we pledge...our sacred honor

[theaustinescorts]

Few understand, or have even read, the July 4th Declaration of Independence, even though an entire day has been set aside to honor it.

Most people think it was about the equality of man, and cite the single flourish about "all men are created equal." And beyond this nobody today seems to care.

In fact the Declaration is primarily a long list of specific acts by the Crown constituting abuses of the colonies' charters. The elite merchants and landowners of the colonies, gentlemen all, had thought they'd obtain a certain status guaranteeing their respect. What the Crown had done was show them that they had not obtained the status they thought they possessed.

Eighteenth century society was based on status, which was codified in law. Different individuals held different rights based on it. An indentured servant was treated differently than a property-owning male, who was treated differently than a slave, who was treated different than a charge, or ward of the state, who was treated different than a minor, who was treated different than an adult woman who was married, who was treated different than an un-married woman, and so on....

This may appear strange and unequal to us now, but this is the way societies over the world had always been organized, and there are still vestiges of this even in the US today. For example, when someone signs a contract to voluntarily join the armed forces his status under law changes dramatically. He no longer enjoys the rights he formerly did before agreeing to join the military. Courts today also routinely deprive individuals of their normal status in cases where they are judged to be mentally incompetent.

Status is the basis of everything, but was particularly so in the past because until recently there were no police to enforce orderly behavor. In the Eighteenth century there were no police. County Sheriffs and courts existed, but they were remote and barely used. People by necessity relied on their neighbors' sense of honor to maintain good behavor. Honor was everything. When honor was lacking and someone was harmed by another, the consequences were serious. It usually involved the victim or his friends or family visiting justice directly upon the perpetrator. Among elites in matters of insult or injury dueling was sometimes employed, though many times it was fixed after everyone had calmed down.

What the Declaration signers did not intend however was for the statement that "all men are creaed equal" to mean that status was cancelled out, as it has been often cited to mean by various groups since that time who've lobbied for equal treatment. The "men" the signers were thinking of were men of property such as themselves, and they demanded that the status they were entitled to under their charters with the Crown be respected or they would leave, "...have the right, indeed the duty to throw off such tyranny."

It was inevitable that equal treatment would be extended to more people, and that society would come to rely on police, courts, and ever-complex laws, prisons, etc. to enforce conduct defined by society through it's legislative bodies.

However as society has come to rely on the criminal code to define what's acceptable or not, what has happened to individual's senses of personal morality, or honor? And if personal morality is deemed less important than mere adherance to the law, what are the consequences of that, or is it even workable? What about all those ways in which people may visit harm upon each other in ways which are not defined as illegal under the law? How do victims find remedy in those situations?

I guess life remains, perhaps more so today than before, a jungle. And the progress of time has led to more and more expensive and complicted ways of dealing with misbehavor, but none of this has led to it's suppression.

What has been lost is a widespread sense of morality, embodied in the honor that was possessed by individuals who held elevated status.

Could you imagine any of our so-called "leaders" today, such as Barak Obama, or George W. Bush, being willing to sacrifice their very lives over a question of honor? Could you even remotely imagine people such as these being willing to die to protect their personal code? The fact is, we have no such values today, and this is the reason why we no longer have statesmen, soldiers, or leaders that are worth a dame. They are just not really serious about anything. They are silly. They are frivolous, like the enteratainment people favor today, which is usually very violent, but has nothing to do with reality. It's all a fantasy. Whether in music, film, video games, etc., people snear and scowl and behave like total assholes in their fantasy lives, but then straighten-up when they are reminded that behaving that way in the real world will land them in prison like their hip-hop heros. Most people today are nothing more than someone's employees, a status in the Eighteenth century was considered as almost that of slavery.

The way people live today everyone steals whatever they can, defrauds whoever they can, insults whoever they can, etc. so long as they can do so within the law. And usually it's people like that who have actually written the laws so they can get away with it.