Honour Culture Dispute Resolution
July 25, 2019
By NZB3
You know my secret hack for thinking about personality, history, and culture. If you have not been reading along then here is a quick reminder before we get to the story of the Samoan toilet fight…
Honour Culture: Perceive problems as personal and solve them personally. Hands on. Warrior culture. Constant concern for their reputation and place in the social hierarchy.
Ref. Moral Cultures; Ref. Honour Culture; AHNZ
New Zealand is colonised by over 100 Government Work and Income branches. Each has an ecosystem more or less as follows.
- Victimhood Culture bureaucrats who preside over supplicants and dispense largesse between internal bickering and office politics
- Slave Culture petitioners who are ‘clients’ asking for food, money, relief etc
- Honour Culture guards who act as muscle for the VCs to keep the humiliated folk from spilling any FIGHT/FLIGHT outbursts on the premises
(Yes, it is a strange and alien thing that The State these days needs the presence of violence-wielding private security services in order to carry out their ostensible mission of providing goods and services. It’s absolutely crazy, when you think about it, but New Zealand has normalised this and taken it for granted for about a generation now.)
A Hamilton security guard gave his colleague a beating after becoming frustrated at the length of the other man’s toilet breaks.
Pongi grabbed him from behind. Then he punched him in the head, pushed him back and punched him again.
Pongi then pushed his victim up against a wall and punched him in the head and face multiple times.
The victim fell to the ground but Pongi continued to rain blows upon him.- Excessive toilet breaks prompt security guard to beat up colleague; Stuff
Sione Pongi, a Samoan I assume, engaged in classic Honour Culture behaviour here. He doesn’t play some Slave Culture passive aggressive trick on his victim. Pongi did not complain to the office or issue some written warning like a VC. Pongi did not perceive the dispute as a contractual resolution solvable by honest Dignified confrontation. Pongi made threats and then smashed his co-worker over.
We should not be surprised. This is simply how Honour Culture folk (ie all security guards, police infantry) regulate their behaviour. In the concrete jungle we make out that the 4 Moral Cultures don’t exist, that we’re all one kind. However, when the triggering and stress sets in everyone reverts to their baseline type. This case is just a really good way to see that in action.
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