Honor

Zenjael

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As a Martial Artist, what is honor to you?

The text below I have quoted is the background as to why I am asking this question.

I have an interesting 400 level class I am taking this semester which tracks the history of emotions. An example; in the 19th century, the feeling we know as nostalgia today, was then, a negative emotion capable of even being fatal. Emotions change from location to location, and within time ranges. So in this field it's important you always add where, when, and a theory as to why. Being as the study itself is less than a quarter century old, it offers great potential for aspiring scholars to contribute to a field which is often seen as being already choked full of too many people trying to contribute. When you read papers on how menstruation was a minor causation of the Great Depression, you can see how desperate people who have majored in history are in that they have to stretch things to such rediculous degrees. Sometimes, they're just idiots, also, but that's an aside.

Right now I am writing a paper on honor, as an emotion. I am not tracking it's development, nor discussing how it exists per culture, only that it is or is not an emotion. Right now my thesis is that what we call honor today, which is considered behavioral, is actually both sense, emotion, and behavior. Behavior, as it is is an action, is in response to something causually. This response is to the sensory data which conveys, in a given setting and group, how one should behave in it. If we had to think about it everytime we met someone, how we should treat them, we would never get things done. Instinctually we can enter a room and find who is the teacher, who is subservient, in the situation who is more confidant, and so on. So the reaction of behavior we have labeled as honor, actually is in response to that thing which is honor. We do not act honorable, which denotes our actions carrying a value to honor. This is not the case, just as we do not act angrily. We act because of anger, or sadness, or guilt, or nostalgia, and so on. The emotion does not dictate the behavior... it can if our will is not strong enough, but it heavily influences it, oft to the point it may as well have swooped in and picked up the flight controls to our brain and body. Chemicals can do that.

Essentially my thesis is trying to prove that what we call honor exists beyond just how we interact, but is also something innate to the human experience, cross-culturally, even if honor is defined relativistically by location, and timeframe. Now I'm not REALLY saying anything new in this paper- I am really just trying to clean up what is already there, and fill in the gaps. Well, it's kinda new to divide honor between 3 component processes which loop, and self-correct, but that's really moreso just recognizing the process already there and differentiating. It's a different way to organize, more efficient I think, as we react to a situation, internalize, and this feeling is what causes us to act. When you meet me, or any martial artist, you will treat me a certain way based off how I walk, how I appear, sound, and even if not consciously, by smell the pheromone and hormones given off. The Taijiquan practitioner who I have such great respect for, I actually first met 3 years ago, when I was living in a dingy apartment, and I was a total pothead. It was before I got in trouble, haha. A friend brought Christian over to my home (Am I the only one who finds it somewhat unusual to meet a very skilled tai chi practitioner, who because of his age alone, would not be called a master... he himself doesn't believe in the title) One day, two years later, I am at the club practicing, and Christian comes in. Turns out we both were of comparable skill, at least in Bagua. I have only gotten to raise arms with Xtian once, but I am greatly looking forward to the day again. However, as he pointed at that very day we ran into each other again, he had thought me just a stoner, when at the same time I was a 3rd dan. And he has treated me differently, ever since.

While it might be disingenuous to some, I change when I enter a dojang, I suppose like how some very religious people may change when they enter a church. My back straightens, I do not laugh quite as easily, and I am much more focused, and in the past, serious. It's like a light switch. I tested it last night when entering the old school I am returning to before I go to basic, literally crossing that metal line where the doors open and close actually gives a different feeling internally. It's not like freedom to me, though it feels similar. It's like a release as if I was holding my breath. I feel less stressed, if just by a tiny bit. I don't have to be extra cognizant of what I say or do, how low I bow. I don't have to bow at all. And just the fact we behave differently, outside the dojo, than we do in, be it just a little or a lot, tells me that our behavior is not without a reason or cause. I actually like being in a dojo, even those little stresses. I like to think people in the military enjoy being in the military, but when on leave, can enjoy that also. To me, who I am in a dojo is who I actually am, strangely enough. It is not as though I have some alter ego, but moreso that the way I act in there feels more to me, like me. And that is a bit unusual I think. But then again I have spent more time in a hall than I may have my own family home, so its debatable that the causation of my comfort not stem from a feeling of honor, or anything really than the fact it feels like home to me. Wish I knew why I was like that, but I think it a decent example to give about how we can act differently without even realizing it, though of course that behavior is going to differ from school to school.

The sound of hands touching the sides of a thigh is unmistakable to me, and I have a pavlonic response any time I hear it to straighten my back. It used to be if I was sitting I'd jump to attention, because at Khans, God help you if you didn't like up to pay attention to those taking class and teaching and the school and country, and Buddha have mercy if you were the last to assemble. I was, once. I kind of miss the hair-trigger tension which kept us on our toes everytime a class came to an end. Because it didn't matter to assemble when they did, though that was safest, it was only important you were standing, and not in a rush, when the actual bowing, and ritual respect to the teacher, flag, and location came to effect. Combined with the fact he would often go into long speeches... about whatever was on his mind at the time when not actively working with people, this could, and would, easily amount to up to 30 minutes of standing at attention, when you had intended to practice all your forms in the back quietly. You almost had a 6th sense after awhile, of when exactly he was lining up and going to bow out, or if he was just lining up and going to talk.

