Essay About Honor

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One of the best qualities of society is one known as honor. However, honor is one of these words which cannot be tied down with an exact definition. People define honor with different ideas or opinions: being honorable is being respected, and to be honored you must be admired; you must have high morals to be considered honorable. Some say that your honor is determined not by yourself, but by everyone else. The definition of honor seems to have always been this confusing. However, it is noticeable that honor’s definition has changed over time, and it can be compared likewise. Honor can be seen as it was, then compared with how the way the United States views it, the way other countries view honor , and the way the world views it now. In the …show more content…

As he won the Sylvanus Thayer Award, General MacArthur, gave a speech titled Duty, Honor, Country in which he said, “Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn”. (MacArthur). To summarize, General MacArthur said that your honor determines the person that you are; that your honor is what will keep you fighting when nothing else can. Honor today is still something that we fight to defend. However, MacArthur continues, saying, “The unbelievers will say they are but words...I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule” (MacArthur). Unlike the standard of honor upheld hundreds of years ago, there are many who do not fully value or appreciate the meaning of honor. To many who lack true and devout honor, it can be used as a ruse to establish credibility or be a word used by liars to “show integrity.” In the world, there are many who still uphold the true meaning of honor, however it is not a dominating feature of most cultures, and is no longer necessary to one’s

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