Comment on Classic Honor by rick

rick · 7/28/2025, 3:44:23 AM · permalink

They would not negotiate in bad faith such as we did with Iran and Russia. They knew the value of honor.  Excerpt.
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Cicero and his Stoic philosophy, based exclusively on the natural law that St. Paul referred to in his Letter to the Romans as “written in their hearts while their conscience also bears witness,” provide a moral ideal that all national leaders, public figures, and ordinary men and women can practice that can transform the world—a virtue he calls “greatness of soul.”

**Honor: a Greatness of Soul**

In On Obligations (De Officiis) the Roman statesman and philosopher advises his son Marcus to live as a magnanimous man with “greatness of soul.”

This noble moral ideal of manhood embraces many qualities, but its essence is honor. An honorable man never neglects his duties, never fails to perform his obligations to all the persons with whom he enjoys relationships and associations,

“for there is no aspect of life public or private, civic or domestic, which can be without its obligation, whether in our individual concerns or in relations with neighbors.”

An honorable man lives according to the cardinal virtue of justice rendering to every person his proper “due,” giving homage to the Roman gods, rendering piety to ancestors, revering parents, upholding the sanctity of the family, and respecting the humanity of all people.

He follows Plato’s teaching that “we are not born for ourselves alone, for our country claims a share in our origin, and our friends likewise; . . . men have been begotten for men’s sake to be of service to each other.”

A Person of Integrity

The honorable man Cicero praises is never ruled by narrow self-interest but always by the common good, and he determines his moral decisions according to unchanging principles that are “steady and unshifting” rather than based on pleasure and pain.

A person of integrity, the honorable man acts by “good faith, in other words truthfully abiding by our words and agreements.” He never engages in any form of deceit by a misuse of the law through “chicanery” and “sharp practice.”

An honorable person is bound to keep a promise even to an enemy. In a famous episode in Roman history, Regulus, a Roman prisoner captured by the Carthaginians in the First Punic War, received a temporary release to negotiate a prisoner exchange between the two armies.

He not only argued against the prisoner exchange that would free him from bondage –an unfair bargain to the disadvantage of his country—but also returned to the enemy to suffer the death sentence: “when friends and relatives sought to detain him, he preferred to return to face execution rather than to break his word which he had pledged to the enemy.”

Regulus’s example of honor and integrity captures Cicero’s ideal of greatness of soul.

**The Ends Never Justify the Means**

Roman honor despised treachery and baseness. When a deserter from the army of Pyrrhus offered to poison his king in exchange for Roman protection and asylum, the Roman Senate sent the traitor back to Pyrrhus with contempt for his cowardice:

“This was their way of refusing to approve the treacherous murder even of an enemy who was both powerful and an unprovoked aggressor.”

To an honorable man, the craftiness of the fox and the baseness of cowardice insult the dignity of a human being. He wishes to win only by obedience to just laws and through high-minded motives based on courage and principle. A great-souled man never resorts to the Machiavellian argument that the end justifies the means.

In another famous episode from Roman history, an Etruscan schoolteacher who wished to win the favor of the Romans against his people betrayed not only his army but also exploited children to perpetrate treason and give the Romans an advantage in the battle.

During the time for recreation and exercise he one day cleverly led all his pupils on a long walk to the enemy camp and offered them as captives for use as ransom.

Instead of ingratiating himself with the Romans who felt insulted by the ignominious offer, the schoolmaster was stripped of his clothes, bound by the hands, and sent back disgracefully with the schoolboys whipping him for his vile misconduct.

The Romans said to the schoolmaster that they win wars honorably—by arms and by courage—and not by trickery and subterfuge at the expense of school children. Men with greatness of soul are “guileless, friends of the truth, and total strangers to deceit.”

https://www.setonmagazine.com/dad/dr-mitchell-kalpakgian/honor-in-ancient-rome-why-they-loved-greatness-of-soul

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seraphima · 7/28/2025, 5:35:05 AM · permalink

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gracejoy · 7/28/2025, 8:05:01 AM · permalink

I didn't know this about Romans. It's disheartening that such a society could still descend into degeneracy &amp; fall.  
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"*The Ends Never Justify the Means*." This explains how we're corrupted, little by little. People don't recognize the slippery slope, that the only possible outcome is for evil to grow.  A contemporary example is Zionists: They feel superior, by comparison, when they support the dehumanization &amp; genocide of Palestinians; &amp; don't realize they're allowing the stage to be set for Palantir, once infrastructure is ready, to do the same to them.  
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1984\. **KGB defector [Yuri Bezmenov](https://bigthink.com/the-present/yuri-bezmenov/)** "describes America of today &amp; outlines **4 stages of mass brainwashing** used by the KGB."

"‘*They are **programmed to think &amp; react** to certain stimuli in a certain pattern \[alluding to Pavlov\]. **You can not change their mind even if you expose them to authentic informatio**n. Even if you prove that white is white &amp; black is black, you still can not change the basic perception &amp; the logic of behavior*.'

"**Demoralization is a process that is** ‘***irreversible***.’ Bezmenov actually thought (back in 1984) that the process of demoralizing America was already completed. It would take another generation &amp; another couple of decades to get the people to think differently &amp; return to their patriotic American values, claimed the agent.

"In what is perhaps a most striking passage in the interview, here’s how Bezmenov described the state of a ‘*demoralized*’ person:

"‘*As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore*,’ said Bezmenov. ‘***A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information**. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union &amp; show him \[a\] concentration camp, **he will refuse to believe it, until he \[receives\] a kick in his fan-bottom. %%When a military boot crashes his balls then he will understand. But not before that%%**. That’s the \[tragedy\] of the situation of demoralization.*’"  
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"**[MASS PSYCHOSIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M&amp;list=TLPQMTQwODIwMjGjyF12rpAGuw)** \- How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL" (24:48).
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rick · 7/28/2025, 3:33:17 PM · permalink

2 bumps

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