To be honest, between practice and listening to him speak, both were equally beneficial toward one's own knowledge of the art, life, and even oneself. He may have been somebody who liked the sound of his own voice- but boy did he have a lot worth saying. And at 6th dan, I think that's fair. Some teachers are preachers, while others are coaches. He happened to be both.

We have a lot more senses than people usually mention, and I strongly believe that the 'feeling' of respect is one, like anger or sadness is dependent on situation. Depending on what is being considered a sense, you can have up to 25 potential senses. Please do not ask me what they are, I only recall the number because between wikipedia, and everything else I could possibly find online and the GMU library, and it listed even the most obscure sensations. I also included senses humans are capable of acquiring, such as echolocation, though we don't use sonar. I actually would like to learn the technique for clicking or using sound-vibrations to find those around you, not just because I love avatar the last airbender, but also because I think it is related to how kiai operates, in creating a connection. Against an opponent, in a sense, one can establish themself. When you consider kiai means to join with spiritually, and if the supernatural does not exist, then that means all that is left is you. In essence, to join with something spiritually, is to sever that thin line which we think seperates us from everything else. So, I honestly wonder if this echolocation-like sense is a more pure form of that... being as you can actually see with it. I wonder what would happen if you focused it on a single thing, though as I do not actually know how to do it, I can only guess and read the literature as to how it works. The point is, most of our senses aren't acknowledged, we can acquire knew ones or hone existing one's to a point that it appears as though different senses are now operating. The katana wielder who can cut airsoft bullets relies on, the professional opine there is to be believed, an anticipatory analyzation so precise, it appears as though he is reacting, when he isn't... he moved either before it was fired, or with enough speed to get the blade where it's line would intersect the oncoming pellet. That means his sense of chronology, his sense of distance, balance, and so on, were so perfectly in harmony it appeared as though he knew where the bullet would be, before it was even fired. This is all relevant because emotion can only exist as a reaction to a prior perceived event, when we are aware of that event. So if we're going to talk about honor in the sense of emotion, or if I am, scholastically than I also have to explain how or where we get that feeling from, how that sense operates.

I can't answer that last one yet.

Trying to prove anything, scholastically, outside of philosophy, is extremely difficult. When one does that, it's even more audacious, and thus risky than the type of paper which is correcting a previous theory. It is essentially telling everyone in the field, that in relation to the topic, they have flat out gotten it wrong, or muddled it up in a way which necessitated a paper be done this way. Because when you try to study honor, as it is an emotion, it is impossible. I must have poured through a hundred sources, and while I have great evidence of how it's changed, and how it affects where we place ourselves socially, nobody has actually bothered to consider the actual feeling, from the sensory data we receive, might actually be the cause of the behavior. Because unfortunately the working theory labels honor as a behavior, but there is no behavior without causation. In essence, as it is commonly accepted, the definition of emotion is broken, since it advocates action without a reason for it to exist. It's like saying somebody angry, is acting a certain way because of their anger, but one hasn't defined anger yet.

And I get that- the field is less than 30 years old, so I expect there to be a lot of this. Because the field is so new, the professor's expectations are for us to contribute and help the field grow. Considering my school also has the essential founder of the field as a provost, I get now why my professor from Cambridge came here. What I don't get, is why psychology and psychiatry hasn't studied honor as in-depth as behaviorists have. Because I looked for brain scans of people interacting in a setting regarding honor- say when one enters a dojo, and see's their master, and then his grandmaster, unexpectedly, and monitoring the activity, and so on. I can't imagine im the only martial artist to be curious enough to find a definite answer that they wouldn't mind getting hooked up to a machine and actually get one. If there is a repeating pattern specific to the behavior we call honor, cross specimen, outside of the ranges of the brain which dictate we act that way, then we would be experiencing either thinking, or more likely during the action of say bowing, we aren't thinking, we are internally feeling what I would call respect. Our 'sense of honor' though a common phrase, is also a literal one. That is what I am calling the process, biologically, which is what allows us to tell how to place ourselves in the group. Essentially, this means 'honor' is the established acceptable norms within the group, which might actually give us concrete data to define honor as a feeling. When we are angry, or sad, our brains alter. Likewise, if honor is an emotion, if the brain does this it is further proof that we can say there is something emotional, which is honor. A feeling of it.

And to think, this all started with me noticing that at nova I get bowed to, just because I entered the room and who I am, while at say GMU I am not when I enter the classroom there. And it is because in one location I am considered a superior, while in the latter, an inferior, a student. I'm not bothered by this, but I would like to have it scientifically explained and defined, so that as a historian I can work with something more than theory, or guesswork, if I'm going to try to define how it has changed. Because honor has. We'd all be dead for how we first bowed when starting. At least I would have been, my form probably still crap compared to the finely honed and precise one what even the most lowly commoner possessed a thousand years ago in feudal Japan. Because less important to me is understanding where honor came from, and how it is now (though this is more important than either because of its affect on us now), as it is to try to glean where it is going. Ultimately I hope, after proving honor is relative to our emotion, if not as an emotion, than something which influences either our behavior or emotion. Ultimately this translates to how we treat each other in a martial way, because the ultimate paper I would like to write is an analyzation of how honor behaviorally affects martial arts, if honor is integral to the art, and so on. Because we live in a day and age where the gut answer is, of course, yet we have new martial arts coming to existance which sometimes don't have that notion grounded at all. People who practice parkour usually don't bow to each other, they treat each other pretty much like gymnasts and rock-climbers do each other. A lot of people are probably going 'meh' to parkour, but even though I know but the most rudimentary maneuvers, I can tell that it will become something which marks the difference between someone who is a modern martial artist, and somebody who isn't. Neither is incorrect, but I consider parkour to be something essential for my own growth as a martial artist, because I would like to master control over energy channeling. What bagua does in re-guiding and directing the force of a strike aikido does with the full body, and parkour extends this control, when mastered, to not just ourselves, and others, but our environment too.

