Honour, culture, theory; and some doubt

Abstract

[...]the unspeakable outsiders are people of no honour, who are nevertheless Greeks and among whom one needs to have 'friends' and spiritual kin, in order to arrange one's affairs in a legalistic State, full of village presidents, bureaucrats, tax collectors, police, and litigation. [...]honours may be conferred on the upper and the middle ranks of society, and yet people, Voltaire for example, be able to declare that such honours exclude honour. [...]when Campbell claims that the sanctions behind the very fierce code of sexual honour of the Sarakatsani are exceptionally tough, I for one was inclined to scepticism. [...]perhaps the same argument, we do have some clear criteria for rejecting some views and accepting others, for holding, for example, that Sarakatsani values involve contradictions, that the evil eye is an illusion, that in honour-bound societies, most men, contrary to their beliefs about themselves, avoid dangerous quarrels in private, and are the more ready to threaten death, the more people are present to prevent them fulfilling their threats.