Status in an honor culture, ironically, seems to be about how much you can cheat
The gods are seen to favor you in proportion to how much cheating they let you get away with.
This is a big theme in the Mahabharata. 90% of the cheating in it is by the god-favored ‘good guys’.
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Replying to @vgr
...I do think you make a great point and find this stuff fascinating. I generally see it as a problem to be solved rather than a condemnation of honor itself. But Mahabharata did deeply offend my sensibilities when I was first introduced to it, so there is that.
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Replying to @Grow_Wiser
Well you’re strongly deontological plus some virtue iirc. The Mahabharata is unabashedly consequentialist.
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Replying to @vgr
I am pretty much on the side of virtue ethics, but I think you are right that I have strong deontological roots. Those damn consequentialists and their epics...

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Replying to @Grow_Wiser
The defense in Indian epics tends to be interesting: we have to violate the rules to defend them, and intrinsic sense of personal virtue is what justifies it. The most famous verse of the Gita makes exactly that argument. Basically Vishnu incarnates to intervene in moral decay.
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Replying to @vgr
Ah, sounds like they are Guardians. I don't have an ethical issue with that.
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Replying to @Grow_Wiser
Yep. I suspect there were no real traders in the Axial Age in the Jacobs commerce syndrome sense. I think that’s really traceable to 1400-1600 and early-modern mercantile cities. Spinoza might have been the first true philosophical trader.
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Replying to @vgr
I was thinking about my model related to Jacobs http://www.growwiser.com/files/2014/08/Plurality-of-Absolutes.png … The key is that while the group has an essential and internally consistent moral code, it cannot be defended without breaking it. So Kauravas breaks the moral code for himself, Krishna to guard the group.
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It’s been on display with Trump from day 1: he manages to break rules AND complain about being treated “unfairly” which implies other people breaking other rules (rules here = governance norms). Hence the cheating-at-golf subplot in my election live tweet.
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Replying to @vgr
tbh, I made it through 4 years basically not listening to him. I see no signal. What you describe is def a powerful tactic if you can get away with it. That he kinda did, and people didn't stop listening, is to me a testament to the state of honor.
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Replying to @Grow_Wiser
I’ve been paying close attention. He’s a great study. There’s a lot of signal. Just not about the stuff you’d expect like actual policy matters.
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