I understand people being skeptical about this, and its verboseness, but understand that what we consider 'parkour', the people in it, would be no different than if we went back to 1962, and looked at the people learning it then. In hindsight, we would have to say at least to ourselves that although a new art, with 50 years more practice, bringing them up to today, how skilled they would be. And the same applies to parkour. These guys are novices compared to what will be practiced by those when I am 50, and that includes the people who founded the very sport itself.

Sorry for typos, my arms hurt after typing this.
 
I'm not worried about honor. I'm worried about going home. For most CMA practitioners of the fuedal era honor was a convenience when needed. Most of the practitioners of TCMAs were not nice people & honor didn't always mean the same thing to another.

Honor be damned. If it's legal, I'm going to use it to get home.
 
@Zenjael, I agree with several of the assertions - particularly that honour exists beyond our quite narrow definition of the word. I think when we move away from our MA-informed view of honour and appreciate that honour is a quality of being honourable, then it is more apparently an everyday common trait that most of us (I believe) demonstrate.

As you have correctly identified, honour is not an intrinsic concept. By its definition honour cannot be conveyed inside the conscious mind. It can only be demonstrated as a behavioural response to another behaviour.

As a martial artist what does this mean to me? It means that I try to conduct myself respectfully, govern myself by the core way of my art even under the duress of conflict which is not always easy, do not misrepresent myself, defer when it is appropriate and regard my own esteem and that of others highly yet making no obligation of others to act similarly and but still hoping my demonstration is enough for them to reciprocate. It is often not :) However, this to me is my way of demonstrating honour.

ps. I think pavlonic is not a word I know and but from the context I think you are referring to the Pavlov conditioning experiments then the correct adjective = Pavlovian :) Do not want any marks squandered as a result of silly mistakes! Kind wishes.
 
I'm too ADD to read your posts, there may be some good stuff in there, but my eyes glaze over when I see all that text....as for honor, to me it's more pragmatism than philosophy.....a matter of minding your own business and staying out of trouble until it's thrust upon you.
 
I'm not worried about honor. I'm worried about going home. For most CMA practitioners of the fuedal era honor was a convenience when needed. Most of the practitioners of TCMAs were not nice people & honor didn't always mean the same thing to another.

Honor be damned. If it's legal, I'm going to use it to get home.

I don't know...I think Chen Fa Ke was exceptionally honorable when he beat the hell out just about all who challenged him :D
 
I'm sure he was when it came time for gong sau or lei tai matches. I was more broad brushing. Professional soliders, rebels, caravan guards, body guards, etc...

Sent from my Thunderbolt on Tapatalk. Excuse the auto-correct spelling errors.
 
I'm sure he was when it came time for gong sau or lei tai matches. I was more broad brushing. Professional soliders, rebels, caravan guards, body guards, etc...

Sent from my Thunderbolt on Tapatalk. Excuse the auto-correct spelling errors.

And of course we should not forget how honorable Yang Shaohou allegedly was when a student asked him to demonstrate fajin and he did…and killed the student.

However I am not sure what compartmentalized category of fajin it was so... :lfao: (sorry everyone, inside joke with CLFSean)
 
I'm not worried about honor. I'm worried about going home. For most CMA practitioners of the fuedal era honor was a convenience when needed. Most of the practitioners of TCMAs were not nice people & honor didn't always mean the same thing to another.

Honor be damned. If it's legal, I'm going to use it to get home.

Honor be damned? If you're going to neglect it in the name of survival, why pull anything in the name of survival. Might as well butcher them in the process also. I think honor is where you know how to act, in a situation, and act accordingly, without taking any kind of personal benefit from what need be done. I kinda like the idea of calling a cab with a karate chop tho.

What happens when you live in an area where the legal methods to defend yourself are effectively 0. Further, if you do, you can end up in jail for years. F jail, it's not as fun as it seems. Sometimes you might have to kill just so you can live to get to your trial. It sucks, but sometimes that's the situation people get stuck with. As martial artists, and the people who are most likely to end up in the situation, I it's more practical to know when. Cause that button you shouldn't push, you shouldn't push, but it is there for a reason.

@Zenjael, I agree with several of the assertions - particularly that honour exists beyond our quite narrow definition of the word. I think when we move away from our MA-informed view of honour and appreciate that honour is a quality of being honourable, then it is more apparently an everyday common trait that most of us (I believe) demonstrate.

As you have correctly identified, honour is not an intrinsic concept. By its definition honour cannot be conveyed inside the conscious mind. It can only be demonstrated as a behavioural response to another behaviour.

