Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Honor

I know my readers are wondering about the sudden transition into “Morality” and how Plato’s Republic fits into the scheme of things. The whole exercise spun up in my mind as I considered the actions of the President with regard to approving the use of the Cypberwearpon referred to as STUXNET.

The Golden Category as envisioned by Plato was a council of wise men. In practice it came to mean The King. The Silver classification translated to the nobles or aristocracy. The King was accountable only to “Divine Law” whatever that is. It is an unconstrained realm way above Common Law, and still higher than the Code of Chivalry. It's anything the King says it is.

The Silver Category, was envisioned as a group of high quality citizens who were candidates aspiring for inclusion into the Golden Category. These citizens were above the common law but bound to a higher standard, defined in a code of Chivalry that was embodied by a sense of honor. The idea was that if someone was meeting the higher standard then there was no need to be concerned about the lower rungs. A Knight was supposed to protect the weak, venerate womanhood and be a force for good. Good was loosely defined as those positive commandments that it’s hard to put your finger on. For example love your neighbor, protect the downtrodden, venerate womanhood and behave like Jesus… to the extent possible.

While there were no checks on a King’s power the power of the nobles was constrained (not much) by the Code of Chivalry. The nobles and knights through peer pressure supposedly policed chivalry. Thus an Aristocrat could behave for better or worse and only if his actions proved extremely despicable did he risk sanction by the order. “Black Knights” feared only being caught in their nefarious deeds and even that wasn’t toxic. Having the deed publicly aired and then being called to account were the next two steps in the remediation process. Here the honor of a dark night was impugned and these were “Fighting Words” and trial by combat usually followed. The idea was that God would decide the winner. The idea of “Duels” to settle matters of ”Honor” persisted among our founding fathers.

There are two points to keep in mind here. First is that since there was no judicial system as we know it that applied to the silver citizen, then. Even behavior illegal under common law was OK as long as it was not attributed. The mistake rested not so much in doing a bad thing but rather getting caught at it. Worse than getting caught was having the misdeed publicly reported and known and the final straw was having it sanctioned by a member of the peer order. At this point honor was "impugned", these were “fighting words” and trial by combat generally followed.

If you think this philosophy has vanished, think again. Parts of it are alive and well in the world we live in. At the Military Academies a low form of “Honor” is still taught. I say “low” because it has survived as “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those that do.” Lying, cheating and stealing are negative commandments and are easy to codify. We find them in common law. For example stealing, bearing false witness and fraud are proscribed behaviors. Honor lies not in meeting these simple tests but a whole lot higher than that. What failing to meet these low standards does show is that an individual is “Honor-less” because if someone can’t meet the lower standard than there is no way they qualify for the higher. It follows that this is proof that an individual is not Silver Citizen material and does not merit membership in this exclusive club. The second part, “…and not tolerate those who do” goes right back to the Chivalry code where it is the peer group that must sanction members who are supposedly operating at a level that fails to meet the standards of chivalry or worse common law. It is easy to see how this peer group, the aristocracy, became a mutual protection society and were unable to sanction the bad behavior of its members. There's an old saying… “You can’t get a pig to slaughter itself.”