How society manages power

Honor is how a society manages power. 

Can there be honor therefore where there is no freedom or autonomy? When the government of a people removes from the people the prerogatives of freedom, they can no longer achieve honor and certainly not glory. 

Loss of freedom thus undermines a people’s connection to what is sacred to them. Insofar as the ruler asks the people to defend the national values and the people dedicate themselves to that defense, the people can still achieve a measure of honor, which is why the military is always an arena where honor can be won because the military service entails an irreducible minimum of autonomous action on the part of the soldier. A soldier's relationship with the ruler is thus more direct and more disintermediated than any other member of the populace. That connection is where honor gets worked out. 

The people's government is not the only centrist institution where honor operates. Every institution generates a code of honor that describes the conduct of its members and that defines who is inside and who is outside the institutional perimeter.