As a martial artist what does this mean to me? It means that I try to conduct myself respectfully, govern myself by the core way of my art even under the duress of conflict which is not always easy, do not misrepresent myself, defer when it is appropriate and regard my own esteem and that of others highly yet making no obligation of others to act similarly and but still hoping my demonstration is enough for them to reciprocate. It is often not :) However, this to me is my way of demonstrating honour.

ps. I think pavlonic is not a word I know and but from the context I think you are referring to the Pavlov conditioning experiments then the correct adjective = Pavlovian :) Do not want any marks squandered as a result of silly mistakes! Kind wishes.

Ach, I knew I saw it in there. I scrolled up to do a ctrl+F but instead flipped the keyboard the bird because I still have to finish the paper in question. Thank you though, your post means a lot to me that somebody actually read that wall of text and found something conducive out of it... instead of well, the usual lol.
 
For me, honor has nothing to do with martial arts. I would act as I do whether I trained or did not train. I think most people are the same. I believe some people like to attach the word honor to martial arts in an attempt to make martial arts practitioners something they are not. A person's morals do not change because they study martial arts, though those morals may be tested in ways a non-martial artist may not be. I see this in the same vien as instructors who like to play at the fantasy of martial artist being super human in some way or enlightened.
 
Honor be damned? If you're going to neglect it in the name of survival, why pull anything in the name of survival. Might as well butcher them in the process also. I think honor is where you know how to act, in a situation, and act accordingly, without taking any kind of personal benefit from what need be done. I kinda like the idea of calling a cab with a karate chop tho.

Y'know... this just kinda shows me you don't understand self defense & survival. There's no such thing as a fair fight. You don't heap praises about what a worthy advisary the crack head was that you flattened to keep him doing the same to you. Martial arts is about one thing... winning to go home. My training is better than yours because I'm going home & you're laid out.

Your description of honor was what WC_lun said, morals. There's a difference between honor & morals. There's a line to not cross to keep things from becoming illegal. But honor is not right & wrong. You were referring to right & wrong. I'm talking about going home any way I can, within the bounds of the law.


What happens when you live in an area where the legal methods to defend yourself are effectively 0. Further, if you do, you can end up in jail for years. F jail, it's not as fun as it seems. Sometimes you might have to kill just so you can live to get to your trial. It sucks, but sometimes that's the situation people get stuck with. As martial artists, and the people who are most likely to end up in the situation, I it's more practical to know when. Cause that button you shouldn't push, you shouldn't push, but it is there for a reason.

Like you've ever been to jail.
:BSmeter:
To your comment about martial artists are the people to end up in the situation & answer your question (that wasn't a questions), all I can say is you need to change your friends & your neighborhood.
 
Define "honor." Define "emotion." Until you do that -- you're spitting into the wind on the topic.
 
I've never heard "honor" described as an emotion. Honor, integrity, character, strength of will, selflessness... these are attributes. Anger, rage, sadness, happiness... these are emotions. Two very different things.

My dad said to me when I was a little guy (probably after I'd just lied about something stupid), that honor and integrity were the only two things that could never be taken from you. You have to give them away.
 
Zenjeal

Honor is honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions and I think you are focusing on Bushido more than martial arts.
 
I believe honor is an important part of Martial Arts training. But, I am somewhat of a hypocrite. For, as a wise man once said, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck."
In the case of self defense, honor be damned.

It seems that many people overlook honor as part of martial arts. That saddens me. Maybe it's an example of Yin Yang, and maybe I'm just full of crap. But, really, do we want to discount honor so easily? Are we just fighters? I like to think we are something more.
 
I believe honor is an important part of Martial Arts training. But, I am somewhat of a hypocrite. For, as a wise man once said, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck."
In the case of self defense, honor be damned.

It seems that many people overlook honor as part of martial arts. That saddens me. Maybe it's an example of Yin Yang, and maybe I'm just full of crap. But, really, do we want to discount honor so easily? Are we just fighters? I like to think we are something more.
In your opinion, how would you explain the bowing in and bowing out of sparring matches. Is this a way of showing honor or respect as we proceed to destroy them. Asking with all due respect.
Anyone else want to weigh in.
 
First off, you aren't an intellectual, and this entire post shows a deep lack of understanding of a huge number of things. I'm getting a little fed up with it, though, so I'm going through the entire thing bit by bit.

Strap in, this'll take a while....

As a Martial Artist, what is honor to you?

We'll come back to this, first we're going to clear up the truly astounding amount of bad precepts, false assumptions, and simply screwed up ideas throughout this winding, pointless (in the main) post of yours.

The text below I have quoted is the background as to why I am asking this question.

So here's my question... all of this is put down in your words, written for this forum (in other words, it's not part of anything you've written for a school assignment, or anything similar), so why is it in quotations? Where did you take it from? The main reason I ask is that the use of quotation boxes is to show that something has come from another source, removing the basic ideas from yourself, but that's not the case here at all.

But to get to it...

I have an interesting 400 level class I am taking this semester which tracks the history of emotions. An example; in the 19th century, the feeling we know as nostalgia today, was then, a negative emotion capable of even being fatal.


