Charlie Collins Portrait
Charles A. Collins

About the Honor Blog

This blog has been created for the purpose of exploring controversial moral problems, using the concepts explored in The Book of Honor as a foundation. Since it seeks to tackle difficult problems, readers should approach it with serious minds and should expect to have their prejudices challenged. However, an element which is central to The Book of Honor is that there are things upon which all normal humans will agree. This blog seeks out those things - it focuses on areas of agreement, rather than disagreement, so that the discussion can remain positive even in the face of serious disagreements.

The Gratiae

One of the most important conclusions reached in The Book of Honor is that acting in a good and moral way means giving value to other persons. The things which represent that value are called the gratiae, and in The Book of Honor, we learn there are three of those things:
Vitality,
Liberty, and
Dignity.

Good actions are those which support human life, which recognize the freedom and dignity of other persons. Immoral, evil actions are those which deprive persons of their lives, deny them their freedom, and/or destroy their dignity.

The Virtues

The purpose of The Book of Honor is to establish a code of conduct, a set of factors which will guide persons toward honorable behavior. Those factors are summarized in the form of seven Virtues:
Wisdom,
Courage,
Compassion,
Discipline,
Industry,
Hope, and
Humility.

These Virtues are used to guide honorable behavior; a person who considers and applies the Virtues when making decisions, when taking action, will serve the gratiae - and act in a good, moral way.

About the Author

Hopefully most of your questions about me are answered by the About page. However, within the context of this blog, I think it also is important for me to point out that:

Inevitably, controversial subjects will touch upon the political arena. There is no way to remove all bias from a discussion - so I believe the best thing I can do is to let you know that I am Catholic, and inclined toward conservatism.

Previous Posts


Jan 16, 2022: Un-Masking Motivations

Sep 22, 2021: Thalidomide

Apr 4, 2021: Escaping Politics

Aug 31, 2020: Handling Embarrassing Flaws

Jun 19, 2020: A Sign of Sickness in Education

May 10, 2020: Noble Self-Sacrifice

The Honor Blog

Today is: Mar 22, 2023
Post From: Jun 19, 2020

A Sign of Sickness in Education

Today is the celebration of Juneteenth. I have to confess I did not recognize the name when I first heard it - but this is the celebration of the anniversary of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. The date is getting quite a bit of extra attention this year, as a result of recent events.

That sounds like a pretty good thing to celebrate, to me! Talk about a positive holiday - maybe we should work to make Juneteenth a bigger deal. I mean, there is nothing more American than embracing the moment we took an enormous leap in the direction of "living out the meaning of its creed", as Martin Luther King, Jr. called on us to do.

I don't see how the Emancipation Proclamation can be seen as anything other than a tremendously positive step in the direction of embracing all people as deserving equal dignity and freedom.

However, there are some who seeme determined to twist it into something else.

Today, for example, I received a message from an educational organization which said, in reference to the Juneteenth holiday: "It is American in that it drips with both the pain and the hope of being Black in America".

I hope you see the distortion. Rather than embrace the positive step forward of Emancipation, this author is choosing to cling to grievance, to reject efforts at reconciliation, to wallow in pain.

Now, it is worth considering whether this is nothing more than an isolated incident. It is only one anecdote - as a scientist, I agree anecdotal evidence must be treated with tremendous care. However, I have observed our educational system for a long time, and I am convinced that this quote is entirely representative of the tone which saturates our educational system. So I am using it as such - I am treating it as a representation of the system as a whole.

The word which summarizes that tone is: self-loathing. Our educational system is focused on negativity. Rather than portray the Emancipation as a wonderfully positive step forward, our system focuses on grievance and pain and hate.

Now, there are times when the truth can be painful, and it is important that educational systems not shy away from those painful truths.

But that is NOT what is happening here - because the truth of Emancipation is extremely positive. In this case, the educational system is taking a cause for celebration and distorting and twisting it in order to focus on victimization and division.

Now, consider that mental-health measurements of today's young people are at all time lows. I wonder if that has anything to do with the self-loathing which saturates their schools?