When I watched the last part of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy some time ago I shed quite a few tears although I’m really not the emotional kind of guy. Acts of honor and the accompanying epic music can turn a movie into a first class tear jerker for me. Yet, I fail to understand why…
Why is it that some men get touched so profoundly by honor ?
one word : pride.
it is vanity that makes man act with ‘honour’. vanity makes honour what it is… being able to hold ones head up high… we are proud of honourable actions because it reminds us of the dignity of humanity as opposed to the other end of the scale - shame. hence we applaude honourable men because it brings pride to ourselves and hope for humanity.
hah. thats just my mumbojambo. nothing substantial here.
Isn’t honor also the ability to let go of your pride when necessary ?
Say you have stolen something and another person gets blamed. In this situation, your pride can get away unharmed but the honorable thing to do is to reveal yourself as the real thief, even though your pride will suffer greatly.
Best to consult Homer’s Iliad on this subject.
Monk, the Illiad is a 500-pager. Could you please concisely explain why?
Why?
Because he likes to drop names and sound cool and because we react to him every time.
Honor. I don’t believe in morality, I believe in honor. It’s not a matter of pride. There is no honor in pride. In fact, the prideful are more proned to act dishonorably.
Honor for me is a variation of absolute good. I don’t believe in absolute good, per se, but in relation of humanity, I feel there is a sin. Hypocrisy. As a result, a subset of acts can be derived to be pure in reason when compared against the sin hypocrisy (an abstraction on contradiction).
Honor is an act that is done to preserve the pride of the human race, not of ones self. Honor is the virtue of objective respect for all of reality.
Morality, on the other hand, is historically and emotionally biased, and therefore, not worth even considering.
God! This is exactly the subject i have been reflecting on for quite some time now. I just got through reading about 800 pages of Icelandic sagas and a lot of those guys considered themselves honorable. Ayn Rand said that honor is self esteem made visible in action. In the movie, Rob Roy said that honor is a gift a man gives to himself. But i think honor is more than that just as i know that self esteem is more than just pride. So i feel somewhat honor bound to converse on this topic. If you look the word up a lot of the definitions do revolve around the opinions of others. Words like respect, reputation, credit, glory, recognition, and distinction are touted. To my mind, however, these are mere leaves falling off the tree of honor and not honor itself. So if these are the effects of honor, what is honor itself?
The last part of LOTR was definitely the most action packed movie yet, just as the book was. Some of the people in the movie who willingly gave their lives must have realized that life is not worth living under any circumstances. That some things are worth fighting for.
I really enjoyed Return of The King…
To me honor and courage stands for everything that modern day society isnt… maybe Sauron and the Orcs are a metaphor for society and war
I’m not really sure, it’s a topic I dont really understand but I feel strongly about.
I sort of agree with Warrior Monk…
Remember I’m a newbie 
Welcome to the forum Dan. If you agree with Warrior Monk, then i take it that you have read the Illiad? The Greeks definitely knew a lot about War, honor, and courage as they were a nation of warring states. There seems to be a certain amount of justice in Honor too, but if you delve to the bottom of any one of the virtues, you will discover all of them.