Hmm. A "400 level class" just really means that it's a fourth year class... but, so you know, nostalgia isn't an emotion per se, it's more a feeling derived from a range of emotions, and linked into particular criteria. But what we refer to as nostalgia today is not what was referred to back then, either (it was used to refer to a form of mental disorder, and had the meaning of an unhealthy obsession with past events, to the point of not being interested in the present. Essentially, it was a form of depression, and would be linked into suicidal tendencies and so on... interestingly, the term itself refers to homesickness, with the additional belief that you'll never see home again), so you're already starting with a false premise on a few fronts.

Emotions change from location to location, and within time ranges. So in this field it's important you always add where, when, and a theory as to why.


No, they don't. The use of language around them might, but not often when it comes to emotions (meaning true emotions). Your second sentence doesn't make any sense. What field? Why do you always add "where, when, and a theory as to why?" If you're saying that you need to understand the context (modern or older) when using language, well, yeah.

Being as the study itself is less than a quarter century old, it offers great potential for aspiring scholars to contribute to a field which is often seen as being already choked full of too many people trying to contribute.


What study is less than a quarter of a century old? Really, Alex, you've provided no context of what the hell you're talking about.... but please don't tell me you consider yourself a "scholar", aspiring or not... scholars tend to know the meanings of the words they use.

When you read papers on how menstruation was a minor causation of the Great Depression, you can see how desperate people who have majored in history are in that they have to stretch things to such rediculous degrees.


"Causation"? And what does this have to do with anything?

Sometimes, they're just idiots, also, but that's an aside.


Right... coming from you, that's quite a statement...

Right now I am writing a paper on honor, as an emotion.


Then stop. It's not one.

I am not tracking it's development, nor discussing how it exists per culture, only that it is or is not an emotion.


It's not. Paper done.

Right now my thesis is that what we call honor today, which is considered behavioral, is actually both sense, emotion, and behavior.


No, behaviour can be based on a concept of honour, but honour is not behavioural. Honour is more about personal integrity within certain situations. So you're wrong in both your precepts there.

Behavior, as it is is an action, is in response to something causually.


"Causually"? And no, not necessarily. Behaviour is defined as actions, thoughts, words etc, but it's not necessarily in response to something.

This response is to the sensory data which conveys, in a given setting and group, how one should behave in it.


Well, that's a lot of words that don't really say anything... and no. There's a larger factor involved.

If we had to think about it everytime we met someone, how we should treat them, we would never get things done.


Actually, we do that all the time. The instant you see someone you assess them, their place respective to yours, and how you're going to need to interact with them. You see, human beings are social creatures, and we've been doing this for millenia now.

Instinctually we can enter a room and find who is the teacher, who is subservient, in the situation who is more confidant, and so on. So the reaction of behavior we have labeled as honor, actually is in response to that thing which is honor.


Er, what? No. By walking into a martial art class, for instance, and recognizing who is a teacher, and who is a student has absolutely nothing to do with honour at all. You're really just trying far too hard to confuse yourself here.

We do not act honorable, which denotes our actions carrying a value to honor.


Well, no, we don't act "honourable", but we do act honourably. And acting honourably is basically saying that you act in a way that is seen as being honourable... so, uh, what are you saying there? "Carrying a value to honour"?

This is not the case, just as we do not act angrily.


Er, we do. All the time. Mainly when reading your posts.

We act because of anger, or sadness, or guilt, or nostalgia, and so on.


And when you act because of anger, you act angrily.... so.... huh?

The emotion does not dictate the behavior... it can if our will is not strong enough, but it heavily influences it, oft to the point it may as well have swooped in and picked up the flight controls to our brain and body.


Wow, did you even read that yourself? "The emotion does not dictate.... it can... but it heavily influences it..."? You're going in three directions at once here, Alex. The rest makes no sense whatsoever.

Oh, and the word you want is "often", not "oft". Again.

Chemicals can do that.


Something you're trying to tell us?

Essentially my thesis is trying to prove that what we call honor exists beyond just how we interact, but is also something innate to the human experience, cross-culturally, even if honor is defined relativistically by location, and timeframe.


Right. And that has what to do with honour being an emotion or not? But at least you're almost on the right path here... look to the ideas of the development of socialisation in the human race, starting with hunter-gatherer tribes, through to the agricultural development, and you'll see that you've been wrong in all your ideas so far.

Now I'm not REALLY saying anything new in this paper


Nor anything correct, from what we've seen.

- I am really just trying to clean up what is already there, and fill in the gaps.


Really? And what makes you think you can do anything to "clean up what is already there"? I ask as you seem rather ignorant of the realities you're discussing.

Well, it's kinda new to divide honor between 3 component processes which loop, and self-correct, but that's really moreso just recognizing the process already there and differentiating.


Huh?

It's a different way to organize, more efficient I think, as we react to a situation, internalize, and this feeling is what causes us to act.


Hang on, did you just suggest that we react, then internalize, and that leads to what causes us to act... even though we've already reacted in your construct there? Alex, no... just.... no.

When you meet me, or any martial artist, you will treat me a certain way based off how I walk, how I appear, sound, and even if not consciously, by smell the pheromone and hormones given off.


Sure. It's your pheromones that have lead to the response you've generated here....

The Taijiquan practitioner who I have such great respect for, I actually first met 3 years ago, when I was living in a dingy apartment, and I was a total pothead. It was before I got in trouble, haha.


Imagine our shock....

