The word is 'Honor'

You don't hear that word much anymore. It seems to be out-of-date, old-fashioned, even archaic. If someone does the 'right thing' and says 'honor demanded it' we'd think he was some kind of nut.

Ask around: do young people today think honor is an outmoded idea only fit for late movies and knights-in-shining-armor, or is honor an inner strength? From what I read in the papers, it seems honor has been superceeded by profit or expedience. We no longer do the right thing, we do the easier, profitable thing.

OK, show of hands: how many of you are now surprised when it turns out some CEO was robbing the stockholders/employees of his company? How many are surprised when they find out he stole a hundred million dollars but now will have to pay a five million dollar fine. AND spend six months in jail(*).

Yep, that's what I thought. We don't expect our leaders to be honorable. We don't expect them to do the right thing, because it's the right thing.

If politicians and CEOs are assumed to be self-serving slime, how do you look a kid in the eye and tell him 'honesty is the best policy'?

Good night, and thanks for listening.

(*) Jail for multi-millionairs looks more like a country club with bars than the steel cages you see in the movies. I'm sure it's still not fun, but it isn't bread-and-water-and-solitary-confinment. It may even be a higher standard of living than the people they stole from.