Last night I watched an episode of NCIS, one of the few television shows I have wholeheartedly enjoyed for a long time, and the episode dealt with the problem of Afghan honor killings. Given my own tangled and complicated life and personal experience, the question of honor and dishonor has been a subject of considerable and serious personal interest. As is the case with most Western portrayals of honor killings, the presentation of the murders is such as to make one feel sympathy for the women and children involved, who suffer the ultimate penalty for such offenses as seeking to escape beatings and abuse at home, for kissing and innocent flirtation, or for showing reluctance to marry those who their family is pressuring them to wed, or, even worse, for being the survivor of rape and assaults. As a student of social norms in the West (however poorly I may actually behave according to those norms), I have seen a great deal of attention paid to women and children in terms of global public health efforts, but not much effort at all has been paid to men. I believe this to be a serious, even tragic, mistake.

It is not an easy thing to have any sort of sympathy or understanding for the men who commit such monstrous deeds as abusing their wives and children (notably, it tends to be girls, rather than boys, who receive the vast majority of attention when it comes to child abuse, although the effects of child abuse on boys can be particularly damaging both to them and to others as those children grow up into often heavily-damaged adults). We ought to note that the men who commit these atrocities themselves have a strong case to think of themselves as victims of abuse and oppression themselves, though, and in defending the honor of women and children, we need to take into consideration the question of the honor of men, a subject that does not receive a great deal of interest in our society. If we wish to defend the honor of women and children, we need to be men of honor ourselves, and there is little more difficult than behaving with honor and restraint when one is treated regularly in a dishonorable fashion. I speak as a man, and I speak from experience.

In the case of the Afghan honor killings, it is worthwhile to examine at least briefly the subject of Afghan honor, or the lack thereof. During most of the 20th century, various Afghan rulers attempted to bring a very traditional society into alignment with the norms of the civilized world (judged to be the West). While limited democratic reforms led to the proliferation of experiments with socialism and rights for women in the cities, the countryside remained largely traditional and was judged to be unworthy of the respect and honor of the elites of the cities who lived lives increasingly in line with Western norms and standards even as the countryside remained almost medieval in its mindset. We must remember that however we may support such changes in mindset as the 20th century offered for Afghanistan, that these changes were not conducted with the consent of the nomads or farmers in their villages and tribes, nor were these changes motivated by any sort of respect for their honor and dignity. Then, in addition to these internal social problems and the intense divide between the prestige and honor of city-dwelling elites and the less-respected rural dwellers, during the last part of the 20th century and so far in the 21st century, Afghanistan itself has suffered from domination from the Soviet Union, Pakistan (through the Taliban and its allies in Pakistan’s own troubled military establishment), and the United States and its allies (including the United Nations as well as NATO). With the Afghan nation itself feeling oppressed in various imperialistic efforts and with the male Afghan population of the countryside feeling besieged by their own bewildering and forced culture war, it is not surprising in the least that men who feel that they have been treated without honor or dignity would fail to respect the honor and dignity of those within their legitimate domain of authority and jurisdiction within the family.

Let us note that men do have a legitimate role of authority within the household. This role is not to dominate or tyrannize or oppress their womenfolk and children, but the role of men in leading families is not an obsolete social model of patriarchal oppression but rather a godly and proper and righteous role worthy of honor and respect. This legitimate office of authority remains legitimate despite the fact that not all who hold the office behave in a manner worthy of that office. This problem of legitimacy is not limited only to fathers (or mothers) but is a problem that all people in all positions of authority in any society or institution have to deal with. Respect for an office is necessary to preserve order and social harmony; respect for a person generally depends on the behavior of that person as well as our own behavior and how readily (or not) we give honor to others. At times we must respect the offices that people possess even if the people in those offices behave in a dishonorable fashion towards us or others. Recognizing both that men, even abusive men, are worthy of respect simply for being men, we may help to address the larger root causes of honor killings in Afghan society. It should also be noted that many of these same dynamics are present not only in Afghan society, but across the Muslim world in general. We ought not to think of the people who commit such deeds as monsters beyond the pale of humanity, but rather as people who themselves feel (legitimately) as if they have been treated dishonorably and disrespectfully and do not respect others. It should also be noted that many of those who crow so loudly about the disrespect given to women and children show no respect for men themselves, and therefore perpetuate the offenses that they claim to hate through their own contempt and dishonorable behavior.