A friend brought Christian over to my home (Am I the only one who finds it somewhat unusual to meet a very skilled tai chi practitioner, who because of his age alone, would not be called a master... he himself doesn't believe in the title)


That's the only reason?

One day, two years later, I am at the club practicing, and Christian comes in. Turns out we both were of comparable skill, at least in Bagua.


Ah. No, not the only reason then.

I have only gotten to raise arms with Xtian once, but I am greatly looking forward to the day again. However, as he pointed at that very day we ran into each other again, he had thought me just a stoner, when at the same time I was a 3rd dan. And he has treated me differently, ever since.


"Xtian"? Weren't you telling people that you're versed in religious ideals and theology? Kind of a faux pas there, then...

And you do understand that there hasn't been much for us to actually give such statements any credence, yeah?

While it might be disingenuous to some, I change when I enter a dojang, I suppose like how some very religious people may change when they enter a church. My back straightens, I do not laugh quite as easily, and I am much more focused, and in the past, serious. It's like a light switch.


No, it's not disingenuous (but well done on using a big word properly!), it's a basic aspect of psychology. If you think such things to be unusual, you're decades behind the times, son. At least.

I tested it last night when entering the old school I am returning to before I go to basic, literally crossing that metal line where the doors open and close actually gives a different feeling internally. It's not like freedom to me, though it feels similar. It's like a release as if I was holding my breath. I feel less stressed, if just by a tiny bit. I don't have to be extra cognizant of what I say or do, how low I bow. I don't have to bow at all.


You tested it? How? Seriously, all this is just telling me you don't have a clue what you're actually trying to explain or explore.

And just the fact we behave differently, outside the dojo, than we do in, be it just a little or a lot, tells me that our behavior is not without a reason or cause.


No, Alex, it tells you that people alter their behaviours to fit into the different social environments and situations that they find themselves in. As to "reason or cause", that's not really part of it, unless you can state what the particular reason is that the behaviour alters in one or another situation... which isn't what you've described here.

I actually like being in a dojo, even those little stresses.


Good for you. Are you actually going to say anything to do with your actual topic any time soon?

I like to think people in the military enjoy being in the military, but when on leave, can enjoy that also.


So again you're deciding what you think things should be like with absolutely no basis or experience?

To me, who I am in a dojo is who I actually am, strangely enough. It is not as though I have some alter ego, but moreso that the way I act in there feels more to me, like me. And that is a bit unusual I think.


Rethink it, then.

But then again I have spent more time in a hall than I may have my own family home, so its debatable that the causation of my comfort not stem from a feeling of honor, or anything really than the fact it feels like home to me.


"Causation"? And what does honour have to do with this? So far you haven't said anything that even tangentially relates to it.

Wish I knew why I was like that, but I think it a decent example to give about how we can act differently without even realizing it, though of course that behavior is going to differ from school to school.


Because that's the way human beings work, Alex. You're not special, or different.

The sound of hands touching the sides of a thigh is unmistakable to me, and I have a pavlonic response any time I hear it to straighten my back.


"Pavlonic"? You meant "Pavlovian", yeah? "Similar to Pavlov's Dog's experiment"?

It used to be if I was sitting I'd jump to attention, because at Khans, God help you if you didn't like up to pay attention to those taking class and teaching and the school and country, and Buddha have mercy if you were the last to assemble. I was, once. I kind of miss the hair-trigger tension which kept us on our toes everytime a class came to an end. Because it didn't matter to assemble when they did, though that was safest, it was only important you were standing, and not in a rush, when the actual bowing, and ritual respect to the teacher, flag, and location came to effect. Combined with the fact he would often go into long speeches... about whatever was on his mind at the time when not actively working with people, this could, and would, easily amount to up to 30 minutes of standing at attention, when you had intended to practice all your forms in the back quietly.


Again, what does anything here have to do with "honour", Alex? You had a teacher who was an overt disciplinarian, which honestly just pushes it more into the "questionable" category, but nothing here has anything to do with your own topic.

You almost had a 6th sense after awhile, of when exactly he was lining up and going to bow out, or if he was just lining up and going to talk.


Right.

To be honest, between practice and listening to him speak, both were equally beneficial toward one's own knowledge of the art, life, and even oneself. He may have been somebody who liked the sound of his own voice- but boy did he have a lot worth saying. And at 6th dan, I think that's fair. Some teachers are preachers, while others are coaches. He happened to be both.


Liked the sound of his own voice, huh?

We have a lot more senses than people usually mention, and I strongly believe that the 'feeling' of respect is one, like anger or sadness is dependent on situation.


How are you defining "sense" there? There's a difference between a sense (hearing, touch, taste), which is a method of attaining information from the world around you, and having a "sense" of something (humour, common sense, sense of honour - hey, what d'ya know, the topic! Knew I'd find it somewhere around here....), which is an internal way of interpreting the world and your interaction with it.

Depending on what is being considered a sense, you can have up to 25 potential senses. Please do not ask me what they are, I only recall the number because between wikipedia, and everything else I could possibly find online and the GMU library, and it listed even the most obscure sensations.


So you make the claim that there are up to 25 senses, without clarifying what you mean by "sense", and then say to not ask you what they are, as you can't say? What was the point of this?

I also included senses humans are capable of acquiring, such as echolocation, though we don't use sonar.


