doverhog posted:

Social change isn't just hard, often it's impossible to the people living in that time. That applies to our time too. It would be easy to prevent Bezos from owning the whole of US, if you just had normal people.

It's like that with the past too.

System Metternich posted:

It's important to note that while it was probably most "ritualised" in Germany, duels were the standard all over Europe and its colonies during the early modern era and the 19th/early 20th century. This is due to an understanding of honour that is wholly removed from ours and is honestly hard to fuly grasp even when you've spent a lot of time researching it. Basically honour was a limited resource, and dishonour wasn't just the absence of honour but an attribute all of its own that was to be avoided at all costs. Dishonour was also contagious; you could catch it just by standing next to a dishonourabe person if you were not careful. Honour was strongly tied to behaviour proper to your social class: A nobleman not living up to the social expectations of nobility risked losing honour and catching dishonour instead, while e.g. a commoner dressing like a nobleman did the same.

People back then were keenly aware that (dis)honour was entirely a social construct and all the more careful in maintaining/avoiding it. This is also why it wasn't only insults or the spreading of lies that might lead to being challenged to a duel: Basically anything that might be constituted as a challenge to your honour might lead to it, because not answering that challenge might be seen by your peers as an implicit admission that the challenger was in fact right. Duels also weren't limited to the upper classes, but could be found pretty much everywhere because peasants too had a strong sense of honour and social class. And of course you can still see echoes of this when e.g. you're in a club and some guy is like "Have you been ogling my girl? Let go outside and beat each other senseless so we can settle this like real men" (thankfully becoming rarer nowadays) or even the clichéd "trying to storm towards the other while your friends hold you back and go 'He's not worth it, dude!'" - it's fully performative of course and I'd claim that in most cases actually getting into a brawl isn't even the goal, the whole thing is just to signal that you are indeed ready to defend your honour with violence.

Or heck, think of chuds threatening their daughters' boyfriends with brutal violence if they would ever "treat her wrong" - this is 100% not about the daughter but because said chud needs to navigate a difficult social situation here - his conception of honour entails laying claim to his family and defending the purity of his daughter. A boyfriend means that this purity in in danger and - even more importantly - that his daughter starts to get out of his control. But on the other hand the daughter starting to date is socially expected and necessary if she is ever to marry (which again is a must in the chud's conception of honour). So he solves that conundrum by letting his daughter date, but asserting his dominance by threatening violence as well as trying to keep their relationship non-sexual.

Formalised duels might have gone the way of the dodo, but I'd say that the mechanics and the social concepts behind it haven't.

Josef bugman posted:

Mainstream ideas of masculinity is just "honour" repackaged.

Think about it, it's inherently loving fragile, no-one knows exactly what it is and what actions you can take to maintain it and gently caress me if there aren't a lot of people who claim they know how you "lose" it.

Arban posted:

I have seen modern people use the word "respect" in a similar way to old concepts of honor

barbecue at the folks posted:

Since learning about it in this thread yesterday, I mentioned Mensur to a friend who had just returned from a stint as a visiting fellow at a prestigious German university. He told me that someone had tried to recruit a friend of theirs, a fellow Finn, to a 'fencing' club. The friend was, surprise surprise, a tall and blonde man. Being of a leftist political persuasion, he feigned innocence and asked if anyone else than a tall blonde, say, for example, a person with darker hair or skin, were allowed in. The answer was something along the lines of "*wink* *wink* Probably not! *wink* *wink*" He passed on joining as he wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of being recruited into a completely apolitical little blood-letting club. Jesus!

Domus posted:

I find this hilarious, because my brother’s fencing coach was black. Multiple fencers that were his students made it to the olympics. He was a really nice guy, too. Nazis are such shitheads.

FreudianSlippers posted:

It wasn't until the early modern period when the state itself began to execute people and since it was the Lutheran reformation it was often for stuff like having children out of wedlock while poor or for being a Catholic.

Milo and POTUS posted:

What about being basque

pentyne posted:

The book recounts a story where a military officer at a casual party accosted a baker (huge dude) and when pushed the baker just leaned in and grabbed the officer's hand with was resting on his sword, preventing him from pulling his sword and whisper-told the officer to chill the gently caress out and go home. The military officer was so terrified his peers would found out a common laborer "humiliated" him he tried to find and murder the baker, and when he couldn't he then killed himself terrified the baker would tell everyone how he punked the officer.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Call the lynch mob on Granos.

Arban posted:

I have seen modern people use the word "respect" in a similar way to old concepts of honor

Solice Kirsk posted:

I don't believe those guys ever actually existed.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Call the lynch mob on Granos.

Solice Kirsk posted:

I don't believe those guys ever actually existed.

Fatty Crabcakes posted:

Oh, they exist alright. I punched one in the face!

Milo and POTUS posted:

pentyne posted:

The book recounts a story where a military officer at a casual party accosted a baker (huge dude) and when pushed the baker just leaned in and grabbed the officer's hand with was resting on his sword, preventing him from pulling his sword and whisper-told the officer to chill the gently caress out and go home. The military officer was so terrified his peers would found out a common laborer "humiliated" him he tried to find and murder the baker, and when he couldn't he then killed himself terrified the baker would tell everyone how he punked the officer.

Fatty Crabcakes posted:

Are there many Basques in Iceland?

Ghost Leviathan posted:

The military has a shitload of stories of privates who are unfamiliar with basic hygiene.

BattyKiara posted:

I had a science teacher in secondary school who thought that showering more than once every two weeks was bad for your immune system. He also refused to launder his clothes. His words were along the lines of "Just remove any stains. Then give your clothes an airbath. Letting your clothes hang outside overnight refreshes them! Humans were never meant to smell like flowers!"

He also had THE worst haircut I have ever seen.

Josef bugman posted:

Mainstream ideas of masculinity is just "honour" repackaged.

Think about it, it's inherently loving fragile, no-one knows exactly what it is and what actions you can take to maintain it and gently caress me if there aren't a lot of people who claim they know how you "lose" it.