McCracken has consulted on the intersection of culture and commerce for IKEA, Sesame Street, Nike, Kanye West, Netflix, and the Obama White House. He spoke with Reason’s Nick Gillespie in January.
Q: Can you define the Elizabethan ideal of honor?
A: Honor was like a storehouse of value. The value wasn’t economic; it was personal. You were judged and understood to be accomplished, or to have failed to accomplish, a personal reputation.
Q: So the honor code meant you were a man of your word and could be trusted?
A: Yes, and it’s also horrifying because it’s so exclusive. It says that unless you’re born into the aristocratic or at least the gentle classes, you can’t be trusted at all. I tried to go through the book as a kind of cultural engineer and bring up what’s good and get rid of what’s bad.
Q: What are some recent American examples where honor was just completely absent?
この記事は Reason magazine の June 2021 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は Reason magazine の June 2021 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
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