Honor

Recently a family of mountain lions killed a woman in Colorado. It was the first such attack there in 25 years. Generally, mountain lions keep their distance from humans unless provoked or unless their young are threatened. That’s the norm. But whenever one develops a taste for human blood, it must be hunted and either shot or euthanized. That’s what happens when the norm is broken.

My wife saw a Florida Panther, aka, a North American Cougar, on an early morning walk near Venice, Florida. It was accompanied by two cubs. They passed around 50 yards from her, with their mother keeping constant watch. Fortunately, they kept the norm.

Kipling aside, there is no “law of the jungle.” There is only a sense of caution or perhaps a healthy fear of man and other predators. Yet, from time to time, caution does not prevail, fight wins out over flight, and someone gets seriously hurt or killed.

In human society, the situation isn’t that different. Mostly, we want to “live and let live.” Mostly we want to maintain some sense of order, to respect each other’s autonomy or “space,” as some say. On the international level, we generally choose to respect national sovereignty or at least certain customs and standards, if not rules of order. Otherwise, we break the norm at our own risk.

Yet, there is no higher authority to “make” a nation follow the rules, as a nation can “make” its citizens follow its laws. As in nature, the strong make the rules, the richest and most powerful can decide who gets to keep wealth and territory as well as who lives and who dies. Or they can follow the norm and keep their paws off their neighbors and take turns at the water hole.

It seems to me mountain lions can only follow their nature, taking care of their cubs, defending their territory, fighting when they must, and so on, while humans can develop a sense of honor, which means they can choose to do the right thing rather than act on their desire to conquer and control. Just because we can take our neighbor’s stuff doesn’t mean we should. Some of the Ten Commandments refer to this kind of honor. Many sins can be avoided – if we act honorably.

A high White House official has stated, “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

As some have echoed, if we as a nation choose to exercise our enormous strength, force, and power, “who’s going to stop us?” An unarmed woman had no chance against a family of mountain lions with great strength, force, and power. A small, underfunded nation has no chance against a so-called “superpower.” “Who’s going to stop us?” Perhaps only another “superpower.” Then other superpowers might be tempted to seize control of their neighbors. Then there might be world war. At very least, a superpower that chooses to flex its strength, force, and power also chooses to abandon any moral high ground it might have held.

Indeed, “who’s going to stop us?” Especially when every country in the world already faces so many challenges and uncertainties. The only chance we have is to hold on to our honor in a world where that commodity is in short supply. Honor might now be more precious than oil or rare earth minerals. We shouldn’t need the Bible to tell us that some things are more precious than gold and silver.

No matter what certain officials proclaim, humans are supposed to be better than beasts. We can choose to rise above our instincts. While no one might be able to stop us from acting like predators, the real question is, “who’s going to help us” after we have broken the norm? Then we might find we are as alone as anyone facing a family of mountain lions in the wilderness.