and displayed by triumph. They must, simply must, deny Israel's right to exist because Israel's existence is a sign of shame, proof that their culture and their God lost a war in 1948.
Trump's victory and inauguration today re-establishes, for now, the honor and primacy of the old social order.
Changes to the status of blacks, of women, of immigrants, and the rise of secularism have stressed the social order. The role of native born white Christians have changed from being atop a social pyramid to being a bare majority of many. Jim Crow black subservience is no longer the law. Jews join country clubs. Some 25% of the students at Harvard are Asian. Push one for English, two for Spanish.
The role of the Supreme Court has been essential in this. They found that equality was built into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment. It denied historical and traditional privileges and advanced those of blacks, women, Hispanics, gays, and the disabled.
Trump did not represent virtue or sinlessness to the Christian evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for him. Trump represented triumph. Trump would re-adjust back the social order, at least a little. It was not a victory of Christian piety nor "Two Corinthians" Christian ideology. It was tribal. Trump valued them, his kind of people, people who had been respected but who now were simply one of many. Respect for diversity was a kind of insult to the old order. Greater equality and diversity wasn't "wrong", but it was demeaning.
Trump means triumph: Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays.
In Honor-Shame cultures respect and honor are the highest values. Achilles sought glory, not pleasure and longevity. He was not morally "better than" Hector and that is not why he won, or deserved to win. He won because he was more powerful than Hector.
Trump never claimed virtue. He showed he would not bear being insulted or demeaned. Democrats troll him for liking the praise of Putin. Putin is showing him respect. Obama--especially at the Correspondents Dinner--did not.
People who think in terms of good/bad or guilt/innocence say that gay marriage equality does not take away from traditional heterosexual marriage, so why oppose it? What's the problem? However, in an honor/shame world it is very important. It insults traditional values. It dethrones the primacy and exclusivity of traditional marriage. It shames them because it claims equality.
This blog--and thousands of other observers--have noted that Trump seems something like a schoolyard bully, thin-skinned and eager to play king of the hill. In a culture that values lawfulness and abhors guilt, Trump's behavior is childish and illogical. But in an honor/shame culture he is doing exactly the correct thing: achieving glory using warrior virtues of strength, cruelty, cunning to come out on top.
As this blog has noted, Donald Trump's final shouted words at the Boca Raton rally, words that had the crowd cheering loudly, were that when he was president we Americans were going to win, win, win, win, and win some more. Not that America is good, or that he is good. He wants to make America "great."
John Winthrop said Boston should be a City on the Hill shining a bright light of virtue. Donald Trump says America should be a Country on the Hill reflecting our greatness and power. Trump's victory was not a victory of any clear ideology or set of policy values. It was a victory for a certain way of looking at the world, the triumph of an honor-based thinking.
The people who felt dishonored cast their ballot for the guy who sees things their way and was on their side.
As I was finishing this blog post I came across an article with a similar insight about Trump and honor, and I recommend it to readers: Click Here: Trump and Honor
Every culture mixes the two but the emphasis can be different and the distinction is useful. The US is supposedly primary a rule-of-law culture and people are supposed to feel guilty when they do something evil, morally wrong, sinful. The laws supposedly conform with notions of good and bad, with good things being legal and bad things being outlawed.
We recognize that some cultures strike a different balance, with honor being the highest value and fear of shame and humiliation the thing to avoid. The warrior cultures of history and literature including the Greeks of the Iliad, the Vikings and Genghis Khan are examples. They exist in modern day, with the most jarring incidents where westerners see it and are shocked being honor killings in which a father murders a family member--usually female--to remove a stain of dishonor that she might have brought by, for example, being interested in a person of a different religion or caste.
Richard Landes, a retired professor from Boston University, writes that the Arab and Muslim notions of honor make peace with Israel impossible. It is not a matter of reasonable or peaceable solution. The very existence of Israel brings dishonor to Arabs and Muslims because it insults the triumph of their religion and the strength and honor of their culture:Click Here: Landes article
The article is dense, and it is about Israel and its Arab-Muslim neighbors. It gives real insight into Donald Trump and his supporters, particularly his white voters and Christian evangelical voters. Trump exemplified warrior virtues. He represented the re-establishment of honor.
