An observation about the actions of Kirk and Kruge in Star Trek 3
- Thread starter Tracy Trek
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Public honor often flows from personal reputations, which is comes from private actions. Honorable people are assumed to act honorably in private. Being known to act without scruples results in a loss of face, the public shaming from private misconduct.
Then again, with power comes the ability to whitewash your sins. In any moral or social system there is intense pressure to cheat to gain an advantage. One can always "fake it until you make it" and that's usually the path of least resistance so long as you don't get caught.
I don't see sloppiness in TNG-DS9, but recognition that societies are imperfect and personal interest doesn't always gel with personal philosophy.
Aspects like that come under Sun Tzu's famous quote - "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
Kirk has gotten out of tough situations by deceiving enemies before. Sometimes his deceptions have saved lives. I think it's part of what makes him a good commander.
In honor cultures, honor is completely defined by public life. In some honor cultures, there is no concept of private life. Acting honorably in private is as oxymoronic as acting gregariously in your sleep.
The sloppiness in Generation-era Trek's use of Klingon honor is not the result of ethical complexity but semantic oversimplification. Rather than explore the particular concept of honor, Next Generation writers and Next Generation Klingons use the word "honorable" as a bland synonym for "good."
Give me an example of a society that explicitly permitted hypocrisy, because that's what you're proposing here. Just one. And I don't mean defacto, because that can be corruption, which is beyond the scope of this conversation. Give me a society that had actual laws explicitly condoning hypocrisy.
From WAY OF THE WARRIOR
WORF: It appears to be the wreckage of a number of Cardassian vessels.
SISKO: On screen.
BASHIR: Are there any signs of survivors?
DAX: I suppose it's possible, but there's no way to know without decloaking and using our primary sensor array.
WORF: Sir, I strongly recommend against that. It is likely there are cloaked Klingon warships in the vicinity, lying in wait.
BASHIR: Well that doesn't sound very honourable to me.
WORF: In war, there is nothing more honourable than victory.
I think you're missing the point made: if there's no distinction between public and private life, there's no hypocrisy. You must be worthy - by local standards - in both, as they're the same, not separate.
Or cover-up, and risk a career destroying scandal, which in such a civis are also life-ending scandals.
In honor cultures that have no concept of a private life, there's also no concept of hypocrisy, as diankra says.
In honor cultures with a concept of a private life, the question is not what is condoned but what is most valued and emphasized. What is valued is honor, and honor is not private behavior. An example of such an honor culture was the antebellum South of the United States. Now, my understanding of exactly how this honor culture worked is limited to what I read in high school history text books, more than a decade ago; but as I understand it, no one in the antebellum South condoned hypocrisy or justified unethical private behavior (however much unethical private behavior people in that society, like people in all societies, got up to). But sincerity and ethical private behavior did not constitute a Southern gentleman's honor, which he defined differently and valued as much (if not more) than his private ethics. Thus a Southern gentleman could feel his honor challenged even if he knew (or sincerely believed) his private conduct to be ethical, hence his compulsion to fight an honor duel over an accusation he knew to be false or over an insult to his public standing that had nothing to do with his private behavior at all.
In honor cultures with a concept of a private life, the question is not what is condoned but what is most valued and emphasized. What is valued is honor, and honor is not private behavior. An example of such an honor culture was the antebellum South of the United States. Now, my understanding of exactly how this honor culture worked is limited to what I read in high school history text books, more than a decade ago; but as I understand it, no one in the antebellum South condoned hypocrisy or justified unethical private behavior (however much unethical private behavior people in that society, like people in all societies, got up to). But sincerity and ethical private behavior did not constitute a Southern gentleman's honor, which he defined differently and valued as much (if not more) than his private ethics. Thus a Southern gentleman could feel his honor challenged even if he knew (or sincerely believed) his private conduct to be ethical, hence his compulsion to fight an honor duel over an accusation he knew to be false or over an insult to his public standing that had nothing to do with his private behavior at all.
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