Honour and
Humility
In coming to
honour, we come to an idea with a rich legacy of historical and modern
meanings: if you swear on your honour, you’re staking your whole reputation,
you could conceivably fight a duel to maintain your honour. Dictionary
definitions tend to include allusions to reputation, as if ‘honour’ is what
others think about you (I think humility is more to do with what others think).
Rather I think honour is about your own estimate of your qualities, abilities,
integrity, worth... Honour is not so much what other people think of you
(although if you think you’re wonderful and everyone else thinks you are a
monster of the first order, something has really gone wrong), as what you think
of yourself. ‘My word is my bond’ means that you have made a promise and will
keep it. Not because you might get found out, or because you are frightened of
the consequences of not keeping your word, but because you have done it and
know that you can be relied on.
Of course this
does have an effect of relationships with other people. If people know you to
be scrupulously fair, reliable, honest, and sea green incorruptible, in
addition to making sure nobody else will tell you any of the things they’re
trying to get away with for fear of what you might do, it will mean that your
honour will mean that other people can rely on you. To say different things to
different people, say whatever you think other people want to hear as the
exigencies of the situation require, lie to avoid the trouble of facing up to
the truth, is not an honourable course of action. It erodes the trust other
people feel they can have in you, and it erodes the trust you feel you can have
in yourself.
Magically,
honour is much prized for its effect in nurturing magical ability. Perhaps this
is best phrased by Starhawk, if you replace the work ‘character’ with the word
‘honour’ in the following passage:
‘The practice of magic also demands the development of what is called
the magical will. Will is very much
akin to what Victorian schoolmasters called “character”: honesty,
self-discipline, commitment, and conviction.
‘Those who would practise magic must be scrupulously honest in their
personal lives. In one sense, magic works on the principle that “it is so
because I say it is so.” A bag of herbs acquires the power to heal because I
say it does. For my word to take on such force, I must be deeply and completely
convinced that it is identified with truth as I know it. If I habitually lie to
my lovers, steal from my boss, pilfer from supermarkets, or simply renege on my
promises, I cannot have that conviction.
‘Unless I have enough personal power to keep commitments in my daily
life, I will be unable to wield magical power. To work magic, I need a basic
belief in my ability to do things and cause things to happen. That belief is
generated and sustained by my daily actions. ...to a person who practices
honesty and keeps commitments, “As I do will, so mote it be” is not just a
pretty phrase; it is a statement of fact.’[1]
Humility is one
of those virtues which have a bad reputation. The word derives ultimately from
the Latin word humus, meaning ground,
incorporating ideas of lowliness, not thinking much of yourself, taking
anything that’s thrown at you. And indeed this is how it is usually understood:
a person with such a low opinion of themselves that the total lack of
confidence this engenders ensures that the person will never do anything that
may show them to have worth or ability.
Perhaps this
virtue is best understood in this context be considering it together with its
opposite one, honour. If honour means your sense of self-worth and reliability,
and humility comes from the Latin word for earth, then humility must be what
prevents your honour becoming too big for its own boots. Honour carried too far
becomes a grandiose obsession with yourself, the feeling that you are the only
competent person around (surprisingly common, that one), the feeling that you
could begin to reach your true worth if only you weren’t surrounded by idiots
dragging you down. Humility is the thing that reminds you that your neighbour
who has not read Wittgenstein can nonetheless repair cars, which you cannot.
Humility is the thing that reminds you that one of your work colleagues
included that detail in a proposal, which you had overlooked, and which
nonetheless got it accepted.
The connection
to earth is what keeps us ‘grounded’ in reality, so a true understanding of
humility is that it is a correct understanding of your honour. It is not a
hand-wringing ‘I am the most miserable worm...’ approach, but an approach that
recognises that we all have our gifts, and should try to use them as best we
can.
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