As Landes writes, the Arab/Muslim honor cultures could tolerate others sharing space so long as the power and primacy of the Arab/Muslim culture was observed. It was not that Christians and Jews were bad; it was that the position of Islam needed to be respected. Power and privilege are manifestations of Allah's approval. The great virtue in honor cultures is respect, solidified by strength and confirmed and displayed by triumph. They must, simply must, deny Israel's right to exist because Israel's existence is a sign of shame, proof that their culture and their God lost a war in 1948.
Trump's victory and inauguration today re-establishes, for now, the honor and primacy of the old social order.
Changes to the status of blacks, of women, of immigrants, and the rise of secularism have stressed the social order. The role of native born white Christians have changed from being atop a social pyramid to being a bare majority of many. Jim Crow black subservience is no longer the law. Jews join country clubs. Some 25% of the students at Harvard are Asian. Push one for English, two for Spanish.
The role of the Supreme Court has been essential in this. They found that equality was built into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment. It denied historical and traditional privileges and advanced those of blacks, women, Hispanics, gays, and the disabled.
Trump did not represent virtue or sinlessness to the Christian evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for him. Trump represented triumph. Trump would re-adjust back the social order, at least a little. It was not a victory of Christian piety nor "Two Corinthians" Christian ideology. It was tribal. Trump valued them, his kind of people, people who had been respected but who now were simply one of many. Respect for diversity was a kind of insult to the old order. Greater equality and diversity wasn't "wrong", but it was demeaning.
Trump means triumph: Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays.
In Honor-Shame cultures respect and honor are the highest values. Achilles sought glory, not pleasure and longevity. He was not morally "better than" Hector and that is not why he won, or deserved to win. He won because he was more powerful than Hector.
Trump never claimed virtue. He showed he would not bear being insulted or demeaned. Democrats troll him for liking the praise of Putin. Putin is showing him respect. Obama--especially at the Correspondents Dinner--did not.
People who think in terms of good/bad or guilt/innocence say that gay marriage equality does not take away from traditional heterosexual marriage, so why oppose it? What's the problem? However, in an honor/shame world it is very important. It insults traditional values. It dethrones the primacy and exclusivity of traditional marriage. It shames them because it claims equality.
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| Reclaim honor and power |
This blog--and thousands of other observers--have noted that Trump seems something like a schoolyard bully, thin-skinned and eager to play king of the hill. In a culture that values lawfulness and abhors guilt, Trump's behavior is childish and illogical. But in an honor/shame culture he is doing exactly the correct thing: achieving glory using warrior virtues of strength, cruelty, cunning to come out on top.
As this blog has noted, Donald Trump's final shouted words at the Boca Raton rally, words that had the crowd cheering loudly, were that when he was president we Americans were going to win, win, win, win, and win some more. Not that America is good, or that he is good. He wants to make America "great."
John Winthrop said Boston should be a City on the Hill shining a bright light of virtue. Donald Trump says America should be a Country on the Hill reflecting our greatness and power. Trump's victory was not a victory of any clear ideology or set of policy values. It was a victory for a certain way of looking at the world, the triumph of an honor-based thinking.
The people who felt dishonored cast their ballot for the guy who sees things their way and was on their side.
As I was finishing this blog post I came across an article with a similar insight about Trump and honor, and I recommend it to readers: Click Here: Trump and Honor
2 comments:
The Japanese were a perfect example of that in WWII. It was dishonorable to surrender. It was better to die. It was a suicidal nation. That's why so few prisoners were taken by the US. The Japs would just blow themselves up rather than surrender. Then there were the suicide planes, crashing into American ships. They were excited to do it. We look on that in horror. Actually, it was the only thing that we actually feared from the Japanese.
In Europe, our POW death rate was about 5%. In Japan it was 30%. That's because they thought surrender was so horrible, the Allies shouldn't be given any kind of human decency. We were the lowest of the low.
Before the Atomic Bomb was dropped, we had a plan to invade. But, it was estimated that we would have a million wounded or killed. So, a quarter of a million purple hearts were ordered. Of course, we didn't have to invade, so those very same purple hearts are the ones given out today.
Would suggest Japanese Samurai and Bushido. I believe the Samurai ethic is the core of modern Japan today.
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