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Igel

(36,370 posts)
1. Yes, it might.
Sun Jul 3, 2016, 09:49 AM
Jul 2016

That's the price of cultural diversity.

If you need to fight to restore honor, suppressing this just increases the humiliation and makes the fight worse. You have a human right to having dead on the other side and not on your side, and the blame falls on the other side. Because you're protecting your honor, and a lot of lesser values (like truth and not killing) are secondary to that. Depends on the society's view of honor, but this is one in which killing a child can be required to maintain honor. (There are worse systems.) Honor is typically internal--somebody insults you, you have less honor. If they treat you worse, you have less honor. And honor must be regained.

All such societies have a point, however, at which humiliation can be borne, typically when there is no chance of regaining honor and the attempt will make life intolerable or when there is a common enemy or common disaster to be confronted. Then the commonalities overwhelm the need to restore honor. First, deal with the common enemy, then deal with the horrible wrongs inflicted by your temporary ally. You lie and say all kinds of only good things about your local enemy, but it's not really a lie because everybody knows the only reason you're saying it is to help justify the alliance--you expect nobody to believe it, but it needs to be said to save face and let the alliance proceed. The sense of humiliation can last for decades or more, bubbling and waiting until regaining honor is a viable option.


If you need to adhere to a set of moral precepts to preserve your sense of honor, then there are constraints over how far you can go in suppressing the struggle to regain honor. If you'll survive, it's advantageous to be reduced in circumstances and suffer wrongs than to exceed the moral boundaries required for maintaining honor. If your allies have the same sort of set of values, then even if you hold your breath and go far enough to suppress the struggle your allies are likely not to agree.


Neither Israeli nor Palestinian societies are 100% culturally homogeneous. Many are willing to act, though, with tacit approval. That can mean condemning non-violence or that can mean tacitly supporting bombings, either by Israeli jet or by self-propelled biology-based bombs. On both sides some advise non-violence and condemn bombing. What is true is there is a difference in frequency between these two views on honor and the response to attacks and it's best to recognize that there is this overall, holistic difference.

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