You're not a bat.

I actually would like to learn the technique for clicking or using sound-vibrations to find those around you, not just because I love avatar the last airbender, but also because I think it is related to how kiai operates, in creating a connection.


You're also not a dolphin.

And no, it's nothing like kiai.

Against an opponent, in a sense, one can establish themself. When you consider kiai means to join with spiritually, and if the supernatural does not exist, then that means all that is left is you.


That's not really what Kiai means, though.

In essence, to join with something spiritually, is to sever that thin line which we think seperates us from everything else. So, I honestly wonder if this echolocation-like sense is a more pure form of that... being as you can actually see with it. I wonder what would happen if you focused it on a single thing, though as I do not actually know how to do it, I can only guess and read the literature as to how it works.


Seriously. You're not a dolphin. And you don't understand kiai as a concept.

The point is, most of our senses aren't acknowledged, we can acquire knew ones or hone existing one's to a point that it appears as though different senses are now operating.


Where do you get this from?

The katana wielder who can cut airsoft bullets relies on, the professional opine there is to be believed, an anticipatory analyzation so precise, it appears as though he is reacting, when he isn't... he moved either before it was fired, or with enough speed to get the blade where it's line would intersect the oncoming pellet. That means his sense of chronology, his sense of distance, balance, and so on, were so perfectly in harmony it appeared as though he knew where the bullet would be, before it was even fired.


Oh, for crying out loud... the "katana wielder" (I thought you said you'd trained in Kenjutsu, although you've never answered where, under who, or what system...) who can cut airsoft bullets is a showman, not a swordsman. It really has no relevance whatsoever.

This is all relevant because emotion can only exist as a reaction to a prior perceived event, when we are aware of that event. So if we're going to talk about honor in the sense of emotion, or if I am, scholastically than I also have to explain how or where we get that feeling from, how that sense operates.


You can't talk about honour as an emotion, as it isn't one.

I can't answer that last one yet.


No kidding...

Trying to prove anything, scholastically, outside of philosophy, is extremely difficult.


Really?

When one does that, it's even more audacious, and thus risky than the type of paper which is correcting a previous theory. It is essentially telling everyone in the field, that in relation to the topic, they have flat out gotten it wrong, or muddled it up in a way which necessitated a paper be done this way.


Hmm... nope.

Because when you try to study honor, as it is an emotion, it is impossible.


No, when you try to look at honour as an emotion, as it isn't one, it's impossible. Didn't you ever think that that's why you're finding such problems with your premise?

I must have poured through a hundred sources, and while I have great evidence of how it's changed, and how it affects where we place ourselves socially, nobody has actually bothered to consider the actual feeling, from the sensory data we receive, might actually be the cause of the behavior.


Because that's not the way honour works. Honour is seen in the observing, not as a response mechanism.

Because unfortunately the working theory labels honor as a behavior, but there is no behavior without causation.


"Causation"? Again? And no, the "working theory" (alternately known as the "definition") of honour doesn't label it as a behaviour, it is a concept related to morals and ethics which can then be used to describe aspects of behaviour.

In essence, as it is commonly accepted, the definition of emotion is broken, since it advocates action without a reason for it to exist.


What are you talking about?

It's like saying somebody angry, is acting a certain way because of their anger, but one hasn't defined anger yet.


Huh? Dude, you're not making any sense....

And I get that- the field is less than 30 years old, so I expect there to be a lot of this. Because the field is so new, the professor's expectations are for us to contribute and help the field grow.


What field?

Considering my school also has the essential founder of the field as a provost, I get now why my professor from Cambridge came here.


Hang on, you went to Cambridge now?

What I don't get, is why psychology and psychiatry hasn't studied honor as in-depth as behaviorists have.


Perhaps if you understood what honour was, you may have your answer there.

Because I looked for brain scans of people interacting in a setting regarding honor- say when one enters a dojo, and see's their master, and then his grandmaster, unexpectedly, and monitoring the activity, and so on.


Have you considered that:

a) That's not anything to do with honour, more about respect, which is really not the same thing at all.
b) It's such a convoluted premise that there's no reason for it
c) You are looking at things from such a tiny sense of perspective that you really have no idea what's really going on.

I can't imagine im the only martial artist to be curious enough to find a definite answer that they wouldn't mind getting hooked up to a machine and actually get one.


I can imagine you're the only martial artist on the planet who had this idea, as I've never come across anyone so misguided as to what you're talking about. But hey, if you want to strap electrodes to your brain when you see your instructor, go for it....

If there is a repeating pattern specific to the behavior we call honor, cross specimen, outside of the ranges of the brain which dictate we act that way, then we would be experiencing either thinking, or more likely during the action of say bowing, we aren't thinking, we are internally feeling what I would call respect.


Is this meant to make sense? At all? Really?

Honour is not a behaviour.

Respect is not the same as honour.

And honestly, what kind of sentence structure is that supposed to be?

Our 'sense of honor' though a common phrase, is also a literal one. That is what I am calling the process, biologically, which is what allows us to tell how to place ourselves in the group.


What?

Essentially, this means 'honor' is the established acceptable norms within the group, which might actually give us concrete data to define honor as a feeling.


