One of the most fascinating things about studying the culture of the Southern hotbloods during the American Civil War is that the prickly sense of honor held by many Southern aristocratic gentleman was vitally important in allowing offenses to build up between the North and the South in the time before the Civil War.  It is also interesting that one finds this same over-delicate sense of honor present in the whole dispute over Cogwa, which has sought to use the “Oscar Wilde Defense” in preserving its delicate sense of honor by promising hostile attacks against all of those who would dare to defame them.

Now, considering that Cogwa formed after months of defamation, lies, false allegations, libels, and slanders in numerous forms, often anonymously or under false identities, and whose activities have included the active efforts to poach members of other fellowships, as well as the theft of property belonging to other organizations, it would appear that defending one’s honor would depend on having honor first.  We cannot defend that which we do not have.  However, like some quadroon in a New Orleans bordello seeking to defend her reputation as pure and unstained, or like Oscar Wilde’s attempt to sue for libel those who properly exposed his activities, defending an honor one does not possess usually does not turn out well.  Oscar Wilde, let us remember, was actually guilty of those acts he was accused of (which were criminal acts), and after his libel attack failed, he was forced to defend himself unsuccessfully in a court of law, and spent two years in hard labor in Reading Gaol.

The best defense is not always a good offense.  The most prickly and overly delicate senses of honor are from those who are actually dishonorable people who wish to appear honorable without putting forth the hard work of self-control and decency.  For example, a Southern hotblood aristocrat wished to pass himself off as a man of honor concerned deeply with racial purity, despite the fact that he may have fathered more mulattoes than the state of New Hampshire on his own, besides those fathered by his brothers, cousins, father, and uncles.  In a society of hypocrites, one must be ever vigilant against attacks on one’s honor and reputation, all the more so because such attacks may themselves be true.  To fail to defend one’s honor was tantamount to admitting the truth of the accusations, shame and humiliation one could not bear.

Likewise, Oscar Wilde was a man of morally dissolute habits, but to admit the truth was too painful, because he had an image to maintain regardless of the truth of the matter.  It was probably not a loving thing, in his eyes, to be reminded of how the reality was much more sordid and immoral than his appearance, but he judged by appearances and could not bear to accept the truth about him to be known and recognized.  Unfortunately, his public actions in attacking his accusers brought the sordid truth of his life to the public attention, landing him in jail, leading his wife to divorce him, and prematurely shortening his life.  He paid a heavy price for his sins, ultimately death.  Rather than repent of his sins and admit the truth of the accusations, he chose to attack and suffered ruin.

Likewise the Southern hotbloods, who themselves were often dishonorable hypocrites who professed a belief in Christianity without practicing it, and who could not bear to deal with the stinging truth of Yankee insults about the degeneracy of their morals and the unrighteousness of their conduct [1], chose to attack through rebellion, and ended up destroying their civilization based on slavery.  This loss did not make them repentant, for they still, to this day, deny the true cause of their rebellion [2] and insist the rightness of their cause, leading them to libel good men like Abraham Lincoln because they cannot accept the truth of their own past, even after much death and destruction.

Let us therefore learn from the lessons of others, if we will not heed the words of scripture.  For Jesus said the following in Matthew 5:39:  “But I tell you not to resist an evil person.  But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other cheek to him also.”  Now, much has been said about this verse with regards to self-defense, but that is not properly the subject of this verse.  The real subject of this verse is dignity.  In the highly prickly pride-based society of the time, a backhand slap, which was considered highly disrespectful, was fined much more heavily than a slap from the palm of the hand.  The dishonor was punished just as harshly, if not more so, than the actual hurt caused [3].

So, Jesus Christ himself, rather than preaching pacifism, as He is falsely accused of doing, was in reality pointing to the worthless of our prickly sense of honor.  He is stating that we should not be quick to avenge slights to our honor, but instead treat others with respect.  We cannot have too delicate a sense of honor–we have as our enemy Satan the devil who never ceases to slander us.  In this day and age anyone with an opinion and a keyboard can type a blog online (like this one), which means that one cannot possibly try to silence everyone who might dislike you or wish to cause harm to your reputation, if there was indeed something that would be a threat to it.  Truth is the only defense a godly person has–whether that truth is to refute lies or to admit the facts and state what was learned from past mistakes or past events in one’s life.

Let us take these lessons and apply them to ourselves.  Our eternal lives, and our physical ones, are too precious to be harmed by our attacks on other people simply because they attack our pride.  Is not God our avenger?  Is not God aware of the truth, and is not He our ultimate judge?  Are we not told that to bear wrongs patiently is a great and noble thing, because it models the behavior of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who did not revile when he was reviled, as hard as it is to refrain ourselves from responding to personal attacks in kind?  Do we not have self-control over our tongues and our tempers?  If so, then let us act like it.  A true man of honor is strong enough that others may lie and it does him no harm, because the truth about him is such that it disarms reproach, so that only evil men would dare to attack.  Is our righteousness like a cloak, or is dependent on a lawyer on retainer to try to threaten others into silence because one is unwilling to accept the truth or have it known.  It is better by far to be a person of honesty and integrity than to merely have the appearance, and to be in the position of the emperor with no clothes when the day comes to have one’s conduct brought into the harsh light of day.  For judgment is now on the house of God, and all our deeds will be brought into the light.  Are we ready to give an account for them?

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/slaveowner-guilt-and-the-internal-slave-trade/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/book-review-apostles-of-disunion-southern-secession-commissioners-and-the-causes-of-the-civil-war/

[3] http://mattdabbs.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/what-does-it-mean-to-turn-the-other-cheek/