On Honour (28 July 2003)

I've got a colleague at COB who gives his students questions like the following at the beginning of every semester and asks the class to discuss the answers together:

1. You find a wallet on the ground. In it are a BEC bill for $80 and four twenty dollar bills. What do you do?
2. You just came home from a long day at work and you are starving. Nothing is open, and you are far too tired to cook. You find that your brother has cooked dinner, and you ask him to give you some. He agrees, but says that he wants you to give him your share of your inheritance in return. What do you do?
3. You are a bright young person from a poor Family Island home. You want to go to university but you can't afford it. One day you meet a man who invites you to make delivery of a consignment of drugs, and promises you enough money to put you through the first two years of college. What do you do?
4. You have been accused of a crime you have not committed, and for which you will be put to death. So far, you have protested your innocence, but no one will believe you. Finally you are told that if you confess your life will be spared, and, even better, if you name your accomplices, you could be set free. You have no accomplices. What do you do?

At first glance, it would seem as though these questions are tests of people's honesty. They are, but they also reveal something even more fundamental: the idea of honour, of what an individual stands for. This is an idea that appears to be hopelessly out of date, but it crops up again and again, especially among people who work with the delinquent, the battered, the troubled, the addicted. These professionals call it self-esteem, and suggest it's as rare a commodity as pink pearls in conch shells.

Let me tell you three stories. I made none of them up. The first is the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob and Esau are twins, though they couldn't be more different. Esau's the eldest, and according to the tradition of the time, he's supposed to inherit his father's land. But he's also greedy, and so when he comes across Jacob cooking a meal, he asks for some of the meal (the Bible calls it pottage, but it could just as well be steam chicken and peas and rice), and Jacob demands his birthright in exchange. Esau, governed by his stomach, sells the birthright for a plate of food — or, in the classical language of the King James' translation, "for a mess of pottage".

The second is the story of Othello, the Moor of Venice. As Shakespeare writes it, Othello's a North African general in the Venetian army. He falls in love with Desdemona, a senator's daughter, and marries her over her father's objections. It's a tale about jealousy and prejudice, but it also deals with reputation, honour and gullibility, as Shakespeare makes clear in two crucial speeches. In one, Othello demotes his lieutenant, Cassio for alleged drunken behaviour. Cassio's response is unusual. He doesn't appear to care about his position or the loss of his job, but rather about the blow to his reputation: "I have lost the immortal part of myself, Iago," he says, "and what remains is bestial." In the other, Iago says "Good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed."

The third is Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, written about the Salem witch-hunts in response to the Communist "witch-hunts" in the USA during the 1950s. John Proctor, a farmer, is sentenced to die because he has been accused of consorting with the Devil. This is not unusual; most of the wealthiest and most successful farmers in the village have been similarly accused, and the only thing that can save them from being put to death as witches is to confess their sin and to repent. The thing is, few, if any, of these people are actually guilty; but in order to save their lives several of them have confessed and named other people as having ties to Satan. John Proctor is innocent, but he considers signing his name to a false confession — not because he is afraid to die, but because he doesn't believe he is worthy of martyrdom. But he cannot go through with it, and chooses death instead. Why? "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"

We live in an age and in a country where choices like Cassio's and John Proctor's seem ludicrous. We may not be as stupid as Esau, but when we read his story we tend to focus more on the poor exchange he made — surely he could have got so much more for that birthright — than on the fundamental morality that guided his choice. We are, after all, a very practical people, and many of us, I suspect, would go the way of Esau if the price were right.

Let's return to the situations presented at the beginning of this article. In every instance, what we would choose to do is governed by our personal sense of honour — our self-respect, the value we place on our good name. What would each of us would do in situations where no one (but God) can see us, judge us, or put us in jail? Because our God is a forgiving God, many of us tend to choose what is convenient, confident that if we slip, God will catch us and stand us back up. But we neglect to realize that the choice we make tells us, and the world, a good deal about what we think of ourselves, how much we value our names. Are we, like Esau, so careless of our own honour that we would sell it for some short-term, if satisfying goal? Or do we, like Cassio or John Proctor, believe in a part of ourselves that is more important than food, money, or life itself?

I've met a whole lot of Esaus in my life. But I'm also fortunate to have been raised around people for whom personal honour is imperative, for whom the activities of Cassio and John Proctor are inspirations, not puzzles. They're the kind of people whose sense of honour governs them in the small as well as the great; they would as little dream of putting their name to substandard work as sign their names to a lie. I haven't met many people who have been faced with the kind of choice that John Proctor makes, but honour can be won or lost on much more everyday issues; on how one behaves when one is under pressure, on what kinds of little choices one can make in more down-to-earth situations, such as whether to return the wallet or to turn the drug-dealer down. They know what the old people used to know: if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.

So it comforts me to know that even here, in the Bahamas, where many decisions are made by looking over a shoulder to see who's watching, and even now, in the twenty-first century, where one's conscience is an unpopular guide (it can get you into trouble with pastors, or voters, or talk-show pundits), people like Cassio still exist. They refuse to be like Esau, looking for the quick reward. They still pray not to be led into temptation rather than to be saved from the time of trial, because simply to remind themselves of temptation places the responsibility for honourable behaviour in their courts. Their reputations matter more to them than their bank accounts; and they aim to be John Proctors, and die with their honour intact.