Spi
Honor at Stake
By Rev. John Houghton, Ph.D.
M
ore often than not, I suspect, when we say things like “honor code,” we’re using
the words incorrectly. It’s rather as if I were in a poker game but couldn’t tell the
difference between the cards in my hand and my bet on the table.
As an English teacher, I’m not actually a “prescriptivist”—I
recognize that the meanings of words change over time,
and that there’s no point in being too rigid about things
like using “decimate” only to refer to executing one out of
every ten Roman soldiers. So I don’t really think there’s any
chance at this point of turning back the “honor code” tide,
which has been running for well over a century: but I do
think it’s worth taking a moment to remind ourselves of the
error that lies behind the usage, just as a way of highlighting what, I think, we’re actually concerned about, which
is integrity.
When I was a senior in high school, our honor code was
revised from a pages-long document (the first few paragraphs of which we had to commit to memory) to the simple sentence used at the United States Military Academy:
“I will neither lie, cheat nor steal, nor will I tolerate those
who do.” The interesting thing about this formula is that,
on the surface, it never mentions honor. In fact, however,
it has honor in it, concealed in that final, and sometimes
controversial clause, “nor will I tolerate those who do.” “Honor,” strictly speaking, is the positive regard of others. Thus,
when a society says that it will not tolerate those whose
actions it classifies as treason, or cowardice, or unchastity
Page 18 Winter 2014
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