Anthropologists have noticed that nomadic people and herdsmen—especially those without recourse to reliable law enforcement—have cultures that are quite different from those that prevail in modern, law-governed states. In “honor" cultures, a person’s worth and reputation can be granted or taken away by others and it often pays to respond to insults with violence. (Think gunslingers of the Wild West, or the samurai of feudal Japan.) By contrast, “dignity" cultures treat individuals as having inherent and roughly equal worth and rely on institutions to defend rights. Honor and dignity cultures emphasize different virtues: an admirable person in one culture might count as a despicable person in another. Honor culture prevailed in Medieval Europe; dignity culture prevails in much of post-Enlightenment Europe. Honor culture is said to prevail in the American South; dignity cultures prevail in many cosmopolitan cities. What light can evolutionary thinking about these phenomena teach us about the modern world? What it can teach us about how to evolve a world that works for all?
Some sources for the ambitious (pdf versions):
A Key Difference Between Honor and Dignity Cultures
The Persistence of Honor Culture as Explanation for Violence in the American South
Insults and the Honor Culture of the American South
Performing Honor Online: When Honor Culture and Social Media Collide