Nope. "Honour" is not the "established acceptable norms" at all... in fact, it's more commonly a idealised way of holding to personal integrity, and is not the norm... hence it being recognized. And, as it's completely situationally based, you really can't get "concrete data" to define it.

When we are angry, or sad, our brains alter. Likewise, if honor is an emotion, if the brain does this it is further proof that we can say there is something emotional, which is honor. A feeling of it.


Honour is not an emotion. You really don't have a clue what you're talking about here.

And to think, this all started with me noticing that at nova I get bowed to, just because I entered the room and who I am, while at say GMU I am not when I enter the classroom there. And it is because in one location I am considered a superior, while in the latter, an inferior, a student.


So what you're saying is that this began because you have extrapolated a false premise by not understanding the very simple, basic concept of situational differences? Wow.

I'm not bothered by this, but I would like to have it scientifically explained and defined, so that as a historian I can work with something more than theory, or guesswork, if I'm going to try to define how it has changed. Because honor has.


Then you're looking in the wrong area, and have so much bad information and poor conceptual workings that I don't think you have much chance of getting far with this. And as far as honour changing, that's pretty much defined by the social environment at the time.

We'd all be dead for how we first bowed when starting. At least I would have been, my form probably still crap compared to the finely honed and precise one what even the most lowly commoner possessed a thousand years ago in feudal Japan.


Wow, how much fantasy are you trying to live by here?

Let's just say... no.

Because less important to me is understanding where honor came from, and how it is now (though this is more important than either because of its affect on us now), as it is to try to glean where it is going.


First you need to learn what honour actually is, as you've missed it completely.

Ultimately I hope, after proving honor is relative to our emotion, if not as an emotion, than something which influences either our behavior or emotion.


What?

Ultimately this translates to how we treat each other in a martial way, because the ultimate paper I would like to write is an analyzation of how honor behaviorally affects martial arts, if honor is integral to the art, and so on.


"Analyzation"? Uh, "analysis" perhaps? Seriously, if you don't know how to use the words, don't use them.

"How honour behaviourally affects martial arts"? Dude, what kind of sentence structure is that? How about before you start thinking about what to write a paper on, you look at how to write... then learn something about your subject.

Because we live in a day and age where the gut answer is, of course, yet we have new martial arts coming to existance which sometimes don't have that notion grounded at all.


Forgive us, but you're hardly the resident expert on martial arts here.

People who practice parkour usually don't bow to each other, they treat each other pretty much like gymnasts and rock-climbers do each other.


Marines don't bow to each other, either. And parkour as a martial art? Seriously?

A lot of people are probably going 'meh' to parkour, but even though I know but the most rudimentary maneuvers, I can tell that it will become something which marks the difference between someone who is a modern martial artist, and somebody who isn't.


So again you're making comment on something with no basis in experience or knowledge? And no, parkour has no immediate relevance to any martial art, modern or not.

Neither is incorrect, but I consider parkour to be something essential for my own growth as a martial artist, because I would like to master control over energy channeling.


Parkour has nothing to do with "energy channeling"... so.... what?

What bagua does in re-guiding and directing the force of a strike aikido does with the full body, and parkour extends this control, when mastered, to not just ourselves, and others, but our environment too.


What experience do you have in Aikido? And no, that's not what parkour does.

I understand people being skeptical about this, and its verboseness, but understand that what we consider 'parkour', the people in it, would be no different than if we went back to 1962, and looked at the people learning it then.


What on earth does that mean?

In hindsight, we would have to say at least to ourselves that although a new art, with 50 years more practice, bringing them up to today, how skilled they would be. And the same applies to parkour. These guys are novices compared to what will be practiced by those when I am 50, and that includes the people who founded the very sport itself.


And again.... what?

Sorry for typos, my arms hurt after typing this.

Frankly, Alex, 90%+ of this post has nothing to do with even your own topic, going off on bizarre tangents, saying nothing at all. So if your arms hurt after typing it, well, learn to be a bit more concise, and stay on topic yourself. Oh, and learn to only use words that you understand. Common mistakes are "oft", "opine"... these are never used correctly by yourself.

But to get back to it, and to what the core topic really should be here:

As a Martial Artist, what is honor to you?

Honour is a personal concept, based in having personal integrity and congruence in your actions in line with an ethical and moral code. Depending on the context, it will change...
 
Ach, I knew I saw it in there. I scrolled up to do a ctrl+F but instead flipped the keyboard the bird because I still have to finish the paper in question. Thank you though, your post means a lot to me that somebody actually read that wall of text and found something conducive out of it... instead of well, the usual lol.

I do not think honour is an emotion from the set of emotions that some have described in the posts above.

The closest honour can come to an emotion is being seen as a "social emotion". This however is distinct from the internalised emotions that have been amply described here already, in my opinion. Honour is instead a notional response (as you have asserted) that is informed by the social context of the honourable person. The implication is that what is honourable in one social group is quite the opposite in another. And which I think this is borne out in reality, no?

And why should I not read your wall of text? :) You have posted it and so I assume you regard it as worthy of reading. Well so do I. I understand what you mean by "the usual". I think a proportion of the reception you are receiving is driven by the perception of affront among those that might give you that reception. People are fragile no matter how tough they seem :) To utilise fragility on the other hand I think is a clever way to fight. I wish you well.
 

I don't even know where to begin.

 
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