It's is always about power. When men or nations talk about honor, what they mean is how other men or nations perceive their power. Speeches and comments about honor are status signalling at the highest levels. Speeches about "soft power" are usually a joke.
When a person makes claim of honor being challenged, what he is saying is that a rival's actions, if left unchallenged, may diminish their power in the eyes of others. Probably more so than any other verbal tic made by politicians, mentions of honor diminished is in reality merely seeking to have an increase that politician's power or, failing that, diminish the power of another.
Cognative dissonance of our current situation. We have repeatedly told ourselves that what we have here in America is a reward for our virtue and our exceptional goodness. What we are beginning to become aware of is our loss of relative power in the world. With this loss of power, we are progressively losing access to the rewards that we have been told is our due.
The rewards are what we feel are our just desserts. The rewards are what defines us in our own minds, the status conferred by the physical rewards are what we use to define our personal and societal worth.
I genuinely fear that the loss or diminution of our status symbols will make us into something ...... well, something a lot less than how we perceive ourselves in our odd self image. We have built a society and a belief system where we can only tolerate being "the bestest ever" and I think that we might turn nasty when the challenges mounting take away this certainty.
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