Nor are these dynamics only found in Muslim societies. I spent most of my childhood after my parents split up as a vulnerable and rather wounded child in rural Central Florida, with neighbors who flew Confederate flags and felt as if they too were victims of history. Although the elites and would-be elites of Southern society showed little mercy when it came to stealing the land and resources of the people who lived there when they arrived (who probably stole and conquered that land in turn from others who were there before, as humans tend to do), their own honor and dignity was greatly harmed first by the feeling that their society and its institutions were disreputable in other parts of the United States and the world and from the shame that came upon them as a result in defeat in the American Civil War and the fact that the South as a whole became subject to cultural and economic imperialism from other aspects of the United States. People who feel that sort of shame and dishonor tend to take out those feelings of shame and dishonor on others within their area of influence and control. All too often, that means that those who are weak and vulnerable tend to bear the results of the sufferings of others who feel victimized despite their own self-image and visions of power. Wounded people tend to wound other people.

This larger dynamic is fairly easy to see when it comes to bullying. Often it is people who feel victimized in some fashion themselves who respond by trying to feel powerful. Rather than feeling powerful through developing honorable restraint in behavior, as well as treating others with honor (even others who do not deserve it through their actions), all too often we feel powerful most easily by tearing other people down. We insult people, we make fun of them, we socially exclude them, and we even try to terrorize those who are polite and nice to those we hate and abuse. We feel that our own dignity and honor have been offended against and feel no need to defend and even build up the honor of others. We lash out in our pain and in our suffering not realizing the sort of suffering and shame felt by those whom we lash out against. We perpetuate cycles of abuse and suffering and violence and hatred, not recognizing that our enemies are often people not that different from ourselves in our most basic personality and character and life experiences.

How do we make other people feel honored and respected, though? This is a question that I have wrestled with my entire life, not only with others but even with regards to myself. Given that I am someone who thinks a lot about and cares a lot about honor, and not only the honor I receive towards others but the honor and respect that I give to others (often knowing the recipients are unworthy of the honor I give them and might mistrust the motives of my treating others with friendliness and respect whom I know to be unfriendly to me personally), it is a vexing problem to help other people to feel safe and sound, respected and treasured, when it is so difficult for me to feel that way myself as well. It is difficult to give others what we do not possess ourselves, and perhaps even pointless to try. Ultimately, we can best receive and appreciate love and respect from other people when we behave in a fashion and see ourselves in a fashion where we know ourselves to be worthy of honor and love. To truly feel loved we must first feel loveable. To feel respected we must first feel respectable, to have forgiven others for their offenses against our own honor and dignity, and to have forgiven ourselves for the offenses we have committed against others. To feel honored we must first feel honorable, and the best way to feel honorable is to be honorable, to recognize our own nobility of character even as we work to overcome those weaknesses and shortcomings we know ourselves to have. Ultimately, we treat other people well not because others are worthy of it through their own deeds (for they are not worthy, nor are we worthy on those grounds), but rather because by treating others with kindness and honor and love and respect we show ourselves as loving and kind and honorable and respectable people whose habits and behaviors show the image and likeness of our heavenly Father above.

It is a very easy matter to demand respect and honor for ourselves. It is very easy to forget that those people who hurt us and others are themselves often hurt people who someone has hurt before. It is a vastly more difficult and important matter to respect and honor people not because of who they are but because of who we are, no matter how little our own nature may be seen and understood by those whom we interact with. For we must understand that the nature of God as a gracious and loving being is not well-understood either, but is constantly misunderstood and slandered and libeled. God will be gracious with us to the extent that we are gracious to others, and it is not an easy matter to be gracious to others at all, especially because the people who we are called to be gracious for are not very loveable or sympathetic at all. They may even appear to be monstrous, but all the same they are men not unlike ourselves, of the same nature and likeness that we possess by the grace of God. We are called to be gracious even when that grace is misunderstood and even slandered. By doing so we better understand the restraint and suffering of God in the face of our own ignorance and our own refusal to recognize love and honor and grace and respect for what it is. If we wish to help build up the honor and dignity of those who have been most oppressed and abused in this wicked world, we must recognize that this honor and dignity must be extended by all and to all, as hard as it may be to do so in light of the wrongs that we and others have suffered. Those who inflict suffering on others would point to the wrongs that they have suffered as well as obstacles to honoring and respecting others, and someone has to be the bigger man and break the cycle of sin and suffering that harms every aspect of life in this wicked and fallen world. We might as well be the bigger people ourselves.